Asset valuation simply pertains to the process to determine the value of a specific property, that may be buildings, machinery, inventory, options, bonds, or other financial securities. Asset Valuation is conducted usually when a company or an asset is to be sold, insured, or taken over. The assets may be categorized into tangible and intangible assets.
Other examples of assets are company vehicles, IT equipment, investments, payments, and on-hand stocks.
• The company needs to look at its balance sheet and identify tangible and intangible assets.
• From the total assets, deduct the total value of the intangible assets.
• From what is left, deduct the total value of the liabilities. What is left are the net tangible assets or net asset value.
Importance of Asset Valuation
companies and organizations. There are many reasons for valuing assets, including the following:
Company Merger-Demerger, Acquisition, Hive-Off etc
Asset valuation helps identify the right price for an asset, especially when it is offered to be bought or sold. It is beneficial to both the buyer and the seller because the former won’t mistakenly overpay for the asset, nor will the latter erroneously accept a discounted price to sell the asset.
- Audit Purpose
- Funding Proposals
- Other Strategic Decisions
Fixed assets are tangible assets, and that means their quality can diminish over time.
It is important for companies to account for the depreciation of their assets. Fixed asset valuation is a method of accurately reflecting those assets on the balance sheet. There are multiple different types of fixed asset valuation approaches
- Cost Approach
- Market Based Approach
- Income Based Approach
Depreciation and
Obsolescence
Fixed Assets face continuous depreciation and get obsolete with the time and shift in technologies. The exact financial impact of Depreciation & Obsolescence on financial standing of company needs to be continuously captured by management.
There are several challenges facing auditors during this process that companies should consider:
The nature of the asset
How the assets are used
The life of the asset
Many methods call for a certain degree of speculation into the future, which always brings an element of the unknown into the process.