Full Value & Sale Readiness Review.

We measure profit the way a buyer will: EBITDA, which is profit before interest, tax, and the write-down of equipment, vehicles and other assets, with one-off items set out and evidenced.

Then we check how well that profit turns into cash. In HVAC work, stock, unpaid invoices and retentions on larger jobs can tie money up, and main contractors can be slow to pay. A profitable year that leaves the bank account thin raises questions a buyer will ask early, so we raise them first.

For most HVAC buyers the contract book is the heart of the deal. We go through your maintenance and service agreements as a buyer would: the customer, the sites, the annual value, the term, the renewal date and the notice period, and whether a customer can end the contract if the owner changes.

We look at how many contracts renewed over the last three years and how many customers left. Where arrangements are verbal, or tied to you personally rather than to the company, the plan says how to put them on a written footing before buyers see them.

Beyond the contracts, we look at how much rests on your largest customers, which customers you have lost and why, and the work you can see coming: agreed jobs, live quotations, and installations that could lead to a maintenance agreement.

A buyer separates enquiries from agreed work, so we do too. Where one main contractor or landlord supplies a large share of the work, we look at the terms behind it and at who in your team holds the relationship.

We look at the customer relationships, the technical know-how and the decisions that sit with the shareholders. Nick Hunt leads this part.

Typical questions: who prices the jobs, who signs off technical work, who your larger customers call when something goes wrong, and who acts as the Gas Safe responsible person. If the answer to most of them is you, a buyer will see a business that depends on someone who is leaving, and that tends to show in the price or in how much of it is deferred.

Buyers look hard at the team, because the team delivers the contracts they are paying for. We look at the managers below you, the engineers you could not afford to lose, and your plans to keep them.

That means employment contracts in writing, a record of each engineer's qualifications, such as Gas Safe, F-Gas categories, OFTEC and unvented hot water, pay set against the market, and a plan for anyone close to retirement. Long service and current training records tell a buyer the team is likely to stay.

We check the certificates a buyer will ask for, and whether they sit with the company. Firms working on F-gas systems need company certification from an approved body such as REFCOM, and MCS lets you install under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme. Neither transfers automatically on an asset sale, where a buyer buys the business's assets rather than the company itself.

Alongside them sit the records that prove the work was done properly: refrigerant quantities and leak checks, equipment logbooks, inspection reports for the commercial sites that need them, method statements, risk assessments and your health and safety history.

A buyer will usually visit, and the vans are often the first thing they see. They will ask whether each vehicle is owned, leased or on finance, with the balance outstanding, and whether MOTs, services and the calibration of testing equipment are up to date.

An asset register listing vehicles and specialist equipment, with their condition and any finance, answers most of these questions in one document. Tired assets are not a reason to delay a sale, but a buyer will price in anything they expect to replace in the first year.

We look at how work flows through the business: how jobs are booked, how engineers are scheduled, how quality is checked and how the work is recorded. Written routines and systems that hold the information, rather than one person's memory, tell a buyer the business can take on more work without standards slipping.

We also look at reporting: how soon after the month end your figures arrive, and who acts on them. Gaps here are often quick to close, and closing them makes the rest of a buyer's checks easier.

A buyer's solicitor will ask for the documents behind the business: employment contracts and the staff handbook, disciplinary and grievance records, insurance policies and claims history, property leases, vehicle and equipment finance agreements, and any dispute that is open or threatened.

We look for the gaps most likely to come up, such as an unsigned lease renewal, an insurance that has lapsed or an informal arrangement with a subcontractor, while there is still time to deal with them calmly.

Commercial clients and public bodies often weigh social value and sustainability when they award maintenance work. A buyer who wins work through tenders will ask what policies, accreditations and evidence you hold, because weak credentials can cost contracts after the sale.

If tendered work matters to your income, it is worth gathering that evidence before a buyer asks for it, and mentioning it when we first talk.