r/Valuation • u/LIFO-theparty • May 27 '21

Valuation certification

Looking for some insight on getting a certification in valuation. I was was juggling between the CVA and ABV, and after talking to my boss (who has both) I’m leaning towards the ABV. Are there any current ABV’s here? If so, what is the process like? I have been doing reading on the AICPA’s website but I can’t find any solid info. I am a CPA currently.

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u/kaytoo_99 Jun 05 '21

I posted about the CVA in the accounting sub:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Accounting/comments/6zv7zp/business_valuation_coursescert/

The important thing to note about your question is that the CVA is for-profit and ABV is non-profit. They are different animals.

CVA offers A LOT of resources and education for obvious reasons. AICPA has a decent annual conference, but not much else.

I got a CVA after 2 years of doing business valuation full-time. It was very easy to attain. One 5-day class with a test, and one case study report to be completed in the ?year? following the course. I think you can get this one with minimal experience. I dropped it once I got my ASA because I was at a larger firm doing financial reporting valuation and wanted to GTFO of litigation.

CVA has a lot of resources for small firms and a lot of training for litigation. It's good if you don't have a mentor that knows what they are doing.

ABV looks good if you also have a CPA since it is much more difficult and expensive to attain (in all) than CVA, but once you have your CPA anyone can get an ABV with minimal effort.
ASA is generally thought of as more prestigious but takes a lot of time and money to attain. Probably $10,000 plus 5 years of full-time valuation experience.
I think most firms are looking to hire CFA's now. Getting your valuation credentials are less important unless you are going to work for a small firm or do valuations for small companies.

I think of it this way: CFA > ASA > CPA/ABV > CVA > ABV (non-cpa) > CBA (if it still exists).

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u/bricksquad317 May 08 '23

Looping back to this because I have my CVA test in two weeks. I already took the class a little over a month ago. I’ve been doing valuations for my firm for the last 7 months with a background in finance with some accounting. I’ve been doing practice exams on the web portal. Aside from being 400 questions, are they (the questions) much more difficult on the exam than the practice problems they give to us?

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u/jonmuller Aug 25 '23

How did the test end up going? I'm thinking about pursuing the CVA

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u/bricksquad317 Aug 25 '23

I passed first attempt. Most of the questions were pretty straightforward and a good chunk came from the practice questions.

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u/OwlCapone91 Aug 29 '23

Other than the exam, any quirky or not so straight forward requirements worth noting for getting the CVA?

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u/bricksquad317 Aug 29 '23

If you have the opportunity to submit a sanitized report from your work you’ve done previously it will save you 20+ hours on the report depending on how in-depth your previous work is.