Operating partner site visit checklist for a portfolio company

Why a post-close visit needs its own checklist

A diligence visit tests what a seller claims. A post-close visit is an owner looking for what the board pack does not show: workarounds between systems, the one supervisor everyone relies on, the server only a departed administrator understood. The questions overlap, but the goal is different, so the checklist should be too.

It is also the easiest moment to learn which records the company holds, because you are asking as an owner rather than a buyer. Whether you hold the operating partner, operating advisor or executive in residence seat (how those roles differ), the same rule applies: ask what exists, never what it says.

Before you go

• Read the last two board packs and pick three numbers you want explained on the floor.
• Re-read the open follow-ups from your previous visit.
• Ask for an agenda that starts with a walk of the operation (warehouse, service desk, project floor or plant office), not the conference room.
• Request short sessions with a frontline supervisor, the controller and whoever runs IT, whether in-house or a managed service provider.
• Share the systems questions below with the CEO in advance, so the visit does not feel like an audit.
• Agree up front that you will not ask for logins, data extracts or confidential files.

A one-day visit agenda that starts on the floor

Illustrative timings; adapt them to a plant, warehouse, service desk or project office.

The checklist

Operations

• Follow one order, ticket or project from start to finish, noting every handoff and every time data is re-keyed.
• Note where spreadsheets sit between systems, and who maintains them.
• Ask what the team waits on most, and how long.
• Check whether the KPIs visible where the work happens match the ones in the board pack.
• Ask what broke last month and how it was caught.
• Look at how safety, quality or service-level incidents are logged and closed.

People and leadership

• Ask frontline staff who they go to when a system is wrong; that person is often a hidden key-person risk.
• Note turnover hot spots, open roles and how long they have been open.
• Ask each leader separately for the company's top three priorities and compare the lists.
• Identify single points of failure: admin rights, vendor relationships and undocumented know-how.
• Judge whether management has room for anything new before proposing it.

Systems and records: ask about them, never open them

• Name every system the core workflow touches: ERP, CRM, ticketing, project tools, finance, email and Slack or Teams. Strong companies often run 10-15+ systems.
• Ask how far back each one goes, and whether older systems were archived, migrated or deleted.
• Ask who can run a full export today: internal IT, a managed service provider or only the vendor.
• Ask whether any system is due for retirement or migration in the next year.
• Ask whether any records belong to clients, for example deliverables produced under client contracts.
• Ask whether calls are recorded and what notice is given. Consent rules differ by state; California's Penal Code section 632, for example, generally requires the consent of all parties to record a confidential communication.
• Do not ask to see ticket contents, emails, customer files or recordings. The question is what exists, how old it is and who controls it.

This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Confirm recording and privacy questions with the company's counsel.

Customers

• Sit in on a live customer meeting if management invites you.
• Review customer concentration and the next renewal dates with the account lead.
• Ask how complaints are captured, who owns them and how they are closed.
• Ask what customers request that the company cannot yet deliver.
• Ask whether customer contracts restrict how records about their work may be used.

How to read what you saw

When to suggest a SourceX introduction: the three-yes rule

Raise it only when all three answers are yes:

1. Size and history. The company has 50+ full-time employees at peak (contractors excluded) and several years of documented operations.
2. Records and rights. It holds deep history across many systems that it created and can still export, with no client-ownership problem.
3. Sponsor. The owner, CEO or CFO would consider a one-time payment for an exclusive AI-training license for an agreed term.

If all three hold, the next steps are simple. You make the introduction; SourceX qualifies the company; the company completes a data inventory with SourceX; price and terms are agreed before buyers review it. You never export, upload or describe the records yourself. Log each company's answers in the portfolio company screening workbook so the next visit starts from them.

Partners earn 25% of the eligible platform fees SourceX actually collects from the referred company's licensing deals, capped at $100,000 per referred company. Rewards are payable only after the buyer pays and SourceX receives its fee, no reward is guaranteed, and the reward is never deducted from what the company receives.

Red flags to note on any visit

• Admin credentials held by one person, or by someone who has left.
• Vendor contracts lapsing with no export taken.
• Backups that nobody has tested restoring.
• Records deleted during a past migration.
• KPIs on the floor that differ from the board pack.
• Customer complaints handled by email with no tracking.

After the visit

Within two days, send the CEO three follow-ups, each with an owner and a date. Update the screening workbook. If a system retirement is coming, make export preservation one of the three. If the visit surfaced cash pressure, the guide on deleveraging a portfolio company without selling assets lists options to review with the CFO.

Next step

Check any likely candidate against who qualifies, then register as a partner to make the introduction. The page for private equity operating partners shows how to run the same screen across a whole portfolio.