Your finance team and auditors should be ready to review the most recent quarter and consider whether including quarterly financials will require additional time to finalize, regardless of how many quarters you plan to disclose.
- Establish transition contracts for services and products that will be needed once public, such as independent audits of financial statements, and investor relations services.
- Identify any sensitive accounting issues:
- Resolve any GAAP inconsistencies.
- Review cheap stock considerations.
- Review key operating metrics.
- Internal controls and “SOX” compliance.
- Ensure your audited financial statements are nearly finalized.
- Only two full years of audited financial statements are required in your SEC filings if you meet the criteria of an “emerging growth company”.
- Evaluate the timing of your quarterly interim financial statements and evaluate the impact on your expected timing.
- The FAST Act permits you to postpone or omit financial statements for certain interim periods, but many technology companies still provide at least eight quarters of historical financial data to assist analysts and investors in building their models.