A checklist for selling a small business is more useful grouped than listed, because the groups behave differently. Five of them cover almost everything a buyer asks for, and the important distinction is not what is in each but who can produce it. Four groups you can assemble yourself in an afternoon or two. The fifth depends on somebody else, and it is the one that decides how long the whole thing takes, which is why it belongs at the top rather than wherever the alphabet puts it.
The four groups you can produce yourself
Financial records and returns for the recent years. Customer and supplier arrangements, in whatever form they exist. Employment records: who works there, on what terms, and since when. And operational material: how the business runs, what it owns, what it depends on. These take time and no waiting, which means they should never be the reason a timetable slips.
The fifth group, which waits on other people
Anything held or issued elsewhere: filings and evidence of standing, leases and the landlord's counterpart, licences and permits, lender arrangements, and records held by a former adviser or bookkeeper. Every item here runs on somebody else's clock. Starting this group first, months before going to market, is the single scheduling decision that most changes how a sale goes.
What the checklist should record beside each item
Not just whether you have it. Where it is, whether it is current, who would have to be asked for it, and whether you have already given it to anybody. That last column becomes the whole record once a buyer's diligence starts and more than one party is asking, and adding it at the beginning costs nothing while adding it later means going back over everything.
Questions people ask about selling a small business checklist
How long is a typical checklist?
It varies with the size and the sector, which is why the worksheet on this site asks you for the count rather than assuming one. The number of items matters less than the share of them you cannot immediately lay hands on.
Does the buyer send their own list?
Almost always, and it will not match yours exactly. Yours exists so that theirs is mostly answerable on arrival rather than becoming a project.
What if an item does not exist?
Record that, with the explanation, rather than leaving it open. A documented absence is a far better position than an item that stays outstanding because nobody closed it.