Patent ID: 8606664

Claim:
A computer-implemented system for generating a business valuation report over a network responsive to input company information, comprising: a tangible computing processor; a network port in data communication with the processor and operative to couple the processor to a network; a non-transitory computer readable storage device in data communication with the processor and having encoded thereon computer executable instructions operative to implement: a graphical user interface that prompts a valuation requester to input information of a company including general information, financial information, and presence information of the company; a query engine that queries third party locations on the network for information related to the company; a valuation engine having a plurality of rules for calculating, in accordance with the rules, a tiered business valuation of the company using the input company information and the information related to the company from the third party locations; a reporting engine operative to deliver the tiered business valuation in a report to the valuation requester; wherein the calculating the business valuation by the valuation engine includes steps of: calculating a multiple-year-weighted average of at least one of revenue, pretax income, and inventory; determining a valuation multiplier based on at least one of a North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code, a projected revenue growth, and a long term earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (ebitda) calculating a seller's discretionary earnings (SDE) value as at least a sum of year-weighted averages of pretax income, salary, benefits, interest expenses, and costs, and adjusting for inflation; adjusting the SDE based on year-over-year pre-tax income growth and year-over-year revenue growth; calculating the valuation based on a product of the SDE and the valuation multiplier, adjusted based on at least one of recurring revenue as a percentage of total revenue, a number of patents owned, and a percentage of sales from a select number of top customers; and wherein the plurality of rules pertain to at least a portion of the input company information and thresholds for its modification which if exceeded, generate a recommendation to obtain a revised business valuation report.