During his session on reasonable compensation at the Forensic and Valuation Conference hosted by the Virginia State Society of CPAs, Neil Beaton (Alvarez and Marsal) discussed the various compensation benchmarking surveys and subscription databases. Be careful, he cautioned, because some of these are “black boxes” that use algorithms to generate data that could be challenged (he had a case where that was an issue). ERI was one that was mentioned that does not give the recipe for its “secret sauce.” Therefore, make sure you know what’s underlying the data—and use multiple sources in case one gets disqualified. He also suggested examining proxy statements from public companies for compensation data.