Collect the letter of intent or purchase agreement, asset and equipment schedules, several years of financial statements and tax returns, the lease, and any appraisal or broker valuation. Add escrow instructions and the transfer records for deposits already paid. Gaps can usually be supplemented later, but early collection shapes the negotiation. Request the seller’s package before commissioning your own valuation, because an independent review costs the same whether or not the underlying records exist. A target that cannot produce statements, an asset schedule and a current lease within a reasonable period has told you something about the enterprise already.
Record what is missing as well as what exists
Note where a figure has no supporting document — an unaudited add-back, a verbal customer commitment, an expansion budget with no quotes. Those notes tell counsel what to request from the seller before closing rather than after. Keep the business records separate from your own funding records; both are needed, and they answer different questions, one about cost and one about lawful origin and path.
Two files run in parallel and should be built that way from the start: one about the enterprise, one about the money. The first is answered by the seller and the target’s own records; the second only you can assemble, from sale proceeds, tax filings, loan or gift agreements and the transfers themselves. Neither can be completed by working harder on the other.