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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Level 3 fair values, impairment tests, purchase price allocations and exploration asset reviews, prepared so the auditor can follow every step, for Brisbane boards, finance teams and fund managers reporting under Australian Accounting Standards.
Indicative valuations from A$799. Certified Summary and Detailed reports from seven business days.
Financial reporting valuations give an auditor something to test under ASA 540 when a number in the accounts is an estimate rather than a record. For Brisbane entities the usual four are AASB 13 fair value of unlisted investments, AASB 136 recoverable amount, AASB 3 purchase price allocation and the AASB 2 grant-date value of staff awards.
Some figures in a set of accounts are records and some are judgements. What an unlisted investment is worth, whether the goodwill from an acquisition can still be supported, which intangibles were really bought, what staff options cost and whether an exploration tenement still justifies its carrying amount are all judgements, and each one depends on a valuation. The auditor tests every one of them under ASA 540, the standard on auditing accounting estimates, and for a finance team in the CBD or an audit committee meeting off Eagle Street that testing grows more searching each year.
A weak estimate costs more than an awkward audit. A fund holding a stake in a Fortitude Valley software company at an inflated fair value reports returns it has not earned and may charge fees on them. A goodwill write-down booked a year late overstates profit in the meantime and, when it finally lands, can breach a banking covenant. An acquisition of an Acacia Ridge manufacturer recorded with the entire premium in goodwill, rather than spread across customer contracts, brand and technology, carries the wrong amortisation and the wrong impairment base for years afterwards.
Brisbane's mix of reporting entities gives these questions a local shape. Mining and resources companies run from head offices in the city carry exploration and evaluation assets that AASB 6 tests on its own indicators. Construction and engineering groups that grow by acquisition, including those positioning for the 2032 Games infrastructure pipeline, end up with purchase price allocations and goodwill to test. Private hospital and health operators around the Herston and Woolloongabba precincts, ASX-listed small caps, private equity managers and not-for-profit boards reporting to the ACNC all face the same expectation of a Level 3 estimate, and ASIC's financial reporting surveillance has long named asset impairment and the valuation of unlisted assets among its focus areas.
We prepare these valuations for CFOs, audit committees, fund managers and the auditors who review their work. Every engagement is structured around the questions the auditor will ask, because a valuation that cannot survive that discussion has not done its job.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Most financial reporting valuations arise under one of four standards. Each asks something different, measures on its own basis and is audited in its own way, and a resources company adds a fifth question under AASB 6.
Fair value is an exit price: what a market participant would pay for the asset, or require to take on the liability, in an orderly transaction at the measurement date. Inputs are graded in three levels, and almost every private company investment falls into Level 3, where the entity's own assumptions carry the result and the disclosure load is greatest. A recent arm's length round is a strong anchor, but it is calibrated and updated at each reporting date, not simply repeated.
Goodwill and intangibles with an indefinite life are tested every year, and other assets whenever an indicator exists, including a market capitalisation that has fallen below net assets. The carrying amount of a cash-generating unit is compared with its recoverable amount, which is the higher of value in use and fair value less costs of disposal. Value in use rests on board-approved forecasts, usually covering no more than five years, for the assets in their present condition, discounted at a pre-tax rate.
Once an acquisition completes, the consideration is assigned to the identifiable assets and liabilities at fair value, including intangibles the target never recognised: customer relationships, brands, technology, the order book and restraint covenants. Goodwill is the residual. An earn-out or other contingent consideration is recognised at its acquisition-date fair value and, when classified as a liability, remeasured through profit or loss until it is settled.
Options and performance rights issued to staff are measured at grant-date fair value with an option pricing model and expensed across the vesting period. How that accounting value differs from the employee's Division 83A tax value, and what the difference means for a Brisbane growth company, is explained on our employee share scheme page.
Exploration and evaluation assets follow their own list of impairment triggers. AASB 6 points to a right to explore that has expired or will soon expire without expected renewal, further substantive expenditure that is neither budgeted nor planned, a decision to stop work in an area after finding no commercially viable quantities, and data showing the carrying amount is unlikely to be recovered through development or sale. Once an indicator is present the asset is measured under AASB 136, at a level no larger than an operating segment, and the valuation usually leans on transactions in comparable tenements rather than a cash flow forecast that does not yet exist.
Fair value work under AASB 13 starts with the value of the whole enterprise, using the market approach with multiples from listed peers and comparable deals, and the income approach with a discounted cash flow, to the extent the company's stage and data permit. That value is spread across the share classes through a waterfall, an option pricing method or a backsolve to the latest round. Where the fund invested recently, the model is calibrated to return that price at that date, and later inputs are adjusted for what has moved since, such as trading against plan, peer multiples and milestones. Debt positions are valued on yield against current market rates for comparable risk, with enterprise value cover as the cross-check, and a convertible note may need to be split under AASB 9 into a host debt and an embedded derivative that is remeasured each period.
Impairment work under AASB 136 begins before any modelling, with the definition of cash-generating units and the allocation of goodwill, because a unit drawn too wide lets a healthy division prop up a failing one and auditors look for exactly that. Value in use then follows the standard's rules: cash flows for the assets as they currently stand, with expansion capital and uncommitted restructuring excluded, a terminal growth rate supported by long-run evidence, and a pre-tax discount rate solved by iteration from a market-based post-tax weighted average cost of capital rather than grossed up. For a Brisbane construction or engineering group with uneven project revenue, the forecast is tested against the contracted order book and the tender pipeline the board has actually approved. When value in use is close to the carrying amount we also estimate fair value less costs of disposal on market participant assumptions, because recoverable amount is the higher of the two and testing only one can produce a write-down that should never have happened.
Purchase price allocation under AASB 3 identifies each intangible and values it with a method that suits it: multi-period excess earnings for customer relationships, relief from royalty for brands and technology, a with-and-without comparison for restraint covenants, and replacement cost for the assembled workforce as a contributory asset. The returns implied for each asset are reconciled to the return on the whole transaction, which is the test the auditor will run. The same work becomes the base for the first impairment test and the tax cost setting exercise, and the sensitivity and headroom analysis is built in the layout the notes need, so it goes straight into the disclosures rather than being reconstructed after year end.
These are the findings that turn an ordinary audit into a modified opinion, a restatement or an exchange of letters with ASIC.
Because these valuations are written for an auditor, and sometimes for a regulator reviewing the auditor's work, nearly all of them are certified. The exception is early planning, when a board wants to know whether a write-down is likely, or how a proposed acquisition would change the balance sheet, before it commits.
The report follows the order in which an auditor works: the accounting question, the unit of account, the measurement date, the information used, the method and the reason for choosing it, each input with its source and date, the calculation, the sensitivities and the disclosure schedule. Each judgement is explained in plain words where it is made, so a reviewer in an Eagle Street audit office can follow it without rebuilding the model.
A certified valuer signs every report, answers the auditor's questions in person, takes the audit committee through the sensitivities and defends the conclusion if it is challenged, including as an expert witness in the Supreme Court of Queensland should a reported value become part of a commercial dispute. We plan the engagement around your close timetable and work with your finance team and auditor from the outset, because a valuation delivered after the accounts are signed is an argument rather than evidence.
If the auditor rejects one assumption, how far does the conclusion move, and is that already known? A valuation that cannot answer straight away has not been stress-tested.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.