Helping Simplify the Complex
How do you quantify the time and energy you have spent growing your business? Your tangible assets and liabilities are only part of the equation. What about the goodwill value you have worked so hard to establish? In today’s economic world and business marketplace, knowing the value of your business is a necessity. Our business valuation professionals use recognized and generally accepted methodologies in developing approaches to determine the value of both the tangible and intangible assets that constitute your business enterprise. Their analyses and conclusions are offered in a detailed report format, or in certain circumstances, a calculation report or oral report tailored to your specific needs.
Our business valuation professionals’ process relies on an in depth review, analysis, and understanding of your business’ history, present capacity, future prospects, and operating structure in the development of our work product. Their experience, specialized training, and extensive knowledge of business valuation principles and techniques, business practices, industry and economic trends in combination with their familiarity with the federal, state, and local tax and securities laws help to provide you with a credible and understandable result.
There are a wide variety of situations that require an objective determination of a business entity value that encompass different standards of value (fair market, judicial, intrinsic, investment, or synergistic values) and/or ownership structures. Purposes of the valuation may be for transactional agreements (buy/sell/merge), gift and estate tax planning, stock compensation arrangements, employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), eminent domain, litigation and succession planning.
Business valuations are also used in litigation support for a number of legal matters, including: bankruptcy, divorce, economic damages, fraud, eminent domain, and partner or shareholder disputes. During times when emotions are running high and the stakes are even higher, you can be confident in our team’s ability to deliver a business valuation that is thorough, accurate, and based upon knowledge of current conditions, but also the knowledge that comes from years of practical experience applying recognized valuation approaches, detailed analyses, and research.
Our business valuators are all Certified Public Accountants (CPA) who have also met the rigid professional training and testing requirements to earn the designations of Certified Valuation Analyst (CVA) - National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts (NACVA) and/or Accredited in Business Valuation (ABV) - American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).
Fraud Detection and Prevention
In these challenging economic times, fraud is as prevalent as ever. Small businesses are often hit the hardest, continuing to suffer disproportionate fraud losses. The median loss suffered by organizations with fewer than 100 employees is higher than the median loss in even the largest organizations. The most common occupational frauds in small businesses involve employees fraudulently writing company checks, skimming revenues, and processing fraudulent invoices.
As a business owner, your best line of defense is to limit the opportunity for fraud to occur – our team of Certified Fraud Examiners (CFEs) has met the rigorous training requirements of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) and is prepared to help you detect and protect your business from fraud. We offer forensic accounting services for a variety of engagements, including: litigation support, management advisory engagements, and business consulting engagements.
Forensic accounting and CFE services are used for a number of business purposes such as shareholder and owner dispute resolution, merger and acquisition due diligence, embezzlement and theft loss cases, purchases of businesses subsequently determined to be based on fraudulent financial reporting, and insurance recovery claims from loss due to theft or fraud. Some personal situations may also warrant the use of forensic accounting services: divorce cases including discovery of hidden assets and property settlements or business valuations (of closely held companies) based on financial statements or information that is fraudulent or in error; bankruptcy cases including fraudulent financial reporting, property transfer schemes, inflated appraisal schemes, and property flip schemes; and unauthorized or fraudulent transfers by guardians or power of attorney. Our CFEs also offer expert witness services related to these types of cases.
