@anjanja this probably isn't what you want to hear, but you don't consider acquisition-related costs like legal fees, finder's fees, general/admin fees as part of the acquisition cost because, well, you don't. that is just the way it is.
I mean, if you want to think about it logically, how much are you paying FOR the company ITSELF? how much are you paying to acquire the company's net assets? okay, you paid an appraiser to tell you how much they're worth, you paid a lawyer to draw up the paperwork, and yes, those costs are related to buying the company, but…well, when you pay cash or issue securities to the entity/its owners, you're doing that in exchange for their net assets, that's a cost of acquiring the business. when you pay cash to the lawyer, you're doing that in exchange for their legal services. you might need that in order to ultimately acquire the business, but that exchange isn't for the company's net assets.
it seems kind of trivial, but it's a very easy, and extremely important fact to remember. and you don't need to think about the logic, really, just if you see acquisition costs, expense them (unless they're costs associated with securities you issued to acquire the company, then they are reductions of paid in capital). honestly, my logic could be totally off-base here, but that's how I always thought about it – in the end, it doesn't matter, you just gotta expense them.
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