Business-valuation is nothing simple. Every person out there will think that a business is worth more or less than what the next person will say. In fact, the only number that really does matter is the simple fact that it is worth what someone will pay for it and that number only occurs once the deal is done. But, there are ways of understanding what business-valuation could be. For that end, we will talk here.

Capitalized Earning. This is one approach to understanding the value of a business. What we are talking about here is the value of the return on the investment in a company as determined by an investor. It works by evaluating the risk that is involved with any investment.
Excess Earning. This method of business-valuation is quite similar but it splits off a return on assets from other earnings.
Cash Flow Method. In this method, those determining the value of a business will look at the businesss ability to support a loan as determined by the cash flow from the business. All numbers aside, this number can fluctuate with interest rates.
Tangible assets. This is one of the most straightforward methods. What your assets are worth is what the business is worth in this case. This method tends to be used when businesses are losing money.
EBITDA Method: Earning before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization method is used to help give a fairly straightforward answer to the business-valuation.
Cost to Create: While some companies are looking for a business to just take over, in some cases, they will purchase a company so that they can avoid the starting from scratch issues.

These are all methods of business-valuation and of course there are many more. What really matters though is the simple fact that someone needs to find a way to determine what the selling price of that business is. In many cases, financial analysts are the most helpful in determining business-valuation.