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Independent Assessment Tools

Know where you stand.
Before you speak to anyone.

Two independent tools that give you a clear view of your transaction position: 1. the risks a buyer will find in due diligence, quantifying the impact on the price and probability of sale, and 2. the type of advisor your transaction requires. Neither requires you to book a call.

In brief

M&A Concierge offers two independent assessment tools for Australian business owners preparing for a sale. The Transaction Price & Probability Assessment measures the due diligence risk exposure of your business, identifying preparation gaps that a buyer will find and quantifying their impact on price and deal completion probability as percentages. Valuation does not equal price, and this is not a valuation tool. The Advisor Fit Assessment analyses your business characteristics, transaction objectives, and preferences to produce a profile of the advisor type your specific transaction requires, whether that is a broker or M&A advisor, specialist or generalist, boutique or mid-market, running a targeted or broad process. Both tools are available independently, with no obligation to proceed to an advisory call.

Why These Tools Exist

Most business owners enter
a sale process without the
information they need.

The M&A Concierge advisory call is where expert guidance begins. But there is significant value in understanding your position before that conversation, knowing what a buyer will see in your business, what your preparation gaps actually cost you, and what kind of advisor your transaction calls for. These tools exist to close that gap. Use them both independently, or use them as preparation before the advisory call to arrive better prepared.

01

Independent of the advisory call

Both tools have standalone value. Completing them does not commit you to any further engagement. The insight is yours regardless of what you decide to do next.

02

No business identification required

Neither tool requires you to identify your business by name. The assessment is based on your answers, not your identity. Confidentiality is maintained throughout.

03

Your results, instantly

Complete the assessment and your results appear immediately: a clear summary of your position, written to be read in minutes. A full report with item-level analysis is available to download if you want the detail.

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Tool One

Transaction Price &
Probability Assessment

This tool measures the due diligence risk exposure of your business as it stands today, before you engage an advisor, and before you go to market. It works across four assessment categories that cover every area a buyer and their advisors will examine in a transaction, calibrated to your specific industry from a taxonomy of 16 industries and 118 sub-industries across the Australian mid-market.

It produces two primary outputs: a price at risk percentage, being the proportion of your business value that preparation gaps could cost you through price renegotiation, deal structure concessions, or reduced buyer confidence, and a transaction probability percentage, which expresses as a percentage the likelihood of a successful transaction based on your current preparation across the four assessment categories.

This is not a valuation tool. It does not assess what your business is worth, project a sale price, or apply EBITDA multiples. Those are questions for an M&A advisor. This tool answers a different question: what will a buyer find when they look closely at your business, and what will it cost you?

If you provide an assessed business value, the tool converts the price at risk percentage into a dollar figure. If you do not have a value yet, the output is percentage-based, and the report will point you toward how to establish that figure.

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What the report delivers
A clear view of what a buyer will find, and what it could cost you.
Your position Price at risk %: the proportion of your business value that preparation gaps could cost you through buyer price renegotiation, deal structure concessions, or reduced buyer confidence. Converted to a dollar figure if you provide your assessed business value.
Your position Transaction probability %: the likelihood of a successful transaction based on your current preparation, expressed as a percentage. External factors including market conditions, advisor quality, and buyer appetite are not factored in.
Your report A clear summary of your position is delivered immediately on completion. For each flagged issue, the full report explains the risk from a buyer's perspective, the deal structure mechanism a buyer would typically use to manage it, and priority ranks every item so you know where attention has the most impact. Download it if you want the detail.
"This percentage reflects the transaction probability based on your preparation. It does not account for market conditions, advisor quality, or buyer appetite, all of which will materially influence your outcome."
The Four Assessment Categories
01

Financial Readiness

How your financials will hold up to buyer scrutiny: the quality, completeness, and presentation of your financial records, normalised earnings, tax affairs, and forward revenue visibility.

02

Operational Strength

The degree to which your business can operate, retain customers, and deliver consistently without you: documented processes, systems transferability, customer concentration, and IP ownership.

03

Team & Succession

Whether your leadership and key staff can sustain the business through a transition: management depth, key person dependency, retention risk, and employment agreement adequacy.

04

Legal & Deal Readiness

The legal and structural completeness of your business: litigation exposure, company structure, licences and registrations, lease arrangements, and data room preparation.

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Tool Two

Advisor Fit
Assessment

Not every business needs the same type of advisor. The distinction between a business broker and an M&A advisor, between a boutique specialist and a larger mid-market firm, and between a targeted confidential process and a broader go-to-market approach are decisions that materially affect both the probability of completing a transaction and the outcome it achieves.

This tool analyses your business's asset characteristics, your transaction objectives, your timeline preferences, and your deal structure flexibility to produce a profile of the advisor type your transaction requires. It identifies the appropriate advisor category based on your EBITDA range, preferred buyer type, and outreach strategy, and explains the process implications of each.

