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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
A Crown Street litigation practice, a tax and advisory firm in North Wollongong or a conveyancing and estates office in Shellharbour: each is worth what its fees will still bring in once a partner has left, which is a different question from what it billed last year.
A Wollongong accounting or law firm is valued by charging each partner at the market cost of the work they do, then capitalising the profit that remains. The rate applied to that profit rises or falls with the share of fees that recur every year, the length of client relationships, dependence on a few large accounts, and whether clients belong to the firm or to a single partner.
Most requests start with a partner's plans. A founding principal of a CBD accounting practice wants to move to part-time and the remaining partners need a price for the interest they will acquire. Two firms, one in Fairy Meadow and one near Crown Street, are exploring a merger and want to measure what each side brings on the same basis. A partner leaving a commercial law practice finds that the formula in the deed gives a result nobody accepts. A separating spouse's interest in a firm has to be valued at a fixed date for the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia. Or the practice is shifting from a partnership into a company and a market value is needed to support the move.
Many valuations take place with no transaction in view. Exit clauses written when a firm was smaller often point to net book value or a set multiple of fees, and neither follows current earnings. An up-to-date market value gives partners a shared reference point, so the discussion is about a number and not about the intent of an old clause.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Income Approach takes the lead. Whoever buys a practice, whether an incoming partner or a larger firm, is buying a stream of repeat fees. The valuation therefore centres on the profit those clients generate after each partner's time is paid at what the market would charge.
In most engagements we capitalise future maintainable earnings, working from three to five years of results. The capitalisation rate is built up with firm-specific loadings, chiefly the proportion of income tied to the biggest clients and the proportion that would follow a particular partner elsewhere.
Where the next few years will not resemble the last few, a discounted cash flow is the better tool. Examples are two firms part-way through integration, a large client that has said it is leaving, a planned move from compliance work into advisory, or a senior partner whose clients may not stay. One capitalised year cannot capture a shift that unfolds over several.
Prices paid for firms of similar size and work mix help us judge whether the income result is sensible. Fee multiples quoted in the profession serve only as a sense check, because a single multiple would price a thinly profitable firm that leans on one client the same as a highly profitable firm with hundreds of clients.
Rarely the lead. Debtors, unbilled time, fit-out and the lease are restated at what they would realise and give a minimum value. A practice with dependable repeat fees usually sits comfortably above that figure.
This is the step at which two valuers most often land on different figures, so the report states each adjustment and why it was made. In Wollongong accounting, advisory and law practices the usual candidates are:
Where a firm's fees come from matters more than its street. Practices with offices in the Wollongong CBD and along Crown Street tend to carry a mix of commercial, property and litigation work, with clients ranging from owner-managed businesses and trades to health and education organisations and the suppliers and contractors around Port Kembla. Litigation and insolvency work that comes before the Local Court and District Court at Wollongong arrives matter by matter and is harder to forecast. Offices in North Wollongong, Fairy Meadow, Unanderra, Dapto, Albion Park Rail, Shellharbour and Kiama work more often for households, farming and rural landholders, builders and trade businesses, and deceased estates, where the same clients return each year.
Succession runs through the whole local profession. A good share of Illawarra firms and their clients are family-owned and run by people who are close to retirement, which keeps sales, estate planning and family transfers busy and means several principals may look to sell at once. In law firms the work mix shapes the method: wills, estates and conveyancing recur in a steady pattern, whereas commercial disputes and transactional matters arrive in uneven lumps and call for a longer history and a higher rate. Money a practice holds in trust belongs to its clients under the profession's trust account rules and is never part of the firm's value, although fees that are earned and recoverable disbursements can be.
The client base for this work has been widening. Across Australia the number of professional, scientific and technical services businesses rose 3.6 per cent in 2025 to 2026, and the national total of actively trading businesses grew 3.1 per cent to 2,814,778 (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2022 to June 2026, released 18 August 2026). Each of those businesses needs accounts, tax lodgements and contracts, the recurring work that firms outside the capital cities are valued on.
A firm valuation report starts by stating why it was written, the standard and date of value, and the documents relied on, flagging anything we could not verify. It then goes through each approach considered and the method applied, lists the normalisation adjustments with reasons, and draws the results together into a range, with the weighting explained in plain language.
Disputes between partners test that reasoning hardest. A disagreement over the price of a departing partner's interest can be decided in the Supreme Court of New South Wales in Sydney, or in the District Court, which sits at Wollongong. Under the Expert Witness Code of Conduct in the court rules, an expert's first duty is to the court, and opposing experts may be directed to confer and narrow the points in dispute. A report that cannot say why the income approach was preferred or how the rate was assembled will struggle there. Each report is prepared under APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services and is signed by a certified valuer who will give evidence on it if required.
Which assumption would the opposing expert challenge first, and what is the reply? A valuer who has done the work will answer straight away.
Choose an Indicative valuation if a partner wants a rough view of where their equity sits before raising retirement with colleagues or responding to an approach. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. Choose a Summary report when a partner is entering or leaving, two practices are joining, or a bank wants support for a loan. Choose a Detailed report where the figure feeds a Family Law Act property settlement, a deed dispute, or any matter in which a second expert will examine the working.
Depth follows the audience. The more likely a court, the ATO, a lender or a rival valuer is to test the figure, the more of the reasoning has to be set out in writing.
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.