What’s a Cannabiz Worth? Ask a CPA.

The top 51 issues in handling valuations of marijuana businesses. 

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By CPA Trendlines Research

The growth of legal marijuana businesses, from growing to retailing, has opened a new niche—or really a bunch of niches—for CPAs.

Among them are bookkeeping, internal control, tax accounting and preparation, management, holding companies, and general business council. The opportunities are born of the complexities behind them.

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One of the opportunities is the valuation of these brave, new businesses as aggressive investors flood the market with fresh cash. “You’ve heard of the Gold Rush of the 1800’s,” one industry insider tells CPA Trendlines. “Well, this is the ‘Green Rush.'”

Now comes a new study issued by Business Valuation Resources LLC, “Marijuana Dispensaries: A Budding Industry Brings Opportunities and Challenges for Business Appraisers,” which presents some ideas worth thinking about.  Click here for a free preview of the new marijuana BV study.

“Legal marijuana is a very good business,” says Ron Seigneur, MBA, CPA/ABV, ASA, CVA, CFF, and a well-known advocate for CPAs in the art and science of business valuation. Seigneur, of Denver-based Seigneur Gustafson LLP, writes the introduction to the report. CPA Jim Marty of Bridge West CPAs, also Denver-based, authors much of the report. Marty has quickly emerged as one of a handful of nationally recognized accountants in the business.

Several factors contribute to the opportunities of valuation. And several other factors contribute to the complications. In all, CPA Trendlines finds dozens of points that shouldn’t go overlooked. Some are germane in any valuation engagement. Others are peculiar to the cannabis business. All require especially careful review in this fast-changing legal and regulatory environment.

Here they are: