Ten categories. One hundred factors. No opinions.

Financial Opportunity rests almost entirely on Item 19, which is the one Item a franchisor may omit entirely. When it is present we read what it covers, whose results it describes, and what it explicitly excludes. Revenue is read in whatever form the Item gives it: an average or a median, quartiles or halves, units listed one by one, a single outlet's statement, net revenue, territory revenue or revenue per franchisee business. Revenue is undisclosed only where Item 19 gives no historical revenue for any identifiable operating outlet; a single founder-operated or company-owned location counts, and the report says how many locations a figure represents and whose they are, separately from whether it was disclosed. Every figure is named for what it is.

A large gross-sales figure is not profit. Many Item 19s state in terms that they disclose no cost, expense or profit information, and we report that rather than letting the headline number stand in for owner earnings.

Beside the ten factors, the report shows how much of the franchised system Item 19 covers and in what form — whether it gives both an average and a median, whether it shows the spread across units, and whether any cost or profit figure sits beside the revenue — as a reading of the disclosure. It is information, not one of the scoring parameters, and a franchisor who discloses nothing loses coverage on the factors, never points.

1. 01Best Available Item 19 Outlet Revenue Evidence5/5
2. 02Gross Margin or Direct-Cost Structure from the Best Available FDD Evidence5/5
3. 03Operating Margin or Operating-Cost Burden from the Best Available FDD Evidence5/5
4. 04Operating Earnings After Disclosed Business Expenses5/5
5. 05Operating Earnings or Revenue Relative to Estimated Initial Investment5/5
6. 06Estimated Investment Payback Period4/5
7. 07Annual Operating Earnings Relative to Owner Capital5/5
8. 08Revenue Distribution Across Disclosed Operating Outlets4/5
9. 09Performance of Mature or Long-Established Operating Locations4/5
10. 10Early-Stage Performance and Ramp Evidence3/5