When the financials and the outside picture disagree

On my last post, the most consistent advice from the experienced buyers here was to rebuild the seller's SDE from the add-backs rather than trust the broker's number. That is clearly the core financial work, and I learned a lot from how people described doing it. A few people also pointed at something running alongside the financials. The outside picture. Google reviews, Glassdoor, the owner's own footprint online. The things the seller did not choose to put in the CIM. What I am genuinely curious about is what happens when those two disagree. Say the rebuilt SDE holds up. The add-backs are defensible, the DSCR works, the multiple is fair. But the recent reviews have softened, or a couple of long-tenured people show up as having left, or the reviews start mentioning new faces and slower turnaround. The financials look backward and say one thing. The outside signals are more current and hint at another. For those who have been through this, how do you weigh it? Is a soft external signal a reason to walk, or just a question to take to the seller? And has the outside picture ever overridden financials that otherwise passed? And honestly, one more thing I keep wondering. Doing all of this properly, the rebuild, the outside digging, the reconciling, on every deal worth a look. How long does that actually take you per deal? I keep hearing people do this across dozens of CIMs and I am trying to understand what that really costs in hours.