Owner, Lender & M&A Reporting
Independent financial reporting for freight company owners, boards of directors, shareholders, and lenders. Weekly, monthly, or quarterly, on the cadence your operation calls for: per-entity and combined statements, accounts receivable aging, covenant packages, and transaction-ready records for buying or selling a freight business.
The Reporting Desk
Operations reporting tells managers what happened this week: loads moved, invoices sent, PODs collected. Ownership reporting answers a different set of questions. What did each company actually earn this period? Where does the cash sit across entities? How old are the receivables really, and which customers are stretching terms? What would the books look like to a bank reviewing a credit line, or to a buyer pricing the business?
ClearLane prepares that view for freight brokerages, trucking companies, and 3PLs on the cadence your SOP calls for: weekly flash reports, monthly packages, or quarterly board decks, covering every entity you own and the combined picture across all of them.
Month-End Close
Reporting
Step out of day-to-day operations and the ambient visibility goes with you: the phones, the trucks, the checks. What replaces it is a monthly meeting and a spreadsheet prepared by the people the spreadsheet measures. Nothing has to be dishonest for that view to drift. Slow customers become fine, a billing backlog becomes a staffing story, and by the time a problem is visible from the outside it is two quarters old.
The same gap shows up in every ownership transition in freight: a founder retiring and installing a general manager, a family member inheriting a stake without working in the business, partners buying each other out, or a shareholder group backing new management. Lenders and buyers hit the wall from the other side: records assembled ad hoc, in a different format every time they ask, with numbers that shift between versions. Independent reporting closes that gap with one consistent package, prepared outside the chain of command it describes.
Different stakeholders need the same truth at different depths. The reporting desk builds one set of numbers and cuts it per audience, so everyone works from facts assembled outside the chain of command being measured.
Generic reporting services read a trial balance and format it. Freight ownership reporting has to understand what sits behind the numbers: PODs that gate invoicing, accessorial charges that age into disputes, carrier settlements and quick-pay discounts, factoring lines, fuel advances, and intercompany loads between sister companies.
Because our teams run these back-office workflows daily, the packages we prepare reconcile to the freight operation, not just to the ledger. When the accounts receivable (AR) aging says a balance is collectible, that is because someone on our side is actually working it. When the revenue number moves, the load count and rate story behind it is one question away.
Many freight companies are really a group: a parent or holding company, an operating company, a brokerage, sometimes a warehouse or equipment entity. Some share one MC, some hold separate authorities, some have no MC at all. The reporting desk is built for exactly that structure: each entity keeps its own books and gets its own package, intercompany balances are reconciled and netted, and ownership sees both the parts and the whole in one delivery.
We catalog your entities, systems, credit agreements, and who receives what: which reports, which cadence, which level of detail per audience. A retiring owner, a lender, and a shareholder group each need a different cut of the same numbers, so the audience map comes first.
We connect to your existing TMS and accounting platforms, document the reporting formats per audience, and produce the first package in parallel with your current process, so you can compare the two side by side before anything switches over.
Packages go out on the agreed cadence: weekly, monthly, or quarterly, per entity, combined, and per audience. Delivery is direct: ownership, the board, or the lender receives the package from the reporting desk, not through the management team being reported on.
When a transaction starts, the records are already organized: add-back schedules documented, aging defensible, books reconciled per entity. Buyers and their advisors get organized records instead of a scramble, which protects both the timeline and the multiple.
Owners who have stepped back keep a real view of the business without leaning on the team being measured: margin per entity, DSO trend, working capital, and the exceptions that need an ownership decision, on one page every cycle. Management gets out of the report-building business and argues results from shared numbers instead of defending spreadsheets.
Lenders get their covenant package on calendar without a quarterly scramble. Boards and shareholders get third-party numbers on a fixed cadence. And when a sale or acquisition starts, two years of clean, consistent reporting history is already sitting in the data room, which is exactly what keeps diligence short and valuations intact.
Reporting is prepared by a dedicated team separate from day-to-day management, with the same confidentiality standards as every ClearLane engagement: NDAs, background checks, and role-based access to your systems. Every engagement is governed by a formal client agreement, and reporting access is scoped so each audience sees exactly what ownership authorizes: nothing less, nothing more.
When a freight company changes hands, the records are the deal. For buyers, we run acquisition validation: receivables tested against the aging, billing files sampled from rate confirmation through payment, books reviewed per entity with intercompany balances reconciled, and every add-back on the EBITDA schedule tied to a document. You learn what you are actually acquiring before the price is final.
For sellers, we prepare the sale package: per-entity statements, a defensible accounts receivable (AR) aging, documented EBITDA normalization and owner discretionary earnings schedules, and the reporting history that shows a buyer the operation runs on process. Deal structuring, valuation, and legal work stay with your M&A advisor, CPA, and counsel. We make sure the records they argue from hold up.
We work inside the accounting software and TMS you already run: QuickBooks Online and Desktop, Xero, FreshBooks, Sage, and the major freight TMS platforms. No migration, no new system for your team, and packages delivered on the schedule and channel you set. For multi-entity structures, each company keeps its own books in its own file, with intercompany balances reconciled between them.
A P&L per entity and combined, cash position, full accounts receivable (AR) aging with the largest past-due accounts named, DSO trend against the freight benchmark, and a short exceptions list of what changed and what needs an ownership decision. Same format, same delivery date, every cycle: weekly, monthly, or quarterly, per your SOP.
No. This is management reporting with separation of duties: the people preparing the numbers are not the people being measured by them. Audited and tax-basis statements, reviews, and quality of earnings opinions remain with your CPA firm.
Yes, that is the point of the service. Ownership receives the package directly from the reporting desk. Management keeps running operations, loses the report-assembly burden, and everyone works from the same independently prepared numbers.
For buyers: receivables tested against the aging, billing files sampled from rate confirmation through payment, books reviewed per entity with intercompany balances reconciled, and the add-back schedule tied to documentation. Formal due diligence opinions stay with your CPA and counsel.
By scope: number of entities, reporting cadence, and audiences. It runs standalone or alongside ClearLane bookkeeping and AR services, where it is most efficient because the same team already keeps the records. Contact us for a quote for your structure.
Yes. Board reporting is assembled on the meeting calendar: the standing financial package plus the exceptions and decisions that belong in front of a board, delivered on a set lead time before each session. Advisory boards get the same discipline at whatever depth ownership chooses.
Yes. Multi-entity groups are the core use case. Each subsidiary keeps its own books and gets its own package, intercompany transactions are recorded on both sides and netted in the combined view, and the holding company receives the group picture alongside the per-entity detail. Reporting works the same whether the entities share one MC, hold separate authorities, or include companies with no operating authority at all.
Aging worked daily so the receivables in the report are real.
Revenue captured before invoicing, so earnings reflect the freight.
See how POD, AP audit, billing, AR, compliance, and bookkeeping fit together.
Get Started
A 20-minute call covers your entities, your audiences, and what the first monthly package would contain.
