Use this checklist to ensure all critical information is available before you begin building carve-out financials, allocating overhead, modeling taxes, and supporting buyer diligence. Collect a minimum of three fiscal years of data (plus year-to-date actuals) for each line item.
- Corporate and Segment Financials
- Consolidated audited financial statements
- Management (segment) P&L, balance sheet, and cash-flow statements
- Trial balances by legal entity and cost center
- General Ledger & Cost Center Detail
- Full chart of accounts with account descriptions
- Monthly GL extracts for in-scope entities
- Mapping of cost centers to functions and shared-service groups
- Revenue & Customer Data
- Sales by product, customer, and geography
- Open accounts-receivable aging reports
- Customer contractual terms affecting revenue recognition
- Direct & Indirect Cost Drivers
- Headcount roster with department, grade, and location
- Production or service-volume statistics (units, hours, transactions)
- IT system user counts and license inventories
- Shared-Service Overhead Pools
- Corporate HR, Finance, IT, Facilities, R&D expense accounts
- Supporting schedules for allocations currently charged to business units
- Service-level metrics (tickets logged, payrolls processed, invoices issued)
- Fixed Assets & Leases
- Fixed-asset register with acquisition cost, net book value, remaining life
- Capital-expenditure history and forecast pipeline
- Real-estate and equipment lease schedules, including renewal options
- Working-Capital Components
- Inventory detail (raw, WIP, finished goods) with turnover metrics
- Accounts-payable aging and payment-terms database
- Prepaid and accrued expense listings with supporting calculations
- Intercompany & Treasury
- Intercompany sales, cost recharges, and loan balances
- Cash-pooling sweep statements and bank account listings
- Outstanding guarantees, letters of credit, and hedging contracts
- Tax Records
- Entity-by-entity tax returns and effective-tax-rate reconciliations
- Transfer-pricing studies and intercompany pricing agreements
- Net operating losses, tax credits, and deferred-tax asset/liability schedules
- Employee-Related Financials
- Payroll cost by employee and cost center
- Pension and post-employment benefit obligation valuations
- Outstanding retention, severance, or bonus liabilities linked to the carve-out
- Contracts & Commitments
- Key customer, supplier, and license agreements with financial terms
- Debt agreements and covenant schedules for in-scope entities
- Contingent liabilities, litigation reserves, and environmental provisions
- One-Time Separation & Stranded-Cost Estimates
- Proposed TSA fee schedules and service descriptions
- IT disentanglement, system-stand-up, and data-migration budgets
- Headquarters facility exit or consolidation cost forecasts
- Audit & Compliance Support
- Prior-year audit adjustments relevant to in-scope entities
- Internal-control documentation (SOX or equivalent)
- External auditor correspondence on carve-out scope or methodology
Collecting this data set early allows finance, tax, and diligence teams to build audit-ready pro forma statements, defend allocation logic, quantify working-capital needs, and negotiate from a position of strength.
