From VS Section 100 to IVS: What Valuation Analysts Need to Know About Bridging the Two Standards

As valuation work becomes increasingly global, more valuation analysts need to satisfy not just the standard they trained on, but a second one imposed by a cross-border client, a foreign regulator, or an international professional body. For US-based analysts, that usually means reconciling the AICPA’s Statement on Standards for Valuation Services No. 1 (“VS Section 100” or “SSVS”) with the International Valuation Standards (“IVS”) issued by the International Valuation Standards Council.

The AICPA has published a bridging resource to help with exactly this problem. It isn’t a substitute for reading either standard in full, and it only runs in one direction – from a VS Section 100-compliant report toward IVS compliance, not the reverse. But it’s a useful map for where the two standards line up and where they don’t. Here’s a distillation of the key points.

The starting premise: similar, but not interchangeable

Both standards exist to guide the valuation of businesses, business interests, and intangible assets. And both require adherence to a code of ethics – the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct on one side, the IVSC Code of Ethical Principles for Professional Valuers on the other. Both are also mandatory depending on membership or jurisdiction rather than optional style guides.

The critical caveat the AICPA raises up front: compliance with one standard does not automatically mean compliance with the other. Each engagement has its own facts and circumstances, and closing the gap may take more or less work depending on how you structure the report.

Structural differences

VS Section 100 is organized sequentially, mirroring the order a valuation analyst would actually work through an engagement: overall engagement considerations, development, then the report itself. IVS, by contrast, is set up as interlocking modules:

• Five General Standards (IVS 101-105) covering scope of work, investigations and compliance, reporting, bases of value, and valuation approaches/methods – applicable to any asset type.
• Eight Asset Standards (IVS 200-500) that layer on asset-specific requirements. For business and intangible asset work, the relevant ones are IVS 200 (Business and Business Interests) and IVS 210 (Intangible Assets).

This matters because IVS has a much wider scope than VS Section 100 – it also covers real property, plant and equipment, financial instruments, and more. A valuation analyst working under IVS needs to know which asset standards apply to their specific engagement.

Terminology: same concepts, different words

The two standards don’t always use the same vocabulary for the same idea, and the AICPA’s comparison table flags several worth memorizing:

Two of these deserve special attention.

Calculation engagements don’t survive the bridge. VS Section 100 permits a “calculation engagement” – a narrower scope of procedures agreed with the client that results in a calculated value rather than a full conclusion of value. IVS has no equivalent concept. A calculation engagement will not meet IVS’s minimum requirements without substantial additional work.

IVS recognizes in-house valuers; VS Section 100 does not. VS Section 100 applies only to AICPA members performing valuations, which effectively excludes purely in-house (employed) valuation work from its scope. IVS explicitly covers valuations by “employed” valuers as well as “engaged” (third-party) valuers, and it also addresses valuation reviews – critique-style engagements that VS Section 100 doesn’t contemplate at all.

A different kind of rulebook: prioritization language

One of the more practically important differences is how each standard signals mandatory versus discretionary requirements. IVS uses a formal three-tier hierarchy – “must”, “should”, and “may” – throughout the text. VS Section 100 doesn’t use this kind of prioritization language; it generally relies on the valuation analyst’s professional judgment to determine what’s relevant and what belongs in the report. Analysts converting a report to IVS compliance need to comb through IVS looking for “must” language, since those are non-negotiable whereas VS Section 100’s more judgment-based approach isn’t.

Departures and exceptions

Both standards allow analysts to depart from their requirements when a regulatory or other authoritative requirement forces a different approach – but they handle disclosure differently.

• VS Section 100 carves out specific exceptions (e.g., mechanical computations involving no professional judgment) and allows disclosure of jurisdictional departures in the report’s introduction, at the analyst’s discretion.
• IVS requires disclosure of any departure, and if the departure “significantly” affects the analyst’s duties, the report must spell out the specific requirement being followed and how it differs from IVS. Notably, IVS explicitly prohibits departures that aren’t driven by legislative, regulatory, or other authoritative requirements -there’s no room for a discretionary departure the way there arguably is under VS Section 100.

