Most business owners can quote last month’s profit and this year’s revenue targets. Those numbers matter, yet they no longer come close to the whole story. Intangible assets now account for around ninety per cent of the enterprise value of leading firms WIPO and almost eighty per cent of that value never appears on a traditional balance sheet Brand Finance. Brand, intellectual property, recurring contracts and efficient processes all sit outside the usual financial statements. Unless you can prove them with real evidence, buyers and investors will discount them.

Why proof is rising in importance

Advisers report that modern due‑diligence exercises run longer and ask for far deeper document packs than even two years ago. Data‑room providers say they are seeing record volumes of files uploaded for every deal Herbert Smith Freehills. The message is clear: the market rewards owners who can pin every claim to a source file, and it penalises those who rely on management explanations alone.

The problem with ad‑hoc document hunts

Waiting until a transaction starts to pull contracts and policies together is painful. It ties up senior staff, exposes gaps and invites price chips. Even if you rush the files into a shared folder the links between metrics and documents are often lost. Spreadsheets drift away from their supporting evidence, and benchmarks become one‑offs that nobody updates.

Always‑on evidence with the Emanda App

Emanda solves the problem by running an always‑on data room in the background.

• Automatic ingestion. Connect Xero once, drag or email documents and the platform extracts key metrics while filing the original files in a secure data room.
• Pinned metrics. Every number on your dashboard links back to its source file. Click the metric and the contract, policy or invoice opens beside it.
• Live industry benchmarks. Because the platform reads thousands of businesses in the same sector it can score your churn rate, licence utilisation or gross margin against a constantly updated peer set.
• Zero maintenance. New files and system feeds arrive, Emanda parses them and the board report updates without anyone exporting a CSV.

Five pay‑offs for owners

1. Faster valuations. Advisers can verify numbers in minutes, not weeks, which shortens deal cycles.
   
2. Stronger negotiation. When a buyer questions a metric you click the evidence and show the truth.
   
3. Lower risk premiums. Proven compliance and process maturity justify higher multiples.
   
4. Better lending terms. Banks favour businesses that monitor covenants with live data, not quarterly PDFs.
5. Operational insight. The same metrics that impress outsiders also surface internal bottlenecks before they hurt profit.

Getting started

Set up the Xero connector and drop a handful of recent documents into the platform. Within minutes the data room will map your files, pull out relevant data, and benchmark your results. From that point forward the system keeps itself current.
Evidence beats estimates every time. With an always‑on data room owners no longer wonder what their business is worth. They can prove it.

‍