In the transaction of a business asset for sale, fair value (or fair price) is a core issue to deal with. The business asset for sale may be a patent, a technology, a production line, a business unit or even one company as a whole. Setting a fair price itself is not an easy job.

The needs to valuating business assets are not just for transaction purpose only, after the assets are listed on the financial statements, they should be updated regularly to reflect their up-to-date value in response to the status changes of the underlying business and the economic fluctuation.

Financial statements are base reports for offering the financial information of a company status in international business asset transactions and corporate financing. Hence, the valuation methodologies and guidelines for assessing the fair values of all business assets should to a greatest degree follow a common standard, so can the asset values be consistently interpreted in the worldwide base. For this consideration, GAAP and IFRS propose a framework that includes suggested methodologies and guidelines.