What the SBA lists
The U.S. Small Business Administration's guide to buying a business suggests hiring an attorney and an accountant, and lists the documents the two of them typically help you create and evaluate:[1]
- Letter of intent
- Confidentiality agreement
- Contracts and leases
- Financial statements
- Tax returns
- Sales agreement
- Purchase price adjustment
An accountant can help you determine the full costs of purchasing and operating the business, and even help estimate potential profit.
That is the legal and financial file: what the business earned, what it owns and what you are signing. It does not show how many enquiries booked, how many quotes closed or which channel the marketing money went to. Those are in the operating records.
The operating records, and what each one answers
Ask for each as a spreadsheet export, one row per record. The table runs in the order to ask for them.
| Export | The question it answers for a buyer | Often left out |
|---|---|---|
| Jobs | What did each job earn, and how much of the work came from customers served before? | The customer id. Without it every job looks like a new customer, and repeat business disappears. |
| Leads | How many enquiries became booked jobs, and from which source? | The leads that did not book. A file of booked work alone shows a 100% booking rate. |
| Estimates | Which quotes sold, which were lost, and which are still open? | The open quotes, with the last follow-up date. A blank date on an open quote is how you find the ones nobody chased. |
| Marketing spend | What did each channel cost, against the leads it brought in? | Channel names that match the lead sources, or the spend cannot be set against its leads. |
| Calls | How many calls were answered live, missed or sent to voicemail? | The missed calls. An export of answered calls alone reads as 100% answered. |
| Invoices | What was billed, and what has been collected? | The job each invoice belongs to, so billing can be tied back to the work. |
If the seller can produce only some of them, jobs come first: completed jobs with revenue set the average ticket that most of the money figures are priced against. Then leads, estimates and spend. Calls and invoices are supporting detail.
The period and fields to ask for
- At least twelve months, so the records cover a full year of seasons. Revvy scales nothing to a year below 60 days of records, and from 60 to 364 days it notes that a part-year can over- or under-state a full one.
- More than eighteen months of jobs if you want to see customers who have gone quiet. Revvy's default counts a customer as lapsed after 18 months with no activity, a judgement and not an industry figure; with a single year of records, nobody can have been gone that long.
- A customer id on every job.
- The date each lead came in, and a booked status or booked date.
- The presented date, the decision date and the last follow-up date on every quote.
- Spend by channel, with the first and last day each amount covers.
- The location on each row, if the business runs more than one.
Enough rows matters as much as enough months. Revvy will not state a rate from fewer than 20 leads at least 14 days old, 20 calls, 15 decided quotes (sold or lost), 15 jobs or 25 customers, and a seller's rate built on fewer deserves the same caution.
DemoFabrikam Roofing: 19 days of records
Fabrikam, a demo roofer, has 19 days of records: far too few months for a buyer to read a year from. Revvy shows what is missing in place of a score and scales nothing to a year. Its acquisition view, in the demo, works the same way: where a figure is missing, it says why instead of filling the cell with a zero.
When a field does not exist
Some businesses never recorded a lead source, a booked date or a follow-up date. When a whole field was never kept, put it on your list as a gap. It is not a zero, and it is a finding about the records rather than about the business.
Revvy works the same way. A check without the records it needs says "Not enough data" and gives the reason, and it is left out of the score instead of being counted as nothing. Counted as zero, a missing check makes a thin file look clean.
Then ask whether the business can start keeping the field now. Sixty days of new records is the least Revvy would scale to a year, so a field started early in a long deal can still be read before closing.
Trade-specific items to raise with your advisers
Raise three more topics with your own advisers. They are not operating records, and nothing here is legal, tax or compliance advice.
Refrigerant certification, for HVAC
EPA regulations (40 CFR Part 82, Subpart F) under Section 608 of the Clean Air Act require that technicians who maintain, service, repair, or dispose of equipment that could release refrigerants into the atmosphere must be certified.
The EPA also says: "Section 608 Technician Certification credentials do not expire."[3] Ask the seller which technicians hold the certification, and ask your adviser what that means for the sale.
