FRANKFORT, Ill. - eTradeWire -- Probity, deal diligence software for small business buyers and entrepreneurship through acquisition, has launched. Probity deal diligence is the check a buyer runs on the seller's numbers before pricing the letter of intent, starting from the seller's business tax returns.

A broker's confidential information memorandum (CIM) is a sales document. It is written from the seller's figures, nobody audits it, and its add-backs are the seller's own claims. The tax returns are the version the seller signed and filed. The sooner a buyer learns how far apart the two are, the less the buyer spends on a deal that was never what the CIM said.

A buyer usually reviews hundreds of listings to find the few worth pursuing, and plenty of good businesses are never listed at all. Probity adds speed and accuracy from the first search through proof of cash by:

• Running a proprietary search for every business in the buyer's area that fits the buy box, listed or not
• Checking each listing against the buy box
• Analyzing the tax returns and the CIM
• Building the monthly forecast
• Proving the cash

Probity calculates seller's discretionary earnings (SDE) from what three years of tax returns actually support, shows where that figure and the CIM's part ways, and prompts the buyer with questions to ask the seller. That matters even more under SBA SOP 50 10 8.1, in effect since October 1, 2026, which changed how lenders test earnings on an SBA 7(a) acquisition loan.

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Each deal gets a data room, a due diligence checklist for buying a business, and Cash Proof, an optional proof of cash analysis that confirms the money in the seller's bank accounts matches the tax returns, with seats for the buyer's CPA, attorney and lender.

"This is the small business acquisition due diligence tool I wish I had," said Rob Novak, founder of Probity, a CFO who closed and operated multiple acquisitions. "The CIM brings the story and the tax returns bring the facts. Probity puts them side by side with the issues and the questions to ask. The buyer moves fast, stays disciplined, and focuses on the decisions that need to be made. This would have saved me a lot of time and money on past deals."

The first deal is free, with no card required: https://useprobity.com. Probity is a product of CrestPoint Ventures LLC, Frankfort, Illinois. It is not a quality of earnings report, not an audit, and not an opinion of value. More at https://useprobity.com/deal-diligence.

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