How to Write a Business Advisory Report

A business advisory report should run five sections: executive summary, financial health, risk assessment, opportunities, and a prioritized action plan. Keep it under ten pages, lead with the summary and the top three findings, and put supporting detail after the recommendations, not before. Owners read the first page closely and skim the rest, so the report has to earn attention in the first 200 words or it won't get read at all.

What sections should the report include?

Structure beats length. Use five sections, in this order:

1. Executive summary. One page: current state, top 3 findings, top 3 recommendations. Written so it stands alone if nothing else gets read.
2. Financial health. Cash position, profitability trend, and how the business compares to relevant benchmarks.
3. Risk assessment. Customer concentration, owner dependency, market pressure ~ ranked by likelihood and dollar impact.
4. Opportunities. Where margin, revenue, or valuation could realistically improve in the next 12 months.
5. Action plan. A short, prioritized list with an owner and a rough timeline for each item.

The report's job is to get read and acted on, not to demonstrate thoroughness.

SharePop Studio

How do I write the executive summary?

Write it last, even though it goes first. Once the rest of the report is done, distill it into three parts:

• Where the business stands today, in one or two sentences, no hedging.
• The top three findings, ranked by impact, each in a single sentence.
• The top three recommended actions, each tied to one of the findings above.

If the owner reads nothing else, this page should still change how they run the business next quarter.

What should the financial health section cover?

Ground it in benchmarks the owner can compare against, not just their own numbers in isolation:

• Cash buffer. The median small business holds about 27 days of cash buffer (JPMorgan Chase Institute); note where the client sits relative to that.
• Cost pressure. 75% of small firms cite rising costs as their top financial challenge, per the Federal Reserve's 2025 Small Business Credit Survey ~ show whether the client has repriced to offset it.
• Receivables. 56% of small businesses are owed money on unpaid invoices, averaging $17,500 (Intuit QuickBooks 2025) ~ flag this explicitly if it applies; it's often an easy win.
• SDE and margin trend, presented as a chart or simple table so the direction is obvious at a glance.

How do I present risk without alarming the client?

Risk sections land better when they're framed as "what to watch," not "what's wrong." For each risk, give:

• What it is, in plain language (e.g. "One customer is 34% of your revenue").
• Why it matters, in dollar or continuity terms, not abstract risk-speak.
• What reduces it, one concrete, achievable step.

This framing matters because 80% of an owner's net worth is typically tied up in their business, per the Exit Planning Institute's 2023 State of Owner Readiness report ~ risk in the business is risk to the owner's entire financial picture, and the report should make that connection explicit without being alarmist.

How specific should the action plan be?

Specific enough that the client could hand it to an employee. Each action item needs:

• A single owner (the client, an employee, or you).
• A rough timeframe (30/60/90 days, not "soon").
• A defined done state ("renegotiate the lease" is vague; "get two comparable lease quotes by [date]" is not).

Cap the list at five to seven items. A twenty-item action plan gets filed and ignored; a five-item one gets started.

How long should an advisory report be?

Eight to ten pages is the practical ceiling for something an owner will actually read in full, plus an appendix for anyone who wants the underlying detail. Length signals effort to some advisors, but for the client it's an obstacle; the report's job is to get read and acted on, not to demonstrate thoroughness.

SharePop generates the financial health, risk, and benchmark sections of this report directly from a client's numbers using Business Score, Risk Profile, and Unit Economics, so the advisor's time goes into the recommendations, not reformatting spreadsheets.