6 things nobody tells you about executive summaries checklist

Use this executive summaries checklist for the hour before you send, not as a list of everything the page should contain. That belongs to the drafting stage. By now the page exists, and what is left is to catch the things that would cost you the reading.

Three passes, in order, because each assumes the one before it is done. About ten minutes, then twenty, then ten.

What to take away

The six checks to finish before sending:

Reconcile the revenue, costs, funding request, and cash needs on the page with the current financial model.
Check that figures use consistent labels and time periods, and that totals reconcile.
Give the page to a stranger and see whether they can explain what the business does and whom it serves.
Check whether that reader can find the ask, say what decision it requires, and identify the risk.
Print the page as the reader will see it and verify its length, opening sentence, ask, date, version, and contact details.
Check the reader's submission requirements and verify the spelling of every proper noun.

Pass one: the numbers, ten minutes

Open the financial model and work through the page figure by figure. If the model is thinner than the bookkeeping the business will need anyway, that is the real finding of this pass.

Check	It passes when	A failure means

Numbers pass: seven checks

Every figure appears in the model
Every figure carries its period
The ask equals the uses total
Repayment claim comes from cash forecast
Rounding follows one rule
Stage matches first forecast period
Owner compensation is in the model

The faults these checks are looking for, and what causes them, are set out in the executive summary mistakes guide.

Stop at the first failure and repair the model. There is no point polishing a page whose figures are still moving. The financial projections guide covers what a model has to produce before this pass is possible.

Pass two: the stranger, twenty minutes

Hand the page to somebody who does not know the business. A partner, a friend, anyone outside your trade. Do not explain it first and do not sit alongside narrating.

Then ask these, in order, and write down the answers rather than correcting them:

What does the business sell, and whom does it serve?
What decision or action does this summary ask of me?
What in the summary suggests the business can reach its goal?
What concern or risk stands out to you?
Which part, if any, was unclear or unsupported?

Stranger pass: five questions

What does this business sell, and to whom?
What is being asked for?
What does the yes get, and when?
What would worry you about it?
What would you do next?

The failures show up as hesitation more than as wrong answers. A reader who takes twenty seconds to locate the ask has found a real problem, whatever they say in the end. If nobody raises a worry, the risk paragraph is either missing or written so gently that it did not register.

You are testing comprehension, not collecting approval. Resist explaining, because the reader who matters will not have you in the room.

Pass three: format, ten minutes

Print it, on paper, at the size and type the reader will see.
Confirm it is one page, or two if that was asked for. A page and a bit is worse than either.
Read the first sentence on its own. It has to say what the business does. If it opens with the industry, a trend, or the founding year, rewrite it.
Check the ask is findable without hunting, somewhere in the first third.
Check the page carries a date and a version marker, and that the file name says which reader this copy is for.
Check your contact details are on the page itself, because this page travels away from the plan more than any other.
Check the spelling of every proper noun: the lender, the program, and the entity name exactly as registered.

The last one costs a reader nothing and costs you more goodwill than it should.

Format pass before sending

Print at the reader's size and type
One page, or two if asked
First sentence says what the business does
Ask findable in the first third
Date, version marker, file name
Contact details on the page
Proper nouns spelled exactly

Checks that only apply to some readers

A form or portal. Get the field list and character limits before drafting. For a federal grant application submitted through Grants.gov, check the applicable fields and the issuing agency's application instructions first. Reformatting a finished page into somebody else's boxes is the most avoidable hour in this whole process.

Which reader changes the page

Who is reading this copy?

Yes

Form or portal -> get field list and character limits first

Grant program -> follow their section order literally

A grant program. Follow the program's published application instructions and required section order, including headings you would not otherwise use. For a federal opportunity, check the issuing agency's notice of funding opportunity (NOFO). Programs score against their own criteria.

A landlord or a major supplier. They are reading for whether you will still be trading at the end of the term, so working capital and runway move up the page.

An internal reader. Cut the introductory framing completely and open with the decision you want made.

What not to do in this hour

Do not rewrite for style. Late style edits introduce figures that disagree with the model, because you stop reading arithmetic and start reading rhythm.

Do not add material. Anything that occurs to you now belongs in the section it came from, and a summary is not the place to remember things. If a slot looks empty, the executive summary template says what it was for.

Do not soften the risk. It is the paragraph most often cut at the last minute, by a writer who has read it thirty times and now finds it alarming. Your reader is seeing it once, and its presence is the reason they believe the rest of the page. The executive summaries guide sets out why that paragraph earns its space.

Sign-off

Write two lines at the bottom of your working copy and delete them before sending: the date you last reconciled the page against the model, and the name of the reader this version is for.

Six weeks later, when somebody asks about a version you no longer remember, those two lines are the whole of your version control.

Common questions

Can I skip the stranger pass when time is short?

Skip pass three instead. Formatting problems are visible to you. Comprehension problems are not, which is exactly why they survive all the way to the reader.

My stranger got every answer right but was not persuaded. What does that mean?

That is information about the business rather than the page. Ask which sentence they stopped believing, then go and find evidence for it.

How often should the list be run?

Once per version sent. The checks are cheap, and the failure they prevent, a figure that contradicts the plan, is the expensive one.

Does the deck need the same treatment?

The numbers pass, yes. A deck and a summary drawn from the same model still drift, and slides get rounded harder than pages do.