The tax form for an asset sale
Both the seller and purchaser of a group of assets that makes up a trade or business must use Form 8594 to report such a sale if:
- "goodwill or going concern value attaches, or could attach, to such assets and"[2]
- "the purchaser's basis in the assets is determined only by the amount paid for the assets."[2]
Read the page and the form's instructions on the IRS site, and ask your tax adviser how they apply to your deal.
Technicians to hire
Ask the seller for the technician roster and how it changed over the same months as the records. That tells you whether this business has kept its crews, which no national figure can.
For the trades as a whole, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment by occupation. These are national projections, not counts of businesses and not a forecast for any one town. Its Occupational Outlook Handbook says:
- "Employment of heating, air conditioning, and refrigeration mechanics and installers is projected to grow 11 percent from 2025 to 2035, much faster than the average for all occupations."[4]
- "Employment of plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters is projected to grow 7 percent from 2025 to 2035, much faster than the average for all occupations."[5]
- "Employment of roofers is projected to grow 5 percent from 2025 to 2035, faster than the average for all occupations."[6]
- "Employment of electricians is projected to grow 9 percent from 2025 to 2035, much faster than the average for all occupations."[7]
If you are the owner preparing to sell
The same list works from the other side. Keep the six exports ready, covering at least twelve months, with customer ids, booked status and follow-up dates filled in. Then you can answer a data request from the records, and you know what they say before anyone else reads them.
The Records Checklist goes through each export and field and gives you a gap list. Buyers can start from its buyer version, and put the upside figures they are handed to the Upside Diligence Checklist. Upside in a deal memo explains the twelve questions on it, and the other worksheets are on the Resources page.
Questions people ask
What documents does a buyer review?
The SBA lists the documents an attorney and an accountant typically help a buyer create and evaluate: a letter of intent, a confidentiality agreement, contracts and leases, financial statements, tax returns, a sales agreement and a purchase price adjustment.[1] For a trades business, add six operating exports: jobs, leads, estimates, marketing spend, calls and invoices.
Will the technicians need refrigerant certification?
For work on equipment that could release refrigerants, the EPA says: "EPA regulations (40 CFR Part 82, Subpart F) under Section 608 of the Clean Air Act require that technicians who maintain, service, repair, or dispose of equipment that could release refrigerants into the atmosphere must be certified."[3] Ask the seller who holds the certification, and ask your own adviser what it means for the deal.
Which tax form reports an asset sale?
The IRS says: "Both the seller and purchaser of a group of assets that makes up a trade or business must use Form 8594 to report such a sale if: goodwill or going concern value attaches, or could attach, to such assets and the purchaser's basis in the assets is determined only by the amount paid for the assets."[2] Read the IRS page and ask your tax adviser how it applies to your deal.
How far back should records go?
At least twelve months, so a full year of seasons is in them. Ask for more than eighteen months of jobs if you also want to see customers who have gone quiet at Revvy's default 18-month window, which is a judgement and not an industry figure.
Sources
- U.S. Small Business Administration. Buy an existing business or franchise (opens in a new tab). No date shown on the page.General guidance, not specific to the trades. The page lists documents an attorney and accountant typically review: letter of intent, confidentiality agreement, contracts and leases, financial statements, tax returns, sales agreement, purchase price adjustment.
- Internal Revenue Service. About Form 8594, Asset Acquisition Statement Under Section 1060 (opens in a new tab). No date shown on the page.A tax topic. The sentence is followed by two conditions on goodwill and basis; read them on the IRS page and ask your own adviser.
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Section 608 Technician Certification Requirements (opens in a new tab). Last updated July 15, 2026.A regulatory topic. This is not compliance advice; ask your own adviser.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Outlook Handbook: heating, air conditioning, and refrigeration mechanics and installers (opens in a new tab). 2025 data; projections 2025 to 2035.Occupation data, not business counts. Projections, not outcomes.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Outlook Handbook: plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters (opens in a new tab). 2025 data; projections 2025 to 2035.Includes pipefitters and steamfitters. Occupation data, not business counts. Projections, not outcomes.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Outlook Handbook: roofers (opens in a new tab). 2025 data; projections 2025 to 2035.Occupation data, not business counts. Projections, not outcomes.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Outlook Handbook: electricians (opens in a new tab). 2025 data; projections 2025 to 2035.Occupation data, not business counts. Projections, not outcomes.