A pro forma is a story told in numbers, and lenders are professional critics of that genre. They’ve seen the optimistic version of your spreadsheet before — so the pro forma that gets funded is the one where every line can answer the question “why do you believe that?”
The lines that get scrutinized
Revenue build-up. Not a single number but a construction: washes per day × average ticket, split by retail vs. contract, ramped month by month. Lenders check whether the mature-state volume is defensible against corridor data and whether the ramp is honest.
Average ticket. Defensible means benchmarked against the actual competitive set in the radius — priced services, washout tickets, add-ons — not against a national figure.
Chemical cost per wash. The line that separates operators from optimists. It’s a function of dosing discipline and program design; our chemical program exists in large part because this number drifts upward at unmanaged washes.
Labor model. Modern automated washes run on one attendant per shift. A pro forma staffed like a full-service detail shop signals the developer hasn’t operated one.
Debt service coverage. The ratio lenders live by: cash flow against the payment, with headroom. Structuring the stack so the ratio holds in the downside case is the core craft of wash business planning and financing — and programs like the SBA 504, with long fixed terms on fixed assets, exist precisely to make that ratio work.
Where the numbers come from
A pro forma is only as good as its inputs, and the inputs come from the feasibility study — corridor counts, competitive pricing, anchor demand. When the study and the pro forma are built by the same team, the lender sees one consistent story instead of a stapled-together deal. That consistency, more than any single number, is what gets projects funded.
Go Deeper
