Intake a Business Interruption Worksheet Without Doing the Accounting

Set the worksheet's purpose

A business interruption worksheet organizes the financial records a commercial claim owner needs to review lost income and extra expense. The assistant's job is to collect complete schedules, preserve their source, and show what is missing. The accountant or adjuster determines the measure of loss.

Ask for the period the business was interrupted, the location affected, the revenue and expense schedules for the same period in prior years, and the documents that support them. If the policy defines a waiting period or a period of restoration, record the definition from the policy and let the adjuster apply it.

Use a month-by-month schedule with source columns

Each row should show the month, gross revenue, cost of goods sold, continuing expenses, extra expenses, and the source document. Add a column for whether the figure is actual, estimated, or missing. A worksheet that mixes estimates with actuals without labels cannot be reviewed.

Request the general ledger detail or the accounting export that supports each total, not only a summary spreadsheet. If the business uses a tax return as its source, record the tax year and the line used. Do not combine a tax return figure with a bookkeeping figure in the same row.

Reconcile interruption dates with the evidence

The claimed interruption period should match the event, the damage, and the period of restoration described by the claim owner. If the business says it reopened in March but the sales ledger shows normal revenue in February, ask which record is correct. Preserve both and route the question.

Example: a restaurant claims 18 months of interruption, but the point-of-sale export shows three months with no sales and fifteen months with revenue above the prior year. The assistant marks the revenue months for review and does not conclude that the claim is invalid. The pattern is a question for the adjuster and accountant.

Use the specialist service role as a starting point for scope, source evidence, and decision boundaries.

Track extra expense separately from lost income

Extra expense covers costs incurred to continue operations, such as temporary space, equipment rental, or expedited shipping. Keep those receipts in a separate schedule with date, vendor, amount, and purpose. Do not net them against lost revenue; the two measures answer different questions.

If a cost appears in both the extra expense schedule and the continuing expense schedule, flag the duplicate. If the business reclassified a regular expense as extra expense, record the original classification. The adjuster needs the trail, not a cleaned-up total.

Deliver a completeness memo, not a loss calculation

The memo should list the schedules received, the periods covered, the source documents, the missing months, and the open questions. State plainly that no loss figure has been calculated by the assistant. That sentence prevents the worksheet from being mistaken for an accounting opinion.

Record the version of each schedule and the date it was received. If the business sends a revised forecast, keep the earlier version and compare the periods. A forecast is not a substitute for actual results, and a later version does not erase the earlier submission.

The public guidance from United States Small Business Administration can help the accountable team test assumptions without replacing local professional review.