When you’re considering obtaining a business valuation to purchase, sell, refinance or buyout an investor in your company, or for any other reason, it makes sense to obtain a tangible asset appraisal to accurately assess the market value for your owned equipment and real property.

Quite often, business owners will have capitalized a significant amount of tangible asset cost as part of their operations for depreciation and tax purposes, however, years later, when it comes to updating the overall company value, they assume the internal net book dollar amount on these assets is a fair representation of actual market value, which in many cases is not accurate and could potentially result in money left on the table.

If a current tangible asset appraisal is not available in a business valuation, the certified appraisers will need to use the net book value of these tangible assets as reflected on the company’s financial statements, as this is the only available source of data. These net book values may be substantially different than the actual market value of the equipment and real property, which would create inequities in the appraised value of the overall business. Having a true understanding of all these important components of your company will allow you to make sound decisions going forward.

When completing a business valuation for any company, it is important to properly allocate the value to both the tangible and intangible assets of the company based on current market conditions, which will then gain you a full perspective on how to approach sale, purchase or refinancing opportunities.

The appraisers at Business Valuation Specialists (BVS) can discuss this issue with you during the valuation process. We have tangible asset appraisers on hand through our sister company Equipment Appraisal Services (EAS) as well as strong relationships with real property appraisers. Obtaining a business valuation appraisal together with updated equipment and real property appraisals will provide you with a full and complete picture of your business’ actual total worth allowing you to make highly informed business decisions with confidence and provide a competitive advantage.

Many hard working individuals have opted to leave the confines of larger corporations and create their own businesses based on the experience and expertise they have achieved during the earlier years of their career. Whether you have an engineering or manufacturing background, or run a woodworking or interior design operation that is guided by your own day to day decisions, obtaining a current certified independent business valuation is important in many ways.

It is always a smart decision to gain a clear and independent understanding of the true value of your business.You may be considering selling at a peak point in your operational cycle, or perhaps looking to create a new business development model. It may be important for you to raise capital to expand your current operation or to purchase a new business as a means of growing your company. You may even wish to simply leverage the equity you have already created for upgrades and improvements. The advantages a certified business appraisal will provide to you will be invaluable given any of these scenarios because you will have a clear understanding of what your business is worth in today's market.

Working closely with you as an owner operator, the certified appraisers at Business Valuation Specialists will walk you through the process and provide the insight you will need. They will analyze the value of your company with past, present and future scenarios considered, thus insuring you are able to make informed choices that will positively impact your business. A certified appraisal from one of our independent appraisers will also stand up to legal scrutiny thus giving you the peace of mind and confidence you will need to make crucial decision regarding your business.

With online food shopping and ordering on the rise and the demand for organic, ethically-sourced, vegan, gluten-free or paleo, the prepared food delivery service industry has emerged as a fast growing business segment. Consumers are turning to these business for a reasons that go beyond just convenience. They have become a way to try new cuisines and dietary options without compromising taste or ingredients in the comfort of their homes. For those interested in entering this market, growing their operation or looking to take advantage by selling, the importance of obtaining a current business appraisal cannot be understated.

Knowing the financial value of a prepared food delivery service business provides you with a basis for marketing the operation, securing bank financing or investor equity to expand, gain a better perspective when offering to purchase, or add leverage in a sale, where value credibility is critical in decision making. You will be better prepared to make key decisions with confidence.

A certified business appraiser, like those at Business Valuation Specialists, will go over your company's finances, look at competitors, consider market forces and a wide range of other information to determine an overall value. This information all feeds into an analysis that will arrive at a fair and accurate valuation of your business. The appraisal will be supportable and stand up to scrutiny. 

By working with one of our certified business appraisers, you will receive a comprehensive report that will give you the necessary tools to accomplish whatever goals you have in the future. Throughout the process, you will also gain a better understanding of your company's strengths, weaknesses and what risks may be worth taking. 

With all the craziness that 2020 has brought along with it, from COVID-19 to civil unrest, to wildfires and storms causing broad power outages, one way of counteracting the uncertainty of your company’s future is to have an updated business valuation completed which not only focuses on historic performance but projected outcomes as well.

Working with you and your company’s key personnel, the certified appraisers at Business Valuation Specialists will walk you through the process and provide insight as to the key information needed to analyze the value of your company with past, present and future scenarios considered.

You may want to consider selling in the current market, capitalize on buying a business which needs further examination, or reaching out to new investors and financial institutions who can provide the necessary capital to get you through these tumultuous times. Regardless of the reasons why, it is always a smart decision to obtain an independent valuation which will hold up to the scrutiny of the parties involved in the transaction.

The experienced, certified appraisers at Business Valuation Specialists are ready to discuss the next steps with you. We look forward to the opportunity to work with your business as you continue to wade through these difficult times.

Whether your company is expanding or going through a downturn, being purchased or sold, audited or invested in, refinanced or liquidated, it is important to understand the real market value of your business for you, your partners, employees and key third parties involved with your operation.

