• QuickRead Top Story - Valuation/Appraisal

    Grade Me: A 30-Minute Framework for Reviewing Valuation Reports

    The concept behind my “Grade Me” framework is straightforward: Valuation professionals can improve report quality by reviewing their work from the perspective of an informed reader who does not have the preparer’s background knowledge. A structured 30-minute review can identify issues before they become client concerns or litigation problems. Every valuation report is eventually reviewed by someone other than the person who prepared it. The reviewer may be a firm partner, a client, opposing counsel, a trier of fact, a regulator, a credentialing organization, or another valuation professional. Each reviewer approaches the report with a different perspective, but all are…

  • QuickPress - Valuation/Appraisal

    PCAOB: Asset Valuation is Most Common Big Four Audit Problem –WSJ CFO Report

    The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board found 123 audit deficiencies related to fair-value estimates and asset impairments in 2010, making asset valuation the most common audit problem. Market volatility always makes it tough to value assets fairly based on market prices.  But that doesn’t mean management forecasts—and the assumptions and methodologies of financial modeling used in corporate pricing—couldn’t benefit from additional scrutiny. Emily Chasan reports at the Wall Street Journal’s CFO Report blog: The Big Number:  123   That’s the number of audit deficiencies related to asset-valuation problems found among clients of the Big Four accounting firms in 2010. Market volatility…