Property valuation software in Australia: what a firm actually needs

Search for property valuation software in Australia and you will find three different kinds of product sharing one name. Some write the report. Some carry instructions between lenders and valuers. Some run the business around the report. A firm that buys the wrong kind ends up paying for features it cannot use and still keeping the spreadsheet it wanted to retire.

Most Australian valuation firms are small. IBISWorld puts the industry at $732.2 million in revenue across 2,068 businesses, which works out at roughly $354,000 a business on average. Jobs and Skills Australia counts about 5,200 valuers in work. Beside a handful of national firms, most of those businesses are sole practitioners and practices of a few valuers, and that is who this guide is for.

Three kinds of software share one name

Report software

This is what most valuers mean when they say valuation software. It produces the valuation report itself, usually in the Australian Property Institute's PropertyPRO format for residential mortgage work.

• PropertyPRO Plus is the Institute's preferred provider for the PropertyPRO pro-forma, and its own site describes its integration with ValEx.

• ValuePRO describes report templates, PropertyPRO format reports, iPhone and iPad inspections and Cotality data integrations. It has been owned by Volaris Group since 2019 and is listed from A$205 a month, usage based.

• e-valuers lists a quote to invoice workflow, valuation calculations, a client database and gateways to panel managers, and is sold on one, three and five year licences.

Plenty of firms still write in Word templates, and that is a legitimate choice for long-form and commercial work.

Panel platforms

Lenders use platforms such as Cotality's ValEx and Valocity to order valuations, set turnaround and manage their panels. The firm is a supplier on these systems, not the customer, and the lender decides which one you use. They are powerful, and they are not neutral: in 2024 New Zealand's Commerce Commission found that Valocity's ordering system may have been limiting competition among valuers because fees were pre-set and borrowers could not choose their valuer.

Practice software

Everything else a firm does sits here: taking the enquiry, sending a fee quote with terms of engagement, booking the inspection, issuing the tax invoice, collecting payment and keeping in touch with the solicitors and accountants who refer work. In a small firm this usually lives in Outlook, a shared spreadsheet job register, an accounting package and the principal's memory.

What a small firm actually needs

The report tool and the panel platforms are usually settled. The gap is the practice side, and it matters most for private and legal work, where the firm deals with the client directly. Landmark Valuations' mortgage guide puts a residential panel job at about $200 to $400, and a residential valuation the client commissions directly at about $400 to $700. At the middle of each range, every private job lost in an inbox is worth nearly two panel jobs.

Here is the list we would hold any practice software to:

• One record per client and referrer. The solicitor who sends three family law matters a year should have one history: every enquiry, quote, inspection, invoice, note and file.

• Enquiries that arrive complete. A website form or booking page should capture the property address, the purpose of the valuation and who referred the client, and create the record without anyone typing it again.

• Fee quotes with terms. Quotes built from your own fee list, with GST worked out, and terms of engagement the client signs online. Since 1 January 2025, ANZVGP 112 expects the scope of work and terms of engagement to be annexed to mortgage valuation reports, so a signed record of what was agreed is worth keeping for every job.

• Inspection booking that knows about travel. Your hours, buffers between inspections, minimum notice and no double bookings.

• Tax invoices and payment. GST tax invoices with your ABN, deposits before you start, card payment and reminders that stop once the invoice is paid.

• A place for clients to look. Quotes, invoices, inspection times and the final report in one place, so the phone rings less.

• Numbers you can act on. Where new clients come from, which referrers have gone quiet and what is quoted but not yet accepted.

• Australian from the first row. GST, ABNs, Australian phone and address formats, your time zone, and a straight answer on where the data is stored.

Questions to ask before you buy

Does it write reports, run the practice, or both? A product that tries to do both may do one of them well. Ask for a demonstration of the part you will use every day.

How is it priced? Per user, per job, usage based or on a multi-year licence? For comparison, Xero's Australian plans run from A$37 to A$143 a month including GST, and that is software nearly every firm already pays for.

Can you try it without a sales call? A principal who values by day and runs the firm by night needs to set it up in an evening.

Where is the data stored, and who else sees it? Valuation files hold personal and financial details. We wrote a separate guide on what to ask any software vendor about your data.

Can you leave? Ask how you export your clients, invoices and files, and what happens to your data when you cancel.

Where Valufield fits

Valufield started as practice software and now also runs the valuation job itself, from the enquiry to a released report. The valuer writes the report in a draft editor that starts from the report type's template, and the value, rates, adjustments and sales evidence are never written by Valufield or its AI. Keep your panel platforms for panel instructions. If you already use ValuePRO, PropertyPRO Plus or Word templates for report types Valufield does not cover yet, it runs the work around them. We explain how that division works in practice in Valufield and ValuePRO: how they work together.

What it does today:

• Website enquiry forms and booking pages that create the client record and note where the enquiry came from.

• Fee quotes from your own fee list with GST, signed online by drawing or typing a name, with a signed PDF that records the signer, time, IP address and a document fingerprint.

• Booking pages with your hours, buffers for travel, minimum notice and no double bookings, plus questions for the address, access and purpose.

• GST tax invoices with your ABN once you add it, deposit invoices from an accepted quote, and reminders before and after the due date that stop once the invoice is paid.

• Card payments once you connect your firm's own Stripe account, with your bank details on the same page for transfers. Stripe's card fees apply.

• Facts confirmed by the valuer before they reach the draft, including facts read from documents a client sends, each shown with a quote from the page.

• A draft editor for 19 report types, with AI suggestions for descriptive sections only, such as the locality or the condition of the improvements. AI never writes the value, rates, adjustments or sales evidence, and never sees licensed data.

• A report checker that runs 110 common checks, then a peer review that ties a second valuer's approval to the exact file.

• Release that waits for a clear check, the review and the fee, with a public page where anyone can confirm a released report is genuine.

• A client portal in your logo and colours where clients view and pay invoices, see quotes and inspection times, and download the files you share.

• Reports on new clients and where they came from, quotes, bookings, invoices and payments.

What it does not do yet: comparable sales, calculators, phone inspection capture and more report types are coming soon, it has no ValEx or LIXI connection, and MYOB and QuickBooks are not available. You can connect your Xero organisation so invoices and contacts go across and payments recorded in Xero come back.

If that division of labour suits your firm, the features page has the detail and pricing is published in Australian dollars.