How valuation firms can refer clients for data licensing outside the engagement

The short answer for valuation practices

Valuation firms can refer clients to SourceX as partners, provided the introduction happens outside the engagement and never shapes the report. Raise the idea in a separate conversation, usually after delivery, disclose any reward you may receive and let the owner decide. Your conclusion of value stays exactly where your standards and the facts put it.

The company's records are licensed, not sold, to AI labs and data buyers, while SourceX handles the rights review, inventory, pricing, buyer review, contracting and delivery. The company keeps ownership, agrees one all-in price that already includes SourceX's fee, and is paid once.

Why valuation analysts notice records others overlook

A valuation engagement forces a structured look at a company's past. The information request list, the management interview about how the business developed, the normalization of several years of statements and, in purchase price allocations and impairment testing, the identification of customer relationships, technology and other intangibles all push you toward one question few advisors ask routinely: where does this history actually live?

Records are rarely the subject of the engagement. The systems behind the intangibles you analyze, though, are what AI buyers license: the CRM behind the customer relationships, the repositories behind the technology, the procedures and communications behind the workforce.

From the intangibles you analyze to records buyers license

A license is not a sale of the asset. Under 17 U.S.C. 201, copyright ownership can be transferred in whole or in part and any exclusive right can be transferred and owned separately, which is one reason a company can license specific uses of content it owns while keeping everything else.

The scope fence: what stays inside the engagement

Everything about licensing sits outside the engagement. Agree this fence with your engagement partner first.

Before you mention it to any client, work through these checks:

• Attest check: if your practice is part of a CPA firm, confirm the firm has no attest relationship with this client (audit, review, certain compilations or examinations of prospective financial information).
• State and credential rules: your state board's rule and your valuation credentialing body's ethics code add no restriction that applies here.
• Engagement status: the report has been issued, or you are not currently engaged by this client.
• Engagement type: the work is not litigation support, an expert designation, a marital dissolution or a dissenting-shareholder matter.
• Future work: if you will value this company again, you know how you will disclose the reward interest in that engagement letter.
• Consent and disclosure: you have the owner's permission to mention the company outside the firm, and a written note telling the owner a reward is possible.

Independence and fee rules for CPA-affiliated practices

Start with the AICPA Code if your practice sits inside a CPA firm or you are a licensed CPA. ET 1.520, the commissions and referral fees rule in the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct, draws its hardest line around attest clients: where your firm audits or reviews the client, or does certain compilations or prospective financial information examinations for it, a commission for recommending products or services to that client is off limits. For other clients, any commission or referral fee the rule allows has to be disclosed to the client.

Your state board may add restrictions of its own; the New Jersey Society of CPAs describes how New Jersey's rules go beyond the AICPA's, so check the rule in the state that licenses you. Analysts credentialed only by a valuation body should read that body's ethics code, which may treat objectivity and outside compensation in its own way.

Objectivity deserves attention even where no rule bars a reward. A financial interest in a client's licensing outcome is the kind of interest objectivity provisions are designed to surface, so think ahead to the annual ESOP update, buy-sell refresh or 409A that may bring the same client back.

This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Confirm with your own counsel, tax adviser or professional body before acting.

Which engagements lead to good candidates

The baseline does the first cut. SourceX looks for US companies that reached 50+ full-time employees at peak (contractors excluded), have operated and documented their work for several years, hold the rights to license what they created and have a sponsor with authority, such as the owner, CEO or CFO. Who qualifies has the detail.

Acquisition lenders who commission those reports can introduce borrowers themselves; see the guide for SBA lending and loan broker partners.

What a license would mean for later valuations

A license produces a one-time payment, and how the client recognizes it depends on the contract. Deloitte's roadmap on identifying the nature of a license sets out the ASC 606 split: a license conveying a right to use the intellectual property as it stands at grant is recognized at a point in time, and one conveying a right to access it throughout the term is recognized over time. The client's finance team and auditors work out which applies.

For your purposes, a signed license is a fact like any other: likely non-recurring, and subject to your judgment on normalization. Because licenses are usually exclusive for AI training during an agreed term, a later engagement may need to note that the same records are committed for that period. Our explainer on whether licensing data affects company valuation covers the questions acquirers and appraisers raise.

How an introduction works from a valuation firm

1. Clear the scope fence and decide whether the firm or the individual analyst will be the partner.
2. Register, and keep the referral link out of all engagement correspondence.
3. After the report is delivered, raise the idea in a separate call or meeting.
4. The owner applies through your link at sourcex.si/apply, or you submit the referral form with the owner's permission and basic fit details only.
5. SourceX checks the company against the baseline: peak headcount, years of history, how many systems hold records and who owns them.
6. The company inventories its systems and the years of records each one holds.
7. Price and terms are fixed with the company before any buyer sees the opportunity; buyers then review, usually answering within about two weeks once the company is deal-ready.
8. A signed agreement, delivery under redaction rules agreed in advance and a one-time payment to the company follow, and the partner reward comes after SourceX receives its fee.

Your role ends at step 4, and no workpapers or data room files ever change hands.

What to say after delivering the report

Separate it from the valuation and disclose in the same breath.

How rewards work for a valuation firm

Partners earn 25% of the eligible platform fees SourceX actually collects from the referred company's licensing deals, capped at $100,000 per referred company. Rewards become payable only after the buyer pays and SourceX receives its fee; an introduction, meeting or signed agreement alone does not trigger payment, and no reward is guaranteed.

The reward never comes out of the client's proceeds. Firm policy, and for CPA firms the rules above, may decide whether the firm or the analyst registers. If your firm also runs diligence work, the page for quality of earnings providers covers that side, and colleagues in tax and accounting can start with the page for accountants and bookkeeping firms.

Clients to leave alone

• Early-stage 409A clients and any other company that never reached 50+ full-time employees at peak.
• Businesses whose records mainly contain their own customers' data, such as outsourcers and agencies, without those customers' consent.
• Practices whose records are mainly patient information.
• Any company involved in a dispute where you are engaged or designated as an expert.
• Estates or companies where a court, trustee or assignee now makes the decisions and has not been consulted.
• Owners who rule out exclusivity for AI training during an agreed term.

Next step

Look back over the past year of delivered reports, pick the clients that fit the baseline, and check each against the scope fence; for contacts outside your client list, try the network opportunity finder. Then register as a partner, or point the owner to the company application at sourcex.si/apply. When the owner's counsel takes over the rights questions, the page for business attorneys explains how lawyers approach the same introduction.