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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
From a William Street litigation partnership to a tax practice in Glen Waverley: valued on the fees that keep coming once a partner steps back, not on a gross-fee rule of thumb.
A Melbourne accounting practice or law firm is valued by capitalising maintainable earnings once each partner's drawings are replaced with a market salary for the work they do. The rate applied turns on how durable the fee base is: the share of recurring compliance or estate work, how long clients stay, how much rests on a few large clients, and whether relationships sit with the firm or with one partner.
The trigger is usually a change in who owns the firm. A senior partner in a Box Hill tax practice is retiring and the remaining partners need a buy-out price. Two suburban firms in Bayside and Frankston are discussing a merger and each wants its contribution measured on the same basis. A partner is leaving a William Street commercial practice and the formula in the partnership deed no longer reflects the firm. A property settlement in the Melbourne or Dandenong registry of the Federal Circuit and Family Court needs a partner's interest valued as at a set date. Or an incorporation or restructure needs a market value that will stand up with the ATO.
Many partners also ask for a valuation with no deal in view. A formula written into a deed a decade ago often prices a share on book value or a fixed multiple of fees, and neither tracks what the firm now earns. Knowing the market value of your equity before the next partners' meeting turns an argument about a formula into a discussion about evidence.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Income Approach leads. What a buyer or an incoming partner pays for is a stream of fees that renews each year, so the valuation capitalises the earnings that stream will reliably produce once the firm is paying market salaries for the work.
In most engagements the method is capitalisation of future maintainable earnings. We normalise three to five years of results, then build a capitalisation rate whose firm-specific loadings usually come down to two questions: how concentrated the client list is, and how much of the work would follow one partner out the door.
A discounted cash flow is preferred when the firm is changing shape inside the forecast period: a merger still being integrated, an anchor client known to be leaving, a deliberate move from compliance into advisory work, or a partner retirement that will take part of the fee base with it. Each of those plays out over several years, and one capitalised year cannot show it.
Sales of firms with a similar size and service mix test where the income result sits. Rules of thumb that circulate in the profession, such as a fixed multiple of recurring fees, are used only as a sense check, because they treat a thin-margin practice with one dominant client the same as a profitable firm with a broad client base.
Seldom the lead. Debtors, unbilled work, the fit-out and the lease are restated to what they would realise, which gives a floor. A firm with a durable fee base will normally sit well above it.
Valuers disagree on normalisation more than on anything else, so each adjustment appears in the report with the reason for it. In accounting, advisory and law firms these come up again and again:
Where a Melbourne firm sits says a good deal about the risk in its fees. The CBD, Southbank and Docklands hold the large commercial practices and the mid-tier accounting firms, which compete for corporate and institutional work where clients tender regularly and relationships can move with a departing partner. The William Street precinct around the Supreme Court of Victoria and the County Court is home to litigation and insolvency practices whose income follows matters rather than calendar years. Suburban practices in Box Hill, Glen Waverley, Dandenong, Werribee and the bayside suburbs mostly serve owner-managed businesses, families and estates, where the same clients return each year and the fee base is easier to forecast.
For law firms the practice areas decide much of the method. Conveyancing, wills and estates, and family law tend to produce a steady, repeatable workload. Commercial litigation and transactional work arrive in larger, less predictable lumps, so a longer earnings history is used and the rate carries more risk. Victorian law practices are regulated under the Legal Profession Uniform Law, and money held in trust for clients belongs to those clients: it never forms part of the firm's value, although unbilled time and recoverable disbursements can.
The pool of clients these firms draw on keeps widening. The national count of professional, scientific and technical services businesses rose 3.6 per cent in 2025 to 2026, and Victoria added a net 19,581 actively trading businesses across all industries in the same year (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2022 to June 2026, released 18 August 2026). Each of those businesses needs tax, bookkeeping and legal work, which is the recurring base suburban practices are valued on.
Each report opens with why the valuation was prepared, the standard of value, the valuation date and the information we relied on, including anything we were unable to confirm. It then works through every approach considered, the method used under each and every normalisation adjustment with its reason, before reconciling the results into a range and explaining in plain words how they were weighted.
Partner disputes are where that reasoning is tested hardest. When partners cannot agree the price of a departing share, the matter can reach the Commercial Court of the Supreme Court of Victoria, where an expert must comply with the Form 44A expert witness code and may be directed to confer with the other side's valuer. A report that cannot say why the income approach was preferred, or why the rate sits where it does, does not last long there. Ours follow APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services and are signed by a certified valuer who will stand behind them.
Ask which assumption the other side's expert would attack first, and how the valuer would answer. A clear, immediate reply is a good sign the work is complete.
An Indicative valuation helps a partner form a view of their equity before a partners' meeting or a merger conversation. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. A Summary report fits a partner admission or retirement, a merger between firms or a lending application. A Detailed report is the right level for a family law property settlement, a dispute under a partnership deed, or any matter where another expert will scrutinise the opinion.
The likelier it is that a court, the ATO, a bank or a second expert will examine the figure, the more of the reasoning the report needs to show.
For internal decision-making. Useful for testing an offer, setting an expectation before a negotiation, or deciding whether to go to market. It is not written for third party reliance.
Sets out the approaches applied, the normalisation adjustments made and the reasoning behind the conclusion. The usual choice for a sale, an ownership change or a finance application.
Applies and reconciles all relevant approaches in full. The level required where a court, the ATO, a lender or another expert will review the opinion.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.