Obtaining a business valuation from a qualified appraisal firm such as Business Valuation Specialists can provide you with firsthand knowledge of the value of your company and what to expect should you wish to buy, sell, refinance or bring in new investors. A formal appraisal analysis and report can assist you in any number of ways as you move through the next phases of your company’s development and can be shared with third parties who may be assisting you with these project plans.

We will work closely with you to determine the critical information needed to complete the valuation analysis and answer any questions you may regarding the process. The experienced, certified appraisers at Business Valuation Specialists are ready to discuss the next steps with you. We look forward to the opportunity to work with you and your business as a key component to your ongoing business projects.

How Does Valuation Consulting with Accounting Firms Work?

Let's start by taking a look at the differences between certified business appraisers and accounting firms. Accounting firms provide ongoing support to companies in terms of bookkeeping and financial records, including required reporting. This gives the business an easy way to quickly determine where the business is at the moment, but doesn't tend to provide deeper details about how the company is running in terms of efficiency and operations. By comparison, a business valuation takes an in-depth look at how the company is doing at a specific moment in time, not only in terms of finances, but also in terms of market demand, operational efficiency, financial issues such as boom years or high expenses, projected future income and a wide range of other variables that you won't find in most accounting documents.

Though many business owners choose to limit their use of business valuations to points when a business is being bought or sold, it does have value in a range of other circumstances. When faced with an IRS audit or if you're turning in tax paperwork that is more likely to be audited, having a valuation consultation on your business helps ensure that everything is ready to go before the process. Similarly, before financial filings are made, having a business appraiser look over the business value with your accounting firm helps ensure that no mistakes are made and that your company is properly valued in the filing process.

In some situations, a company's accounting firm may need to work directly with a business appraiser to ensure that the appraisal data is conforming to the accounting and tax requirements of the business' specific structure and organization. As with any business valuation, there is a period once the valuation report has been completed during which a thorough review allows for amendments to be made to the report, if specific issues arise, but for the most part, working directly with the accounting firm or department helps eliminate many of these issues before they arise, which is why they are more common during consultations due to the complexity of finalizing financial statements or working with tax agencies.

By having a better idea of what happens when valuation consulting with accounting firms needs to happen to sort out a specific tax or financial situation, you'll be better able to deal with any questions that may arise during the process. However, it's important to make sure that your accounting firm is working with a certified business appraiser in these situations. This is because a certified appraiser has gone through specific training to ensure that they're using time-tested methodologies in their calculations. These methodologies have been used in a wide range of circumstances, including financial and tax agency situations, which helps ensure that you'll get a proper accounting of your business value.

When your business is keeping the power on for your customers, the value of your electric utility company may not seem important. However, that value can make a huge difference in how easily you can grow your business, whether it's through a merger or simple expansion as your region becomes more populated. But how do you determine the overall value of your utility? An electric utility company appraisal can go a long way to giving you a solid grasp of your business' value. Here's what happens in the process.

How Does an Electric Utility Company Appraisal Take Place?

Let's start by taking a look at the kind of factors that can impact your electric utility's value. How many of your customers pay on time with their payments versus those who are behind? This can have a strong impact on your cash flow. What's the size of your customer base and is it growing or shrinking? If the population in your area is growing, you may end up seeing more apartment and commercial customers, which can grow your business. What condition are your utility's assets in? If you replaced all of your transformers in the past few years following a major disaster, they'll have a higher value than those that will need to be replaced soon.

This information is among the data that a certified business appraiser will consider when they're calculating the estimated value of your electric utility company. They'll take this kind of information into account, as well as looking at your company's financial state, competition and similar factors that can impact your ability to compete in the market.

To start, the appraiser will gather information about why you need the appraisal performed and your finances. This allows them to determine the best methodology to use in your circumstances. In many situations, there are legal precedents that require the appraiser to follow a specific method when calculating your company's business. As they look at your finances, they'll look for unusual transactions, such as the huge expenses you had the year that the hurricane wiped out 90% of your infrastructure or the year you gained several large box stores as customers who paid for their own infrastructure upgrades.

Once the finances have been sorted, the appraiser will look at the competition, local market and expected future changes to your business to help estimate the value. They may also look at information from publicly-traded electric utility companies that have similar revenue, receipts or transactions to yours to determine value. Income can be projected out into the future to calculate value as well. In almost all situations, the value of an electric utility company is more than the simple value of its assets.

How is a Private Medical Practice Valuation Different From Other Business Valuations?

There are a number of factors that impact your private medical practice's overall value. To start, what is your company's reputation in the community? If your business has a reputation for exceptional patient care, unique approaches to treatment or being able to provide at-home care for patients, these types of factors can greatly increase your company's bottom line. Why? This type of treatment is often sought out by those who want to make sure their family is well-cared for, to seek out treatments that are not commonly offered or to avoid having to move a sick child to have an evaluation and treatment plan developed.

What about the people who make your private medical practice exceptional? If you have top-performing doctors and nurses, you'll often have a larger following and will have people flock to your practice to receive treatment from these individuals. By comparison, if you have poorly-performing staff, patients may be reluctant to seek treatment at your facility, lowering your company's overall value due to lower demand.

