Mar Deal Desk
Mar Deal DeskFounding waitlist open

Start diligence at the problems, not at page one.

Mar Deal Desk reads every document in an acquisition, the financials and the operating records, and checks each material claim against the records behind it. You start with what could change the decision, each finding cited to the page, and a request for whatever is missing.

Foracquirers (searchers, independent sponsors, holdcos, small PE and add-on acquirers), the intermediaries preparing or running a sale, and the lenders the deal goes to. Companies with $1M–$50M of revenue.

Join the Mar Deal Desk waitlist Try the sample deal
Where you start: financial, lending, operationalSample deal · fictional company
  1. FinancialCritical · 16.0%Stated: $1,380,000 of adjusted EBITDA. The record supports $1,190,000.Computed · add-back schedule, 1120-S line 7, ledger, bank, census
  2. Lending · debt serviceCriticalCoverage falls to 1.20× once the seller note starts paying: below SBA’s 1.25× minimum for an acquisition.Computed · CIM §12 → debt schedule · SBA SOP 50 10 8.1, App. 15
  3. OperationalMediumSeven employees share the owner’s surname. Confirm relationships, roles, compensation and post-close continuity: a potential succession and people-concentration risk.AI judgment — verify payroll register → census
% = share of supported adjusted EBITDA3 of 24 findings · 16 requests

Drop in a messy data room. Get the decision brief back.

Thirty-nine documents from a fictional Charlotte HVAC company, named the way they really arrive. Drop them in and watch Mar Deal Desk read every one, check each claim against the others, and write the brief a buyer or lender would actually read.

InteractiveNothing to installFictional company
marbrook / mar-deal-desk / Cardinal Comfort Systems* · sample
*Cardinal Comfort Systems is fictional. Its figures come from Marbrook’s sample room, not a live deal.Join the Mar Deal Desk waitlist
What happens when you run a dealMarDrive → Mar Deal Desk → you

From a pile of files to the questions worth asking.

Your documents go in once. Mar Deal Desk does the reading and the tie-outs; you do the deciding.

  1. Your documents land in MarDrive.

    Upload them, email them in, or pull them from Drive or Dropbox. MarDrive names, dates and files each one, by rule, and shows its reasons. Sharing happens there, and only there.

    Received → filedsample
    1120S 2025 FINAL signed (2).pdfTax matters › Form 1120-S · FY2025
    MarDrive

  2. Mar Deal Desk reads the deal and cross-checks it.

    It pulls one acquisition’s documents, finds every material claim, and checks each against independent records. Innocent explanations first.

    Owner-pay add-back$310,000
    checked against 1120-S line 7 · GL 6010 · payroll E101 · bank 12/23TimingBasisClassificationMissingMisrep.

  3. Findings come gravest first, cited.

    Each one carries its size against supported EBITDA, its evidence, and a citation that resolves to the page. No citation, no finding.

    Owner paysample
    Medium · 4.3% of supported AEBITDA$259,028 holds. $50,972 doesn’t, mostly a $45,000 year-end distribution counted as pay.Cited · 1120-S FY2025, line 7 · bank 12/23

  4. What’s missing becomes a request.

    When the room can’t settle a question, it doesn’t guess. It writes the request, tied to the finding it would settle.

    R-08to both sides
    A replacement licence-qualifier plan: the second licensee’s consent, and confirmation his classification covers the commercial work.settles: the owner’s licence

  5. You get the decision brief.

    A first-pass read for the person who has to decide: what the record supports, what could change the decision, what is still missing. Not a buy or no-buy verdict.

    The Briefsample
    24 findings · 16 requestsEnds on: What the record supports.AI judgment — verify

MarQofE is the QoE tab inside Mar Deal Desk, with its own front door for firms that deliver quality of earnings. Marbrook prepares the workpapers; a professional reviews and signs.

MarQofE

Mar Deal Desk itself is never shared. Outside people reach a deal only through its MarDrive room, so the company, its advisors and your lender see what you choose to share there.

Why it’s better than todaythe same deal, in a different order

Fast LOI, long diligence, then the re-trade. Mar Deal Desk changes the order.

Today the problems surface in QoE fieldwork, weeks into exclusivity. Mar Deal Desk puts them in front of you before you commission the QoE and the lawyers.

