Time to Request Information From the Business People

At year end, you should have pulled together the reports that you will need for your system statistics, so this week it’s time to alert the relevant business people about all of the additional information that will need to be updated in the FDD. I find it helpful to cut and paste the relevant portion of the FDD into the email in which I request the information. This helps the business people understand the context for the information. When I request this information, I focus on the following areas:

Item 1 – update on system statistics for affiliated franchise programs
Item 2 – update on comings and goings in the managerial ranks
Item 3 – update on pending litigation, particularly challenging to obtain from predecessors
Item 4 – update on pending bankruptcies
Item 5 - range of initial franchise fee during last year
Item 7 – update on initial investment costs
Item 8 – update on revenues from restricted purchases – this is difficult to obtain while the accounting group is trying to close out their year and work with the auditors (they experience work compression must like we do)
Item 11 – update on the outline for the training program
Item 11 – update on the use of the advertising funds (again challenging while the accounting group is trying to close out their year)
Item 11 – revised Table of Contents for the Operations Manual
Item 19 – updated financial performance representation information
Item 20 – updates for all 5 tables and a list of current and list of former franchisees

I follow-up on these requests on a weekly basis, to make sure that my requests remain high on the priority list.

Next week we will move on to making changes in the actual document. As always, if you would like an Excel spreadsheet that identifies each action item, send me an email request.