Development: approaches and methods

Both standards recognize the same three valuation approaches – income, asset/cost, and market – and largely agree on the underlying methods. But IVS layers on requirements that VS Section 100 doesn’t articulate as explicitly:

Weighting

IVS formally defines “weighting” as the process of reconciling different value indications, and each approach section explains the conditions under which that approach should receive significant weight. VS Section 100 doesn’t use this vocabulary, even though experienced analysts already do this kind of reconciliation as standard practice.

Income approach

IVS breaks the income approach into granular sub-sections – discounted cash flow, types of cash flow, forecast period, terminal value, Gordon growth model, discount rate, and more – each carrying its own “must/should/may” requirements. VS Section 100’s treatment (capitalization of benefits and discounted future benefits) is comparatively high-level.

Asset/cost approach

Here the terminology genuinely diverges. VS Section 100 draws a clear line between the “asset approach” (for businesses) and the “cost approach” (for intangibles). IVS doesn’t use the term “asset approach” at all – the closest analog is the “summation method” discussed under IVS 105. IVS also flags that the cost approach generally cannot be applied to business valuations, except in specific situations like early-stage, holding-company, or non-going-concern valuations.

Market approach

Both standards use the same two core methods – guideline public company and guideline transaction methods. But IVS imposes mandatory documentation requirements: analysts must perform a comparative analysis of qualitative and quantitative differences between comparables and the subject, and must document how any adjustments were derived and quantified.

Rule of thumb

Both standards agree a rule of thumb shouldn’t be used as a standalone valuation method. IVS goes further, stating that rule-of-thumb values shouldn’t be given substantial weight unless the analyst can show that buyers and sellers actually rely on them in practice. This is a documentation burden VS Section 100 doesn’t spell out.

Documentation and the report itself

Perhaps the most structurally significant difference sits at the reporting stage. VS Section 100 prescribes distinct report types – detailed, summary, and calculation reports – each with defined components. IVS prescribes no format at all. Instead, it requires that a report be sufficient for another appropriately experienced valuer, with no prior involvement in the engagement, to understand the work performed. At minimum, an IVS-compliant report must convey:

1. The scope of work performed
2. The intended use
3. The approach(es) adopted
4. The method(s) applied
5. The key inputs used
6. The assumptions made
7. The conclusion(s) of value and the principal reasons for them
8. The date of the report

The good news for US practitioners: with the exception of the calculation report, both the detailed and summary report formats under VS Section 100 are generally permissible under IVS, since their underlying components largely satisfy IVS’s minimum list.

One practical wrinkle worth flagging: IVS states documentation should include a copy of any draft report provided to the client – a practice many US firms avoid for litigation-risk reasons. Analysts bridging to IVS should think through how they’ll reconcile this with existing firm policy.

The bottom line

The two standards share a common DNA – both are built to produce transparent, well-supported, professionally defensible conclusions of value. But the path to get there differs enough that treating IVS compliance as an afterthought to a VS Section 100 report is risky. The recurring themes to watch for are:

• IVS’s broader scope (all asset types, not just businesses and intangibles)
• Its formal “must/should/may” hierarchy, which often demands more explicit documentation
• Its rejection of calculation engagements and the “asset approach” as defined terms
• Its inclusion of employed (in-house) valuers and valuation reviews
• Its more prescriptive, requirement-driven approach to departures, weighting, and market-data adjustments

None of this replaces a careful read of both standards for the specific engagement at hand. And, as the AICPA is careful to note, this kind of bridging document is a starting point, not a compliance guarantee. But for analysts accustomed to VS Section 100 who are increasingly asked to work across borders, it’s a solid framework for knowing where to look first.