Diligence today compared with diligence on Mar Deal Desk
QuestionTodayWith Mar Deal Desk
Where you startPage one of the data room, and a master spreadsheet of what you’ve read so far.The finding that could change the decision, with the document it came from. Your team starts from the exceptions.
What a claim is checked againstOften the same schedule that makes the claim.Independent records: the tax return, the bank deposits, payroll and the ledger.
What gets readThe financials first. The census, the licence and the letters if there’s time.The whole room, financial and operational, each record checked against the others.
How a gap is framedA list in week ten that reads like a re-trade.As a question first. Timing, basis and classification are tried before anything else.
When a document is missingA follow-up email. Then another.One request, tied to the finding it would settle.
How each number was madeA cell in a spreadsheet that nobody can trace.Every line labelled Computed Cited or AI judgment — verify. Code does the numbers; you make the call.
What it doesn’t do

Financial, operational and financing diligence only. Legal, commercial, IP, HR, environmental and cyber questions go to the people licensed to answer them. It gives no buy or no-buy verdict, and it doesn’t replace the independent QoE. If a finding can’t be supported, it doesn’t appear.

The whole dealfinancial and operational records, read together

It reads the financial and operational story together. The licence gets the same care as the tax return.

Mar Deal Desk reads the census, the payroll register, the org chart, the licence and the letters, and checks what the deal says about people, licences, customers and contracts against them. Four pairs from the sample deal show what that finds.

01

One person, four jobs, one licence.

High · 5.9%
The financial record

The add-back schedule replaces the owner with a $95,000 manager.

Add-back schedule · replacement-manager line
The operational record

The org chart and the CIM show the owner as GM, commercial estimator, banker and vendor contact, with 15 people reporting to him. His personal licence is the company’s licence to pull permits.

Org chart p.1 · CIM §8 · NC licence p.1 · census
Read together

A GM at market costs $165,000, not $95,000. And if no replacement qualifier is named within 30 days of his exit, no permits can be pulled. A second licensee is on file; whether his classification covers the commercial work is a question for counsel.

CitedAI judgment — verifyR-08 · replacement-qualifier plan

Innocent explanation first: normal for a founder-run contractor, and the CIM plans a 12-month transition. The question is whether the handover is contracted.

02

A warranty claim is an earnings question and a workmanship question.

Medium · 3.1%
The financial record

The add-backs call an $84,000 warranty charge “one-time”. The ledger shows the third claim in three years.

Add-back #3 · GL 6610, 2023–25
The operational record

The engineer’s report on the latest claim points at install practice. The company disputes it.

Warranty letter pp.1–2 · CIM §13
Read together

Normalised to the prior two years, $47,250 of the add-back holds. Install practice is the thing to test, not the conclusion.

CitedAI judgment — verifyR-13 · callback log by install crew
03

Payroll is a financial record and an org chart.

High
The financial record

The register ties to the Forms 941 to the dollar: the $196,847 difference is pre-tax 401(k) and cafeteria-plan deductions.

Payroll register · Forms 941 · holds
The operational record

The same rows show seven employees who share the owner’s surname. Only one is identified as family; none holds a licence, a supervisory or a finance role.

Payroll register · census
Read together

A shared surname proves nothing. Confirm relationships, roles, pay and who expects to stay after closing: all seven connect to one event, the owner’s exit.

ComputedAI judgment — verifyR-14 · role and stay intention, each of the seven
04

The CIM’s people claims get checked like its numbers.

Low
What the CIM says

A deep bench: lead installers average 11 years with the company.

CIM §2 · “Deep bench”
What the census shows

8.3 years. The service manager has 15, the install supervisor 17. No employment agreements.

Census · tenure, licences, term dates
Read together

The bench is real, and thinner than the summary. It matters because the bench covers the owner’s exit (pair 01). “11 years” may mean years in the trade: ask which.

CitedAI judgment — verifyR-16 · basis for “11 years”
What members get

Claims about people, licences, customers and contracts are captured from any document and checked against the rest of the room, each with its source. Dedicated staffing and key-person scoring is specified, not yet running; until it is, those reads carry the label AI judgment — verify. Operational findings are capped at High, and anything legal-adjacent says “verify with counsel”.

All four pairs come from the fictional sample deal. R-13, R-14 and R-16 are proposed requests, shown for illustration.

What comes outa decision brief, and the work behind it

Not two hundred pages. The few that change the decision.

Every deal ends in a brief written for whoever has to decide, acquirer or lender: what the record supports, what could change the decision, and what is still missing, with every figure traceable to its source. It is a first-pass read, not a buy or no-buy verdict.

The Brief · Cardinal Comfort Systems*sample
39 files read · 26 claims checked · 24 findings · 16 requestsFirst-pass read, not a buy or no-buy verdict
  1. The readOne sentence: what kind of business this is.
  2. Deal snapshotPrice, the multiple on stated and supported earnings, debt service, coverage by period.
  3. What could change the decisionRanked by size against supported earnings. Row 4:
    High · exposure 55%

    $660,000 of prepaid work transfers without the cash. Customers have prepaid $398,000 of maintenance and $262,000 of install deposits. In this asset sale the cash stays with the seller; the work comes to you.

