Overseas low-cost data entry in support of diligence

April 09, 2024

by a searcher from Stanford University in Orlando, FL, USA

I'm under LOI and in diligence for a first SMB acquisition. Given the smaller size of the business I'm conducting my own QofE. I'm realizing that on some of the more menial tasks, it would be helpful to have some inexpensive but reasonable quality support, e.g. data entry (converting figures on bank statements PDF's into an Excel spreadsheet, for example).

Can anyone recommend a good / inexpensive service for this? I'm also open to AI solutions, if they actually work and don't require hours of training.

Reply by an investor
from University of Puget Sound in Seattle, WA, USA

If you're just looking to move PDFs into an excel, some of the free web-apps you can find with a quick Google search are actually decent and take a minute to process (blank out bank acct #s of course so those aren't floating around online). If one doesn't work perfectly, try another. We had to reformat 300 page PDFs when we migrated a pre-excel ERP (from the 90s) to our ERP in a recent acquisition and this was the easiest way to do it. I'm sure the two guys above are also great.

Reply by an intermediary
from The University of Chicago in Chicago, IL, USA

I have sold businesses for 35 years. Never ever we had proof of cash. There are other ways to get comfortable. Once I had a situation where I suspected monkey business where bank statements would have matched financials. I challenged the owner and the CPA. I walked from the business.
Happy to have a quick call.

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