Are you in a rural or urban area? Specialist medical practices in urban areas are often worth more than a general practice in a rural area, partially due to the availability of local patients as well as the demand for specialty treatments. However, many rural private medical practices have lower expenses and may have a devoted following, especially if the main practitioners have been a part of the community for many years.

How up-to-date are your practice's assets? If you have out-of-date equipment or are unable to keep up with changes in technology due to budgetary constraints, patients may seek care elsewhere to receive more exacting imaging and test results. However, if the race to have the latest and greatest equipment has put your practice into debt, that may result in a lower overall business value.

When your business involves the great outdoors, planting and nurturing the earth in a landscaping company, the value of your business may seem ambiguous at best. How do you determine the value of your company? A landscaping business appraisal can help, but to fully understand the appraisal report you'll receive it's important to understand the different approaches to appraising your landscaping company. Here's a quick summary to help get you started.

What Are My Options During a Landscaping Business Appraisal?

Asset-Based Appraisal

An asset-based appraisal looks specifically at the value of your company's assets: lawnmowers, real estate, vehicles and similar assets. It's based on the idea that a smart buyer will only pay what the company's assets are worth, but it misses out on a lot of other areas, such as the goodwill you've developed in the community, future income or the market value of your business. This is why this type of appraisal is usually only used by companies that are failing or facing insolvency, because a business outside of these conditions will have some additional value that needs to be carefully considered during a sale, transfer or merger.

Income-Based Appraisal

Because so much of your company's income is based on the services you provide, an income-based appraisal may make a lot more sense for your business. This type of approach looks at your company's income for the past several years and projects it out into the future. At that point, the value of your future business income is estimated to help determine the company's value. This approach uses a couple of different methods, one of which, capitalization of earnings, is based on regular income and the other, discounted earnings, which is based on irregular income or business growth. In either situation, the appraiser will take into account any unusually high income or expenses, such as a large project or replacing an unusually high amount of equipment, and will provide a journal adjustment entry to normalize the unusual income or expense.

Market-Based Appraisal

If your business has been very successful in the recent past and there's a lot of demand for your company's services well into the future, an interested buyer may be willing to pay more because of anticipated high future growth. This market-based approach can use a wide range of factors, but will often base the value on a similar publicly-traded company's value. Because publicly-traded businesses have to file financial information, it's easy for the appraiser to match your company's transactions, discretionary earnings or revenue multiples to one of these companies and then make small adjustments to the figures to reflect your privately-held company's expected market value. This substitution provides solid, publicly-available information to back up the estamted value of your business.

By understanding the approaches used in a landscaping business appraisal, you can make better use of the information you'll find in the appraisal report provided to you by your appraiser. However, it's important to only work with a certified business appraiser, who can provide you with an estimate of value for your company that is based on sound, time-tested appraisal practices and methodologies. Make sure to ask your appraiser about their certification, because a certified business appraiser will always be happy to discuss these details with you.

Whether you're creating an intentional community for families or an independent living apartment complex, knowing the value of your community can help you leverage that value for future expansions and improvements in your business. But how exactly do you calculate the value of your community? One way to get an accurate estimate of your community's value is through a congregate living business appraisal. But how does this type of business valuation work and what are the benefits you'll realize at the end of the process? Here's a quick look at how the overall process will go.

How Does a Congregate Living Business Appraisal Work?

As our world gets more and more connected, many people yearn for community and strong neighborhoods, while retiring seniors want a home where they can still enjoy their independence without feeling alone. Though many people focus on the congregate living community, the business behind it is just as important, with a great deal of forethought going into planning and activities to keep the community at the heart of the business thriving.

Knowing the financial value of that community provides your business with a basis for securing financing when it's time to expand, to fight bad tax assessments, to prove value for insurance claims and a wide range of other situations. It makes it easier to make smart decisions when you're considering making expansions to your community or getting into a different business model. The information helps you find places to improve your business, making it easier to make intelligent changes to your business.

The certified business appraiser will go over your company's finances, look at competitors, consider market forces and a wide range of other information to determine the overall value for your business. This information all feeds into a series of complex calculations that will arrive at a fair and accurate value of your business. An independent certified business appraiser will utilize accepted methodologies and approaches to value your business, whether the purpose is for potential purchase/sale, insurance, legal, financial or tax situations. The estimated value is supportable and will stand up to scrutiny.

Once this information has been fed into the appraiser's formulas, the research and analysis completed by the appraiser is then summarized in a certified report which can be presented to any third parties involved in the ongoing transaction as a supportable independent document. You can use the data within the report to spot areas where your business model is soft, where your community could be improved and a range of other purposes to help you build and grow your company. Many business owners use insights found within a business appraisal report for this purpose.

By understanding how a congregate living business appraisal works, you can get a better grasp on the overall value of your community, providing you with a solid tool for growth, improvement and expansion. However, it's of vital importance that you only work with a certified business appraiser through the process. By doing so, the valuation report you'll receive will have an estimated value that was calculated using standardized methodologies, providing you with a solid starting point for your business' future growth.