    Cited · balance sheet 6/30/2026 · maintenance export · CIM §12 · request R-01Next: price it into the working-capital peg.
  4. EarningsWhat holds, what doesn’t, what needs judgment.
  5. Where the documents disagreeAnd where the innocent explanation closes the gap.
  6. People and operationsThe owner, the bench, the licence, the customers.
  7. What’s still missingEach request tied to the finding it settles.
  8. What the record points to nextOptions, each with the number it changes.
  9. What the record supportsThe ending: where the deal stands, in plain words.
Read the whole Brief in the sample *Fictional sample deal.

What members get, and what is still being built

Built

  • The Brief, every line labelled Computed, Cited or AI judgment — verify
  • Findings ranked by size, each with its citation and evidence state
  • The request list, each request tied to the finding it would settle
  • Cash proof and the revenue reconciliations
  • A co-pilot that answers from any document in the room, with the citation, or says it isn’t there

Specified

  • Exported workbooks: the earnings recast, DSCR, sources and uses, valuation, each in three conservatism versions
  • A coverage view: what was checked, against what, and what couldn’t be
  • Proposed next actions, and a re-trade memo
  • Dedicated operational scoring: staffing, key person, turnover

Built: running in the product ahead of launch. Specified: written into the build plan, not yet running on real deals.

Time and moneyby deal size

The first pass costs a fraction of the diligence. The calls stay with your advisors.

Move the slider to your deal size and compare typical diligence spend with what Mar Deal Desk costs.

Free tool · DSCR calculatorno signup · bookmark it

Free debt service coverage calculator.

marbrook / tools / dscr · free, no signupOpen the full calculator

A reference tool, not an eligibility test or a credit decision. EBITDA stands in for cash available for debt service; the lender sets the adjustments and how a seller note on standby is counted.

Who it’s forand what it takes off the desk

Financial truth arrives late. Mar Deal Desk brings it forward.

The acquirer, the intermediary running the sale and the lender financing it all meet the same numbers. Each meets the problems later than they’d like.

If you’re acquiring

Searchers, independent sponsors, holdcos, small PE and add-on acquirers buying a company with $1M–$50M of revenue.

  • One company, four EBITDAs: the CIM’s, the tax return’s, the QoE’s and the lender’s. Which one holds gets settled late.
  • The QoE lands below the marketed number after you’ve paid for it, and raising it now feels like a re-trade.
  • Your investors want conviction before committee, so every open number adds another checkpoint.

Mar Deal Desk tells you which number the record supports before you commission the QoE, and turns each gap into a written question with its source. You raise it early, as evidence, not as a renegotiation.

If you’re running the sale

Business brokers, M&A advisors and accountants preparing a company for market or running the process.

  • Clean, transaction-ready books are “the exception rather than the rule”, and buyers discount for the uncertainty.
  • An honest double-counted add-back, found by the buyer in payroll, becomes a price cut and a trust problem.
  • Owners call diligence the hardest part of selling, and they answer it while still running the business.

Mar Deal Desk reads the company’s documents before they go to market. See what a buyer’s diligence will find, with its source, while you can still fix it or explain it.

If you’re lending against it

SBA and commercial lenders and credit officers underwriting an acquisition loan.

  • You underwrite to the tax return. The deal arrives priced on the adjusted number.
  • An add-back counts only if it can be verified; anything buried in an expense line comes out.
  • Thin verification on a loan that defaults early puts the guaranty at risk, so the file gets asked for again.

Mar Deal Desk is built for the acquirer and their advisors, not as a credit tool. A borrower who uses it arrives with each add-back traced to the record, coverage computed on the supported number, and the open questions already written down.

Voices: practitioners’ own accounts on Searchfunder (2025–26); advisers interviewed by Thomson Reuters Checkpoint (April 2026); about 300 founder interviews, They Got Acquired (December 2025); Grant Thornton on seller readiness (2026); Starfield & Smith on SBA verification (2021, 2024).

Join the Mar Deal Desk waitlist Try the sample deal
Mar Deal Desk · founding waitlistA person reads every request

Join the Mar Deal Desk waitlist.

Founding members are admitted in small cohorts. Tell us what you do, and we’ll write before your cohort opens.

  1. A person reads your request.
  2. We write before your cohort opens, with the founding terms.
  3. You run your first deal.

What it costsRoughly $500–$1,500 a deal, depending on the deal. Your advisors still make the calls; Mar Deal Desk does the first pass. Illustrative scenario. Actual costs vary by deal scope and provider. Final pricing at launch.

Here for quality of earnings, or for your documents? MarQofE and MarDrive keep their own lists. The DSCR calculator stays free either way.

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A person reads every request. We’ll write before your cohort opens.

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Mar Deal Desk · founding waitlist

You’re on the Mar Deal Desk list.

A person reads every request. We’ll write before your cohort opens.