Product Update: New Buyer Funds Verification

With our new buyer funds verification option, sellers will be able to quickly filter out the serious buyers, and buyers can speed up negotiations by pre-verifying their funds.

Flippa is dedicated to matching sellers with high quality listings, to acquisition-ready buyers.

With the largest pool of buyers globally, as a seller, how can you know which buyers are genuinely interested in acquiring your business? 

As a buyer, how do you stand out to sellers to show you’re serious about acquiring a listing? 

Buyer funds verification will help facilitate negotiations and match the best businesses with serious buyers.

How Does Buyer Fund Verification Work?

Buyers

As a buyer, once you verify your funds you’ll be able to engage with sellers listings where they have selected to only engage with funds verified buyers.

A buyer can verify their funds through their Account settings on Flippa. 

Go to your “Account Settings”, then select “Verification”.

Select “Start Verification” and you will be presented with two options through which to verify your funds:

1. Verify Bank Account Balance
2. Verify by Flippa Manually

Verify Bank Account Balance

If you select Verify Bank Account Balance, a Plaid integration will verify in real time your account balances and provide instant verification. This is only available to bank accounts in the US and Canada currently.

Manual Upload

If you choose Verify by Flippa Manually, you will be able to provide multiple documents that will allow Flippa staff to manually verify your funds. You must identify which documents you are providing and these can include:

• Bank account statement
• Stock portfolio
• CPA letter
• Home equity line of credit (HELOC)
• SBA documentation
• Cryptocurrency account/wallet statement
• Retirement account
• Other Available Credit Status

Verified Buyers

Once either Plaid verification or Flippa manual verification has been completed, the buyer will receive an email informing them of the funds verification. From there the buyer will be able to engage with any seller and their listings that require funds verification. 

The amount of verified funds is only able to be seen by the buyer themselves. 

Sellers

If you are a seller listing a business for an Asking Price of more than $250,000 USD, during the listing process, you will be presented with the option to only engage with buyers who have verified their funds.
When the Asking Price of a listing is set to higher than $250,000 USD, the Buyer Engagement step will appear, as below.

Here you will be asked if you ‘Would like to engage with funds verified buyers only?’ By ticking “Yes, engage with funds verified buyers only”, you’ll restrict engagement to only these types of buyers. 

Once your listing is live, only buyers who have verified their funds will be able to contact you. 

If a buyer has not verified their funds but would like to contact you about your listing, when they click on “Contact Seller”, they will be directed to verify funds. They will have verify their funds before they can engage with you.

FAQs

Buyers

What happens if the integrated Bank Account Balance Verification does not work or does not correctly verify my available funds?

If the integrated verification process does not work or you do not believe it accurately shows your available funds you can verify your funds manually through Flippa.

If I have multiple bank accounts, can these all be verified through the Plaid integration? 

Plaid does allow this to be an option but it depends on the bank provider. If your bank allows this option you will be able to choose multiple bank accounts.

How does Plaid store and use my information?

You can read Plaid’s Privacy Policies and Practices, and Terms and Conditions here.

Sellers

As a seller, will I potentially miss out on buyers who have not verified their funds but may still be interested in my listing?

Similarly to Flippa’s other verification tools, Buyer Funds Verification is designed to identify serious buyers and sellers. If a buyer is interested in acquiring your business it’s in their interest to verify their funds. However, if you feel requiring buyers to have their funds verified is reducing engagement in your listing, you can simply turn off this setting within the listing.

Can I set a limit on the minimum amount of verified funds needed for a buyer to engage with my listing?

No. As the seller you can only select if you want funds verified buyers to engage with your listing, you cannot select the amount of funds needed for a buyer to be verified for. Flippa sets the amount of verified funds needed for buyers to engage with listings, with buyers only allowed to engage with listings up to three times the size of the funds they have verified. 

If you have any questions about the new buyer funds verification feature, or would like help to set it up, you can contact our Support Team at [email protected]