The short answer
Most business valuations in Australia take between two and seven weeks from complete documents to signed report, depending on the depth of the engagement. Single-expert reports prepared for court run longer still, because the timetable is set by the litigation, not the valuer.
Oliver Group works to a shorter, published timetable: a small-business draft is delivered in 2 business days and a medium-business draft in 3 business days, and for a large business the delivery date is agreed before commencement. Delivery time starts once payment and all required information have been received.
Within any timetable, the single biggest variable is not the analysis. It is how quickly the complete document set arrives. Engagements that begin with clean, complete information finish at the front of the range; engagements waiting on third-party documents finish at the back.
How long each type of valuation takes
Elapsed time is driven by the depth of the engagement and the state of the documents, not the size of the business. A larger business does not automatically take longer to value; a deeper engagement does: more methodologies tested, more evidence documented, more review before signature. These are the timeframes for the engagement types Australian business owners and their advisers actually commission.
| Engagement | How long it takes | What sets the time |
|---|---|---|
| Indicative range (calculation-level, unsigned) | The fastest option; timing quoted at engagement | Useful for early decisions; not a signed report and not suited to tax purposes |
| Oliver Group Small Business Valuation (annual turnover under $2 million) | Draft delivered in 2 business days | Payment and all required information received |
| Oliver Group Medium Business Valuation (annual turnover $2 million to $10 million) | Draft delivered in 3 business days | Payment and all required information received |
| Oliver Group Large Business Valuation (turnover over $10 million) | Delivery date agreed before commencement | Volume of financial history, or the evidence a start-up is valued on |
| Signed valuation report, general market | Two to seven weeks from complete documents | Depth of the engagement and how quickly documents arrive |
| Single-expert report prepared for court | Longer still | The litigation timetable, not the valuer |
| Valuation at a retrospective date | Add the time to gather historical evidence, which can take weeks | Contemporaneous financial statements, industry data and comparable transactions from the period |
The clock starts when the documents are complete
Every timeframe above runs from receipt of a complete document set, not from the day the engagement letter is signed. That distinction matters more than any other single fact about valuation timelines. The discovery call, engagement letter and fixed fee are usually settled within a day or two. Then the document request goes out: financial statements for the last three to five years, current year-to-date management accounts, tax returns, shareholder and trust records, related-party loan schedules, key contracts and leases, and supporting evidence for any claimed add-backs. When that material arrives complete, the analytical clock starts and runs predictably. When it arrives in fragments, the elapsed time stretches: not because anyone is working slowly, but because normalisation cannot begin on half a financial picture, and methodology selection cannot be finalised until the entity structure and the asset being valued are confirmed.
What actually causes delays
The analysis phase of a valuation is the predictable part. The delays come from information: specifically, documents that sit outside the client's own filing cabinet. The most common sources, in roughly the order we encounter them:
- ·Prior-year financial statements still in draft with the accountant: nothing can be normalised from a draft that may change
- ·Third-party documents: the lease from the landlord's agent, the franchise agreement from the franchisor, loan statements from the bank
- ·Related-party loan schedules that do not reconcile between entities, which must be resolved before the balance sheet can be relied on
- ·Add-back claims without supporting evidence: an owner-remuneration adjustment asserted but not documented has to be substantiated or excluded
- ·Ownership records that do not match ASIC: share transfers executed but never registered, trust deeds amended but not located
- ·For retrospective dates: contemporaneous evidence, financial statements, industry data and comparable transactions from the historical period, which can take weeks to assemble
What happens at each stage
The work runs in the same order on every engagement, whether the timetable is days or weeks. What changes with the depth of the engagement is how long each stage takes.
- ·Engagement: discovery call, engagement letter, fee fixed at engagement. Document request issued; completeness review on receipt, with gaps flagged immediately rather than discovered mid-analysis
- ·Normalisation: financial extraction, add-back testing, related-party adjustments, maintainable earnings. Methodology selection confirmed against the entity, the evidence available and the purpose
- ·Valuation: calculations across the selected methodologies, sensitivity analysis, identification of the supportable range and the most supportable position within it. Draft report written and issued for factual review
- ·Review and sign-off: the report is independently reviewed before it is issued: methodology challenge, evidence check, recalculation of key figures. If the reviewer is not satisfied the conclusion is the most supportable position, the file goes back
- ·Delivery: the signed report and evidence pack, an optional adviser collaboration call with your accountant or lawyer, and the working file archived and retained
The review step is not padding
Every Oliver Group report is signed under an independence statement and independently reviewed before it leaves, and the review challenges the file: is the methodology appropriate for the entity and purpose, is each input evidenced, do the calculations reproduce, and is the concluded position genuinely the one the methodology and evidence best defend. When the review sends work back, a multiple that needs stronger comparable support, an add-back that needs documentation, a discount whose magnitude needs tighter reasoning, that is the step doing its job, not the process failing. A report that skips independent review can certainly be delivered faster. It is also the kind of report that reads as thin when the ATO or a court asks who checked the work, and the answer is nobody.
When expedited turnaround is genuinely possible
Expedited delivery is genuinely possible when the conditions that normally stretch a timeline are absent: a current valuation date rather than a retrospective one, a single entity, accountant-prepared financial statements already finalised, the complete document set delivered at engagement, and a client and adviser who commit to same-day responses to information requests. Where a matter is retrospective, multi-entity or contested, we will say the timetable cannot responsibly be shortened, and explain why.
Working to a hard deadline
If there is a hard date, a contract exchange, a lodgment deadline your accountant is managing, a court timetable, tell us at the discovery call, not after the work has started. Sometimes an indicative range can inform the immediate decision while the signed report follows on its own timetable. And sometimes the deadline and the depth the matter requires are incompatible: in which case we say so and decline the engagement on those terms, rather than sign a file the timetable did not allow us to review properly. One boundary worth stating: the deadline itself, when the CGT event occurs, when the return is due, whether an extension is available, is tax and legal territory. Oliver Group prepares the independent valuation; your accountant and lawyer manage the dates it has to serve.