Understanding the Verification Report

FranTrends seeks to be a relevant information resource to the franchise and business opportunity community through providing informative and investigative articles, predictive trends, surveys and the first consumer oriented Verification Report.

The Verification Report (VR) is designed to measure franchisors in 12 key results areas providing a score of a maximum of 120. Each key result area (KRA) can offer a maximum score of 10 points toward the overall 120 point score. We provide a subjective rating for each key result area and for the overall VR Score. Please review this table:

Rating Title	KRA Score	VR Score
Excellent	8 to 10	96 to 120
Good	6 to 7	72 to 95
Fair	3 to 5	36 to 71
Poor	0 to 2	24 to 35

The KRA Score can be used by prospective and existing franchisees to measure an expectation of how a franchisor will provide services in a particular area of business. Franchisors are encouraged to improve in each KRA and provide us updates to their VR Questionnaire. However, we will review each company in July of each year for the previous year's changes. We will publish a actual printed magazine in January of each year called the FranTrends Annual Review.

The VR Score should not be used as a sole validation of the franchisor's system. It should be used as part of your overall due diligence to include interviews with the franchisor, interviews their franchisees, advice from industry professionals (franchise attorney, CPA, real estate, location planners, financial services and franchise consultants and brokers), public websites, and information contained in franchisor brochures and the Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD).

FranTrends charges franchisors a fee to conduct the investigation, score the company and publish this information on its website similar to companies like Dunn & Bradstreet. To complete our score, we use input from the franchisor's VR Questionnaire, interviews with the franchisor, interviews with the franchisees, Franchise Disclosure Documents, and other resources we deem relevant. Franchisors subject themselves to our investigative methods and our results are rendered independent of any fees paid by the franchisors are to offset the expenses of providing the service to the public for free and in no way affect the ultimate score we assign to any KRA or the overall VR Score.