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Guide

Preparing for a business valuation: giving the valuer a complete picture.

Owners ask for a valuation for many reasons: a planned sale, a shareholder leaving, a family succession, a relationship property settlement, a bank's request or simply to know where they stand. Whatever the reason, the valuer's opinion rests on the documents they receive, and gaps either slow the work or end up as cautious assumptions in the number.

This guide covers what a valuer typically asks for and how to give it to them in an orderly way.

What a valuer usually needs

Valuers work in different ways, and the purpose of the valuation shapes what they look at. Your valuer will send their own list. These items appear on most of them.

Earnings

  • Financial statements for three to five years, and current management accounts.
  • A breakdown of revenue by customer, product or location, to show concentration and trends.
  • Details of one-off or unusual income and costs, so earnings can be normalised.
  • Owners' salaries, drawings and personal costs paid by the business.

The future

  • Budgets and forecasts, with the assumptions behind them.
  • Planned capital spending, new contracts and known risks such as a lease expiry or the loss of a key customer.

Assets and obligations

  • The fixed asset register and any recent asset valuations, including property.
  • Loans, leases, guarantees and other commitments.
  • Inland Revenue returns and the current tax position.
  • The shareholders' agreement, constitution and share register, which may set rules on how shares are valued.

Handing it over

  1. 1

    Turn their list into a request list

    Load the valuer's list into a ShareAndGo document request list and assign each item to whoever holds it: you, your accountant or a manager.

  2. 2

    Invite the valuer

    The valuer confirms their email with a six-digit code and accepts your NDA before the room opens. No account to set up.

  3. 3

    Answer their questions in the room

    Valuers always have follow-up questions. Answer them inside the room, with categories and priorities, so the answers sit next to the figures.

  4. 4

    Keep the record

    The audit log records every document the valuer opened and when, chained so alterations are detectable.

When the valuation is contentious

Some valuations are prepared for one owner while another is watching closely, such as in a buy-out or a separation between business partners. In those cases it matters that both sides see the same documents. Give each side and the valuer their own group, with a shared folder of agreed documents that every group can open, and private folders for material that belongs to one side only.

If the accountant revises the normalised earnings workings, upload them as a new version. The valuer and both sides see the current file, and earlier versions stay in the version history, so the change is visible rather than quiet.

Personal information, such as owners' drawings or family members' pay, can sit in a view-only folder. Pages are rendered on our side and watermarked with each reader's name, email address and the date, so the original never reaches their browser.

Getting years of records into shape

Five years of statements, contracts and returns rarely sit in one tidy folder. Drag what you have into a room and ShareAndGo keeps the folder structure, or let its AI suggest a structure and sort uploads into it. ShareAndGo reads text from documents, including scans, and tags, categorises and summarises them, so a valuer can search for a customer or a contract term and find it inside the files.

Owners can also connect Claude or ChatGPT to their workspace, with each room deciding separately whether an AI assistant may read it.

Frequently asked questions

Can the valuer download the accounts?
If you allow it. Download, print and copy are set per room and per group. Many owners allow the accounts to be downloaded and keep personal information view-only.
What happens to the room afterwards?
Keep it if the valuation feeds a sale or a succession plan, or export it as a ZIP with its folder structure and an index of every document, then revoke the valuer's access.
Can I see what the valuer has looked at?
Yes. Insights show who opened the room and what they read, and on Professional and Business plans how long each person spent on each document.

Related guides

A partner buy-out

When the valuation sets the price between owners.

Preparing a share sale

The next step after a valuation.

All guides

Every business process we cover.

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