Find the 5 diligence blockers before buyers or lenders do.
Most diligence problems get discovered too late — after the banker is engaged, the data room is open, and the buyer's IC has already started asking questions. The Readiness Gap Review surfaces the top five blockers a sophisticated reviewer will hit, in five business days, for a fixed price.
The institutional readiness layer that used to require a Big 4 advisory team — now available as evidence infrastructure for the operators actually doing the work. Same questions a Big 4 reviewer would ask, same evidence checks, same blocker analysis — produced in days, at a fraction of the price.
Pre-mandate readiness work is materially less expensive than post-mandate cleanup. The engagement clock starts at the first banker call — most cleanup work that surfaces during buyer diligence takes 4–9 months to remediate. The Gap Review buys you the time window.
Or audit the methodology first.
The Cedarbrook walkthrough shows the full Institutional Readiness Assessment on a real deal. The Gap Review is the first 20% of that — focused on the blockers that matter most, fast.
The document-verified step of the readiness ladder.
The Gap Review is where readiness stops being self-reported and starts being evidence-backed. You upload your documents, the engine processes them, and an analyst checks the evidence against the claims in your Self-Assessment. What comes back is an updated Institutional Readiness Assessment and a plain delta: what the documents confirmed, and what was attested-only.
- 01You upload your documentsThe standard document set for your lane. NDA-gated upload. Your files are kept on our own server and used only for your review. We do not train any model on your files. No automatic deletion yet: ask, and we will confirm in writing what we remove.
- 02The engine processes themYour figures are read, reconciled, and mapped to the same ten axes that power every Capital Refinery assessment.
- 03An analyst verifies the evidenceThe evidence is checked against the claims in your Self-Assessment. No imputed answers — a claim is confirmed only when the documents support it.
- 04You get the deltaAn updated Institutional Readiness Assessment plus a confirmed-vs-attested delta: which of your claims the evidence held up, and which were attested-only.
A 2-page diligence-friction memo, not a 30-page report.
The Gap Review runs the same engine that produces our full Institutional Readiness Assessment — narrowed to the blockers a sophisticated reviewer will hit first. The memo is short, concrete, and forwardable to your advisor or banker. If you started with a Self-Assessment, it also returns an updated IRA and a confirmed-vs-attested delta — the claims your documents verified, and the ones that were attested-only.
It is not a Quality of Earnings opinion, not a fairness opinion, not investment advice, and not a guarantee of transaction outcome. It is the institutional reviewer's read on what will slow you down.
- 01Top 5 diligence blockersRanked by severity and impact on the financing or sale process. Each blocker names the axis it sits on and the institutional concern it triggers.
- 02Required-evidence listFor each blocker, exactly what evidence would resolve it. No vague 'improve governance' recommendations — specific, observable artifacts.
- 03Buyer or lender questionsThe questions a sophisticated reviewer will ask in diligence about each blocker. Lets you prepare answers before they ask.
- 04RecommendationWhether the deal is ready for a full Institutional Readiness Assessment, or whether you should remediate the blockers first.
- 0560-day creditThe $4,500 Gap Review fee is credited in full toward any Institutional Readiness Assessment tier within 60 days of delivery.
The minimum a sophisticated reviewer would expect.
Five standard documents for operating companies. Three for real estate. NDA-gated upload. Your files are kept on our own server and used only for your review. We do not train any model on your files. No automatic deletion yet: ask, and we will confirm in writing what we remove.
- ·Latest P&L and balance sheet (current FY + 1 prior)
- ·Revenue by customer (or top-10 customer list)
- ·Debt schedule (lender, balance, rate, maturity)
- ·Cap table or ownership summary
- ·AR aging — optional but helpful
- ·T12 (trailing-12-month operating statement)
- ·Rent roll (current period)
- ·Debt schedule (lender, balance, rate, maturity)
- ·Capex plan or recent capex history — optional
If you don't have one of the required items, the Gap Review still runs against what you do have — but the recommendation will include the missing-evidence call. That's the point: the review tells you what evidence you need to clear institutional review, not just what evidence you have.
You do the work. We provide the institutional verification layer.
If you're an AI workflow shop, fractional CFO, exit planner, business coach, boutique banker, or operating partner working with founder-owned companies — the Gap Review is built for you, not just the founder.
You keep the client relationship, the remediation work, the strategic advice, the engagement fees. Capital Refinery provides the evidence-verification layer that used to require a Big 4 advisory team to deliver.
“Run a client through a $4,500 Readiness Gap Review before scoping your cleanup work. You get the top-5 diligence blockers, missing evidence, and a workplan to build your engagement around. If the client proceeds to a full IRA, the fee credits forward.”
- ▸A reason to start the conversationPaid diagnostic gives the client confidence the work is real, not pitched.
- ▸A workplan you didn't have to inventThe blocker list IS the engagement scope. Quote remediation against it.
- ▸Proof your work moved the needleThe Re-IRA delta after remediation is the strongest renewal artifact you can carry.
- ▸Credibility you didn't have to buildIndependent evidence verification — your client doesn't have to take your word for it.
Not a Quality of Earnings. Not a fairness opinion. Not investment advice.
The Readiness Gap Review surfaces the structural blockers a sophisticated reviewer will hit. It is not a substitute for QoE work, formal due diligence, audit, valuation opinion, legal advice, accounting advice, or any guarantee of transaction outcome.
It is the read-out before you commission the expensive things — the diagnostic that tells you whether QoE, audit, or formal prep work is even worth doing on this deal yet.
QoE alone runs $20–75K and only verifies the financial earnings line.
A standalone Quality of Earnings report typically costs $20,000 to $35,000 for a small business and $35,000 to $75,000 for a typical mid-market deal — sometimes six figures for complex ones. It tells a buyer whether your EBITDA, revenue, and add-backs hold up. It does not cover governance, customer concentration, key-person dependency, or any of the other axes a sophisticated buyer or lender will hit.
The Readiness Gap Review at $4,500 is the diagnostic before you commission a $35K+ QoE — it tells you whether your deal is even ready for that kind of review, and which axes (financial-consistency, data-integrity, governance, concentration, etc.) will block close fastest if you don't address them first. If the review says “proceed to full IRA,” that's a $12,500 full IRA — broader than QoE, at less than half the price.
Are you the advisor, consultant, or AI workflow partner helping a client modernize?
If your work is meant to improve how a company operates, reports, or prepares for board / lender / buyer review, use the Modernization Impact Review instead. Same engine, same axes, same evidence layer — different framing for the partner-channel use case.
Review modernization impact →$4,500. Five business days. One memo.
Submit the form below. You'll receive a Stripe checkout link, an NDA to countersign, and a secure upload link. As soon as those land, the five-business-day clock starts.