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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
A commercial partnership off Leigh Street, a tax and advisory practice in Norwood or an estates firm in the Adelaide Hills: each valued on the fees that would still come in after a partner walks out the door, not on a rule of thumb about turnover.
An Adelaide accounting practice or law firm is valued by costing each partner at a market salary for the work they do and capitalising the profit left over. The capitalisation rate depends on how much of the fee base repeats every year through tax returns, compliance, estates and conveyancing, how long clients stay, how much income rests with a few large clients, and whether clients are attached to the firm or to one person in it.
Retirement is the most common trigger in South Australia. A founding partner of a Unley tax practice is ready to step back and the remaining partners need a price for the share they will buy. A Prospect firm and a Glenelg firm are discussing a merger and want each side's contribution measured the same way. A litigation partner is leaving a CBD firm and the formula in the deed produces a number neither side accepts. A partner's interest needs a value at a fixed date for a property settlement in the Adelaide registry of the Federal Circuit and Family Court. Or the practice is moving from a partnership into a company, and the ATO will look for a market value to support the transfer.
Plenty of valuations happen with no deal in sight. Exit clauses drafted when the firm was half its present size often point to book value or a fixed fee multiple, and neither tracks what the practice earns now. A current market value gives the partners a shared starting point, so the conversation is about the figure rather than about what the clause was meant to say.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Income Approach leads. A buyer, whether an incoming partner or a larger firm, is paying for clients who keep returning, so the value rests on the profit that client base produces once each partner's time is charged at what the market would pay for it.
Most engagements capitalise future maintainable earnings. We normalise three to five years of results and then build a capitalisation rate with loadings specific to the firm, above all the share of fees held by the largest clients and the share that would follow one partner out the door.
A discounted cash flow takes over when the next few years will look different from the last few: two firms partway through combining, a major client that has signalled it will move, a deliberate shift from compliance work to advisory, or a retiring partner whose clients may not stay. A single capitalised year cannot show a change that plays out over several.
What buyers have paid for firms of similar size and practice mix tells us whether the income result is reasonable. The fee multiples traded around the profession are a sense check only: applied blindly, they give a thin-margin firm reliant on one client the same price as a profitable firm with hundreds of clients.
Seldom the lead. Debtors, unbilled time, fit-out and the lease, each restated to what it would bring in, set a floor, and a firm with a reliable fee base normally sits well above it.
Normalisation is where two valuers usually part company, so the report lists each adjustment and the reason for it. In Adelaide accounting, advisory and law practices the recurring ones are:
The fee risk in an Adelaide firm follows its client list more than its postcode. The larger commercial law firms and mid-tier accounting practices sit in the CBD, around the Square Mile and the East End, acting for government, defence and resources contractors, health and education bodies and the state's larger family companies, clients who tender their work and may follow a partner who changes firms. Litigation and insolvency practices appearing in the Supreme Court and District Court of South Australia earn by the matter. Firms in Norwood, Unley, Kent Town, Prospect, Glenelg, Marion, Modbury, Salisbury and Mount Barker act mostly for owner-managed businesses, farming and wine families and deceased estates, where the same clients return every year and fees are easier to forecast.
Succession is the theme that runs through the Adelaide profession. Many South Australian firms, and many of their clients, are family businesses whose owners are approaching retirement, which brings steady demand for business sales, estate planning and family transfers, and also means a lot of principals want to sell at once. For law firms the practice mix shapes the method: wills and estates, conveyancing and family law repeat in a predictable rhythm, while commercial disputes and transactional work arrive in uneven lumps that call for a longer history and a heavier rate. South Australian practices are regulated under the Legal Practitioners Act 1981 (SA), and money held in trust belongs to clients. It never forms part of a firm's value, though earned fees and recoverable disbursements can.
The market these firms serve grew over the past year. South Australia had 174,310 actively trading businesses at 30 June 2026, a net increase of 5,613 or 3.3 per cent over 2025 to 2026, and professional, scientific and technical services businesses grew 3.6 per cent nationally across the same period (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2022 to June 2026, released 18 August 2026). Every one of those businesses needs accounts, tax returns and legal documents, the recurring work suburban and regional practices are valued on.
A firm valuation report opens with what it is for, the standard and date of value, and the documents we relied on, noting anything that could not be checked. It then works through every approach considered and the method used in each, lists the normalisation adjustments with their reasons, and brings the results together into a range, explaining the weighting in ordinary language.
Partner disputes put that reasoning under the most pressure. An argument over the price of a departing partner's share can end up before the Supreme Court of South Australia, where the court's expert evidence rules require the expert's duty to the court to come first and the experts may be asked to confer and narrow what is in dispute. A report that cannot say why the income approach was preferred, or how the rate was put together, will not get through that. Each report is prepared under APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services and carries the signature of a certified valuer who will give evidence on it if asked.
Which assumption would the other side's expert attack first, and how would you answer it? Someone who has done the analysis will not need time to think.
Choose an Indicative valuation if a partner wants to know roughly where their equity sits before raising retirement with the others or answering a firm that has made contact. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. Choose a Summary report if a partner is coming in or going out, two practices are combining, or a bank wants support for a loan. Choose a Detailed report if the figure is for a Family Law Act property settlement, a deed dispute, or any matter where another expert will go through the working.
The question that sets the depth is who will challenge the figure. A court, the ATO, a lender or a rival valuer will each expect to see far more of the reasoning than the partners need for themselves.
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.