Changelog
What changed, and when
Methodology version 2026-09-24. Each brand page also lists its own recent checks and corrections at the foot of the page, with the filing page each one was read from.
2026-09-24 · Methodology
Momentum is a labelled state from the latest Item 20 year - positive, negative, flat, or negative because more agreements are signed but not open than outlets are open - shown with its numbers. It is not a score and never affects the grade.
2026-09-24 · Methodology
Citation badges cover the royalty, the ad fund and the Item 19 range as well as the investment, fee, sales and unit figures, and every badge names the FDD year of the page it cites.
2026-09-24 · Methodology
An absent value says why: "Not extracted" means we have not read it from the filing, "Not disclosed" means the filing declines to state it. Comparisons name the FDD each column comes from, warn when the filings are from different years, and take up to five brands.
2026-09-24 · Methodology
Investment ranges above $50 million are shown as the filing prints them. The earlier display cap treated them as parse errors, but every one is a hotel whose Item 7 total was checked against the filing page.
2026-09-24 · Methodology
An SBA charge-off rate is shown only where one representativeness rule holds, on every page: at least 10 loans, at least 10 resolved, a lender on record, and loans equal to at least 2% of franchised units. Where the rate is hidden, a coverage word (limited, insufficient, not matched) says why.
2026-09-24 · Methodology
Category comparisons use the median of the category, with its middle half and the number of brands behind it, instead of a mean that a few very large systems pulled far from the typical brand.
2026-09-24 · Methodology
Auditor going-concern doubt means the auditor's report carries a going-concern section. The standard audit-report sentences about evaluating going concern are not a finding; 98 flags were corrected from the auditors' own reports.
2026-09-24 · Methodology
Item 19 status is one of four: disclosed (an average is on file), partial (figures but no system average), not disclosed (the filing says it makes no financial performance representation), or not extracted (our gap).
2026-09-24 · Data correction
Ad fund: 158 rates that could not be tied to a brand fund in Item 6 were read. 80 were confirmed and now cite their page (4 more after the locator learned to read '.5%' and '2½%'); 63 were corrected - most were the local-marketing spend or a co-op cap stored as the fund (a 10% and a 7% among them), or the cap of a fund the franchisor does not collect today, now shown as none with the filing's own sentence; 15 are held for a closer read.
2026-09-24 · Data correction
Projected openings: 159 more brands carry the signed-but-not-open count from the Total row of Item 20 Table 5, and on 145 of them the stored projection did not match that row and was corrected (Subway's reads 150, as its filing prints, not 100). 32 had stored the signed-but-not-open count, the company-owned column or a sum - one stored 903 projected openings where its filing projects 85 and has 903 signed but not open. Ranges, tables split by format with no combined total, and printed totals that contradict their own rows are held.
2026-09-24 · Data correction
Owners: 3,026 parent and ultimate-parent names now show the Item 1 page they are printed on (1,668 of 2,009 parents, 1,358 of 1,577 ultimate parents); a page is shown only while it still describes the name and the filing on the page.
2026-09-24 · Data correction
Bankruptcy: Item 4 was re-read for 72 brands whose stored flags disagreed with each other or quoted Item 4's own definitions as if they were a disclosure. 62 flags corrected - most had shown a bankruptcy the filing does not disclose, eight had missed one it does - and an officer's bankruptcy is no longer shown as the franchisor's anywhere on the page. No grade changed.
2026-09-24 · Data correction
Litigation: Item 3 of 47 brands was read end to end. 244 matters on 44 brands are now listed in the filing's own words, each with its page, split into pending, concluded and status not stated, and by whose matter it is (the franchisor, a parent or affiliate, an officer). The stored case count had counted only one section of Item 3 on 16 of them and was corrected (Burger King 3 to 19, Avis 5 to 21), one count with no matter in the filing was set to 0 (that brand's grade rose from C to B), and ten Item 3 summaries that contradicted the filing were withdrawn.
2026-09-24 · Data correction
FDD issue dates: 2,628 brand pages now print the issue date from the filing's cover, each written with the cover page and its words; the staleness risk is measured in months from that date.
2026-09-24 · Data correction
Signed but not yet open: 2,310 brands carry the count from Item 20 Table 5, read only from a Total row whose projected-openings column matches the projection already on file, and shown with the pipeline per open outlet.
2026-09-24 · Data correction
1,941 ad fund rates were located on their Item 6 page and are now cited there; two were held because the rate on the page is a local-marketing spend or a share of the royalty rather than a fund contribution.
2026-09-24 · Data correction
Seven franchise fees corrected to the low end of the Item 7 fee line, as the fee convention requires, each with its page and quote. The display rule that raised an investment low to the fee was removed: on every brand it touched, the investment low was right and the fee was not.
2026-09-24 · Data correction
178 generated risk bullets and 77 risk summaries that printed raw database tokens (such as financial_distress=true) or described the going-concern flag in words other than Yes, No or Not extracted were withdrawn.
2026-09-24 · Data correction
Going-concern flags re-read from the auditors' own reports: 118 filings flagged on the standard audit-report sentences alone were corrected to no doubt, and 6 filings with a real going-concern section were corrected to yes, each with the page and a verbatim quote. Grades were recomputed for every affected brand.
2026-09-24 · Data correction
2,436 generated risk bullets and owner-call questions and 489 risk summaries that read the auditor's no-doubt flag as a solvency warning were withdrawn.
2026-09-24 · Data correction
Territory, owner-contact status, Item 19 status and litigation wording made consistent on every brand page: protected is no longer called exclusive, transferred owners are no longer called terminated, and an officer's personal bankruptcy or lawsuit is no longer shown as the franchisor's.
2026-09-17 · Data correction
Category pages list every indexable brand, and an A-Z brand directory was added.
Report a correction
If a figure on a brand page does not match the filing, email hello@franchiseverdict.com with the brand page and the FDD page number. We re-read the filing. If we are wrong, the figure is corrected with the page and the filing's own words, the correction is dated on this page, and the brand page lists it among its recent checks. A figure changes because the filing says otherwise, not because anyone asks.
How to cite FranchiseVerdict
Cite the brand page, the FDD year it shows and the date you read it: “FranchiseVerdict (franchiseverdict.com/brand/<brand>), accessed <date>. Data from the <year> Franchise Disclosure Document and SBA 7(a) FOIA records.” The figures are the franchisor's own disclosures; gross sales are revenue, not profit; the verdict grade is our editorial assessment, not investment advice.