A Franchise Disclosure Document runs to hundreds of pages and every item is formatted identically, which has the accidental effect of making everything look equally weighted. It is not. Some items are administrative and some will decide whether you sign. If you have not read what the document is and why it exists yet, start there.
Start with the litigation and bankruptcy history
These items disclose the franchisor's litigation history and any bankruptcy involving the company or its principals. They are near the front and they are the fastest way to find a reason to stop.
Litigation is not automatically disqualifying. A large system will have some. What matters is the pattern: who is suing whom, how often, and about what. A franchisor repeatedly in dispute with its own franchisees over the same issue has told you what that issue is going to be for you.
Then the franchisee list
The document contains a list of current franchisees and, separately, of franchisees who have left the system in the past year, with contact details.
The list of people who left is the most valuable page in the document. Call them. A franchisor cannot coach those conversations and cannot select who is on the list. If those numbers are hard to reach, or the list is unusually short relative to the size of the system, that is itself information.
Then the obligations, both directions
One item sets out what the franchisor must do for you and another sets out what you must do. Read them together and in that order, because the pairing is where the relationship actually lives. What a franchisor owes an operator goes into this in more detail.
Pay attention to the difference between what the franchisor will do and what it may do. Discretionary support is not support. A system that reserves the right to provide training is describing something other than a commitment to provide it.
Then fees, investment, and territory
The initial fee, the ongoing fees, the estimated initial investment, and the territory grant each have their own item. These are the numbers everybody wants first and they are more useful once you know who you would be dealing with. How a royalty is calculated and what territory actually means are both worth understanding before you read those items.
Finally the financial statements and the agreement
Audited financial statements for the franchisor are attached, and so is the franchise agreement itself. The agreement is the document that actually governs. Everything else in the disclosure describes it.
This is the point at which an accountant and a franchise attorney earn their fee. The financial statements tell you whether the franchisor can fund what it has promised. The agreement tells you what happens when things go wrong, which is the part nobody reads and everybody eventually needs.