Gas Stations · Due Diligence
Gas station due diligence means verifying the seller's claims against the real records (the tax returns, the bank statements, the fuel-delivery records, the lease, and the tank history) before you sign. The overpricing and the misstatements hide in fuel-margin math, padded add-backs, unverifiable cash, and franchise fees the P&L buries. BizScore reads all of it, flags every issue with the document it came from, and scores the deal from 0 to 100 in minutes.
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Generic due diligence misses what's specific to fuel retail. These are the gas-station traps, and exactly how BizScore surfaces each one from the documents you upload.
A station pumping $3M in fuel can take home less than one doing $1.5M, because fuel margin is razor thin. Sellers quote gross fuel sales to look big, or claim a cents-per-gallon margin the deliveries don't support.
How BizScore catches it: BizScore checks claimed gallons against the supplier's delivery records and the fuel margin against industry cents-per-gallon norms. Volume and margin have to agree with reality, not the pitch.
Aging underground storage tanks (USTs) are a six-figure risk. A leak means cleanup costs that can dwarf the purchase price, and the liability can follow the new owner.
How BizScore catches it: BizScore flags when tank age, testing, and compliance records are missing from what you were handed, and routes it into your checklist + legal summary. (We read documents. We don't inspect the tanks; that's where your environmental consultant earns their fee.)
Lottery commission (typically 5 to 7% of lottery sales) and ATM income ($200 to $500 a month) are small, recurring, and easy to inflate or claim without proof.
How BizScore catches it: BizScore reconciles claimed lottery and ATM income against the statements. If it's padded or unverifiable, it surfaces as a red flag with the evidence behind it.
Branded-supply agreements carry per-gallon fees (often $1,500 to $5,000 a year) sellers bury in “Miscellaneous.” And the fuel-supply contract, brand agreement, and ground lease may not transfer to you at all. A minimum-volume commitment you can't hit, or a lease the landlord won't assign, can sink a good-looking deal.
How BizScore catches it: BizScore flags the franchise / branded-dealer fees a gas-station P&L should show when they're missing or mislabeled, and puts “confirm assignability of the lease and supply contract” on your checklist before you sign.
The most common gas-station overstatement: reported revenue that's bigger than what actually hit the bank. Either the books are inflated, or cash is going somewhere other than the business account.
How BizScore catches it: BizScore compares the revenue on the P&L to the deposits on the bank statements. When they don't agree, it tells you by how much and where.
Price is SDE × a multiple, so every fake add-back stacked onto SDE inflates the asking price. “Add-backs” that aren't truly one-time or personal are how an overpriced deal is made to look fair.
How BizScore catches it: BizScore recomputes SDE from the bottom up (net profit plus only defensible owner add-backs) instead of taking the seller's number on faith.
What's a fair price for a gas station?
SDE multiples, the formula, and a worked example.
The full due-diligence checklist
Six areas to verify, with the records to check each.
10 ways sellers inflate the P&L
The most common tricks, and how to catch each.
25 questions to ask the seller
The books, the lease, the tanks, the deal terms.
What you actually get
Color-coded score, evidence-cited red flags, valuation range against the asking price, and a 45+ item checklist. Below is a redacted preview from a real Quick Scan.
BizScore Score
Caution
Worth pursuing, but several items need clarification before LOI.
What we found: The bank is showing $190k less than the P&L claims for 2024. Either the seller's P&L is overstated, or significant cash is going somewhere besides the business account.
Finding: Bank deposits sum to $620k; P&L reports $810k.
Evidence: Wells Fargo statements (Jan to Dec 2024) + Seller P&L 2024.
Next step: Request 3 years of federal tax returns before signing the LOI. If the seller declines, walk.
Valuation · SDE-based range
Industry multiple range 2.0× to 3.0× SDE. With an SDE of $200K, fair value lands $400K to $600K with $500K as the midpoint. The ask sits 25% above the top of the band. Negotiate or walk.
Honest framing, up front
Every report ends with a Limits-of-Analysis section. We surface it here too, so you know exactly where our analysis ends and where your own legwork begins.
Physical condition of equipment, the facility, or inventory. We don't visit the site.
Employee morale, retention risk, or key-person dependency. We don't interview staff.
Hidden litigation or undisclosed disputes not surfaced in the documents you provide.
Real-time market dynamics: competitive shifts, fuel-margin changes, or local economic events since the document period.
The seller's true motivation for selling beyond what they have stated.
Customer concentration, supplier relationships, or contract terms beyond what appears in financial records.
Pending regulatory changes or legislation not yet in force.
For everything on this list, you need on-site visits, your attorney, your accountant, or a direct conversation with the seller. BizScore makes the rest of the deal cheaper to evaluate so you can spend your time and money on these.
Upload the seller's P&L, tax returns, and bank statements. BizScore computes the real SDE, compares it to the asking price, and checks for every red flag on this page, each backed by the exact document it came from.
Quick Scan $49 · Full Report $199 · One-time, no subscription
It's verifying the seller's claims against the real records before you sign: matching the P&L to the tax returns and bank statements, checking fuel volume against supplier deliveries, and confirming the lease, brand agreement, and tank history. The goal is to find the overpricing and the misstatements before they become your problem.
Recompute SDE yourself, apply a 2.0 to 3.5× multiple, and compare that range to the asking price. Then check that the bank deposits back up the reported revenue. If the price implies a multiple above the range and the brand, lease, and tanks don't justify it, you've found your negotiating room (or your exit). BizScore does all of this and scores it from 0 to 100.
Don't take the P&L on faith. Match it against the federal tax returns and the bank statements (all three should agree within a few percent) and cross-check fuel volume against the supplier's delivery records. Gaps between reported revenue and actual deposits are the single most common red flag.
No. BizScore reads documents; it doesn't visit the site. What it does is flag when the tank age, testing, and environmental records are missing from what you were given, and put verifying the USTs on your checklist so your environmental consultant can do the physical work. We're upfront about where our analysis ends. See “What BizScore doesn't assess” above.
A Quick Scan runs in about 2 to 5 minutes once you've uploaded the seller's documents. The manual version (reading the returns, recomputing SDE, checking benchmarks) takes a CPA hours.
A Quick Scan is $49: the financial-health analysis, red flags, and a fair-price check. The Full Report is $199 and adds the 45-item due-diligence checklist, seller questions, and a state-specific legal summary. One-time, no subscription.
BizScore is built by first-time business buyers — people who watched someone close to them lose their life savings on a deal that looked clean on a spreadsheet and fell apart in the documents the seller never volunteered. That experience is why these guides exist, and why every BizScore report cites the exact document behind each finding.
Where the numbers come from: the benchmark ranges in our guides — SDE multiples, expense ratios, typical timelines — are widely-used industry rules of thumb, cross-checked against the analytical benchmarks BizScore applies inside its reports. Dollar figures such as a ~$15,000 quality-of-earnings review or a $5,000 deal attorney are representative of what buyers typically pay, not quotes; actual costs and multiples vary by deal. We review these figures periodically — last updated June 2026.
BizScore is an information service — think of it as a Carfax for a small business — not a CPA, an attorney, or financial advice. Use it to decide where to spend your professional dollars, and bring in a qualified professional before you sign anything.