Having a CPA prepare a business plan is one thing. Having one review a plan you have already written can look like paying for a second opinion you do not need.

The value is in one thing: the plan comes back more defensible. What “defensible” means, though, depends entirely on who is going to read it — and that is where the choice of reviewer actually matters.

1. Plans for a lender

This is where a CPA review earns the most. A lending officer is assessing one thing above all: whether the money comes back. If the plan holds up on that, the rest is detail.

Conversely, a loosely constructed plan invites doubt about repayment capacity, and doubt is usually fatal to the application. Auditors spend their formative years being drilled in exactly this — testing whether figures are supportable, and documenting why. Forward-looking numbers are familiar territory too, through deferred tax scheduling and audit planning. Judging whether a projection is reasonable is close to the core skill.

2. Plans for a subsidy application

Much the same, with one shift in emphasis. There is no repayment to test, but the money is public money awarded against future growth, so the credibility of the growth projection carries the weight. In practice that makes the income statement relatively more important than it is in a lending case.

3. Plans for an investor pitch — and a warning

Here a CPA is not the only option; an angel investor reviewing your deck brings something a CPA does not, namely direct knowledge of what makes a plan fundable.

And there is a real failure mode. A CPA without relevant experience will review an investor pitch using the lens from cases 1 and 2, and hand back a conservative plan. Conservative is exactly wrong here: the result reads as an unambitious business and does not get funded.

So if you are taking a pitch deck to a CPA, ask first whether they have reviewed investor plans before, and whether they have sat in a corporate planning function. If the answer to both is no, you are buying the wrong review.

We have handled all three. If a business plan review would be useful, please get in touch.