SAMPLE ASSESSMENT — modeled company, not a client
Garrison Professional Advisors is a modeled business created to demonstrate this assessment. Both sides of this comparison are synthetic: the owner's answers were authored to demonstrate the questionnaire, and the source documents behind the Validation column were generated to a spec. Both are scored by the same engine, against the same criteria used for real engagements — so the method is real and the company is not. Nothing here describes an actual business, and this is not a case study of client work.
Garrison Professional Advisors
Accounting · Assessment vs Validation · every company here is fictional
Assessment · questionnaireNo overall score — self-reported44/44 answered · 0 documents · 10 capped at 6
Validation · documents4.3/10 verified11 documents ingested · 8-domain blend
Where the answers and the notes diverge 2
Every row below is computed from the owner's own submission: the answer they selected, the phrase in their own note that sits against it, and the record that would settle which is right. None of it is written by us, and none of it is an accusation.
hc_04answered 8/10
Owner reportedYes — more than one qualified person for each key role
…but their own note said“The senior manager could run the tax side. For the audit work there is really only one person who can sign, and that is me.”matched: only one person
Self-reported bench-depth answer and the owner's description may not align — confirm cover exists for each key role.
Settled by org_chart, management_bios, succession_plan
owr_01answered 8/10
Owner reportedA plan exists and a likely successor is identified, but it has not been executed or tested
…but their own note said“We have talked about my senior manager buying in over time. Nothing formal yet — it comes up every January and then tax season starts.”matched: we've talked about
Self-reported succession answer and the owner's description may not align — confirm a written, current succession plan exists.
Settled by succession_plan, key_employee_retention_agreements
Both complete reports are below, exactly as published — these frames load the same files the links above open, so nothing here can drift from the reports it shows.
The Assessment report, in full
Scored from the owner’s forty-four answers. No documents reviewed.
The Validation report, in full
Scored from the document set. Findings cite the file they came from.
What moves you from one to the other
The Assessment names what to work on from what the owner reported. Validation substantiates each of those against the documents — 11 of them here — scopes the remediation to what the records actually show, and computes the valuation gap from real EBITDA. That is how 4.3/10 came to be a number worth quoting rather than an assertion.
Severity below is calculated from what you reported, not from what your scores were held to. A criterion answered strongly is treated as strong here even where the score was capped for want of a document — the cap is a statement about evidence, not about your business.
Validation verifies each of these against your documents, scopes the remediation to what your records actually show, and computes your valuation gap from your real EBITDA — the substantiation and the figures a self-reported assessment cannot produce. Engagement pricing comes out of a scoping conversation, once there is a document set to scope against.