The output also includes education on fee structures. What success-only models, balanced retainer structures, and higher-retainer selective mandates actually mean for how your process will be run, and the open questions that most affect your advisor selection but are easy to avoid engaging with until you have the right context.

The tool surfaces and frames. It does not make a specific advisor recommendation: that requires the database, the relationships, and the advisory call. But it gives you a precise profile of what you should be looking for before you speak to anyone.

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What the assessment covers
A clear picture of the advisor type your transaction requires.

Five sections of analysis, synthesised into a written summary of what to look for before you speak to anyone.

Section 1 How advisors will see your business: an honest read of your asset characteristics: owner dependency, sector, customer concentration, financial reporting quality, recurring revenue, growth trajectory, and scalability, and what each one means for advisor appetite, deal structure options, and process complexity.
Section 2 Advisor type and process fit: whether a broker or M&A advisor is the appropriate fit for your situation, what the process looks like at your deal size, how your transaction objectives and go-to-market preferences shape your options, and how confidentiality is managed in each approach.
Section 3 Fee structure: what success-only, balanced, and higher-retainer models mean in practice, and what the fee structure an advisor proposes tells you about how they will run your process.
Section 4 Open questions: the decisions you have not yet made that most affect advisor selection: deal structure, buyer type preference, confidentiality approach, and go-to-market strategy. Only appears where relevant.
Section 5 What to look for in your advisor: team structure, the difference between brand, relationships, and process quality, and which advisor capabilities matter most given your specific business characteristics and transaction objectives.
"The tool surfaces and frames: it does not close. The advisory call closes. But it gives you the framework to make that conversation count."
Using the Tools

Two tools. Two
different questions.

Each tool answers a distinct question. They can be used independently or in sequence. Neither replaces the advisory call, but both make it more valuable by ensuring you arrive with a clear baseline rather than starting from scratch.

Price & Probability

"What will a buyer find in my business, and what will it cost me?"

Advisor Fit Assessment

"What type of advisor does my transaction call for?"

The Advisory Call

"Who specifically is the right advisor, and am I ready to go to market?"

Note

The advisory call is where the specific recommendation is made. Advisors matched to your situation, introduced formally, with ongoing support through to engagement. The tools inform and prepare. The call decides and acts. Neither tool is a gate to the call; they are independent of it, and standalone value is the design intention.

Common Questions

Frequently asked
questions.

They measure fundamentally different things. A valuation assesses what your business is worth, typically through EBITDA multiple analysis, normalisation of earnings, and sector-specific benchmarking. The Price & Probability Assessment measures transaction risk: specifically, the preparation gaps a buyer will identify during due diligence and the impact those gaps will have on price and deal completion probability. The tool does not produce or estimate a valuation figure. If you provide your own assessed business value, it will convert the price at risk percentage into a dollar figure, but that calculation uses your number, not one the tool generates.
The transaction probability percentage reflects the likelihood of a successful transaction based on your current preparation across the four assessment categories. It does not represent actual deal completion probability. Actual deal completion is also a function of market conditions, buyer appetite, and advisor quality, variables that are outside the scope of this tool and outside your direct control. A business with a low transaction probability percentage can still complete a transaction with the right advisor and favourable market conditions. A business with a high transaction probability percentage can still fail to transact if the advisor is poorly matched or market conditions are unfavourable.
No, and that distinction is intentional. The Advisor Fit Assessment produces a profile of the type of advisor your transaction requires: whether a broker or M&A advisor is appropriate, what process approach suits your objectives, what fee structure reflects good value at your deal size. Identifying the specific firms that match that profile, with the sector track record, buyer relationships, and current capacity to serve your mandate well, requires the database and the advisory call. The tool frames the brief. The call makes the match.
The Price & Probability Assessment covers 29 items across four categories, with some conditional depth questions triggered by your responses and your industry selection. Most users complete it in 20 to 35 minutes. The Advisor Fit Assessment covers your business characteristics, objectives, and preferences across three sections. Most users complete it in 15 to 25 minutes. Both tools are designed to be completed in a single session, though you can pause and return.
The Price & Probability Assessment covers 16 industries and 118 sub-industries across the Australian mid-market. Industry and sub-industry selection at the start of the assessment activates industry-specific scoring adjustments: so a GP clinic, a SaaS business, and a construction firm receive different assessments on items like licences, cybersecurity, and insurance, reflecting the actual due diligence standards buyers apply in those sectors. The Advisor Fit Assessment also includes sector-specific observations on which advisor types are active in each industry. Both tools exclude primary production and farming, which operate outside the share-sale framework the tools are built around.

Start with what you
know. Build from there.

Both tools are available now with no obligation. Use them independently, use them together, or use them as preparation before the advisory call.

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No business identification required · Confidential · No obligation