Jack Ross Chartered Accountants, Manchester, est. 1948
Sell your accountancy practice. No broker fee.
Thinking of selling your accountancy practice and put off by broker fees and the multi-year earn-outs at the consolidators? There is a third route. We are a direct buyer: a Manchester chartered firm, ICAEW-regulated, founded 1948. Sell to us direct, no commission, three-quarters of the price in your bank within twelve months. If you have been searching for "sell my accountancy practice", this is what that looks like.
Thinking of selling your accountancy practice? There are three routes
If you are an accountant approaching retirement, or a principal of an accountancy firm thinking of selling your practice in the next 12 to 24 months, the UK market gives you three commercial routes to a buyer. Selling an accountancy practice in 2026 is materially different from 2016, but the choices are clear.
Route 1: Find a buyer through an accountancy practice broker. A broker introduces you to potential buyers and takes 3 to 5 per cent of the deal as commission, paid by you on completion. Industry-standard model with the highest visibility. Compared with direct sale here.
Route 2: Sell to a PE-backed consolidator. Higher headline multiples but a 3 to 5-year earn-out, equity rollover into the platform, and forced systems migration. Suitable for sellers comfortable with continuing involvement post-completion. Compared with trade buyer here.
Route 3: Direct sale to a chartered firm with capacity to absorb your client base. What sellmyfees does. No broker fee, no PE structure, named institutional acquirer, transparent 50/25/25 deal, single 85 per cent retention test, 12-week timeline from first call to first payment.
Who is the direct buyer for your accountancy practice?
Jack Ross Chartered Accountants. A Manchester firm, founded in 1948. An independent accountancy firm working across audit, tax, advisory, and cloud accounting. Regulated by the ICAEW and bound by the Code of Ethics in everything we do.
We are not a consolidator. We have no PE shareholders telling us to buy four practices a year, and we have no internal target to hit. We buy a practice when it fits us properly and we have the people and the money in place to do the deal well. The current position is that we are open to one acquisition, on the right fit.
The buyer named in any SPA is Jack Ross Chartered Accountants. The Managing Partner who signs the document is the same person you meet on the first call, hands you the cheque on completion, and answers the phone if one of your former clients rings two years later. The commercial structure is simple enough to summarise on one page; the legal SPA itself is a solicitor-drafted document of around thirty to fifty pages, with warranties, disclosure, retention mechanics, and the staff and client commitments written in. Your solicitor reads every line before you sign anything.
How does selling your accountancy practice to a direct buyer work?
The mechanics of selling an accountancy practice to us are straightforward. Three payments, twenty-four months end to end.
50 per cent of the price you agree, in cleared funds on completion day.
25 per cent at the twelve-month anniversary, also in cleared funds. At that point three-quarters of your money is in your bank.
25 per cent at the twenty-four-month anniversary, subject to a single retention test at 85 per cent. If retention is at or above that level, the full amount is paid. Below it, a sliding-scale clawback applies, set out clearly in the SPA. The threshold sits well above what a careful introduction normally delivers.
That is the whole structure. No equity rollover. No earn-out conditional on figures we control. No requirement for you to remain on the payroll. No broker fee for either of us to recover.
A worked example, £500,000 fee book
Recurring revenue 80 per cent. Healthy client mix, clean PII history. In our pricing, this book lands at £550k to £650k. Mid-point quote: £600k.
- Day of completion£300,000
- Month 12£150,000
- Month 24£150,000subject to retention test
- Total over two years£600,000
Indicative ranges only, based on our pricing methodology. Actual offers depend on full due diligence. Three more worked examples and the full structure on the deal structure page.
How much can I sell my accountancy practice for?
The accountancy practice valuation question, meaning what your practice is actually worth, depends on the book. The realistic range we quote any seller in a serious conversation is 0.9 to 1.5 times your gross recurring fees. A clean general-practice book in our pricing typically lands at 1.0x to 1.3x. A premium book, with strong recurring revenue, healthy client mix, and sector specialisation that fits us strategically (tax-led, niche advisory, HNW personal tax), can reach 1.5x. We will pay 1.5x for the right firm.
The specific number falls out of eight factors, set out in our accountancy practice valuation guide: recurring proportion, client concentration, practice size, geography, niche fit, your continuing involvement, PII history, and operational hygiene. Send five data points through our indicative valuation page and we reply with a defensible range for your specific book within one working day.
Finding the right buyer: the kinds of practice we are most interested in acquiring
- General-practice books with substantial recurring revenue, owned by an accountant approaching retirement and looking to sell their accountancy practice cleanly
- Audit-led books, including statutory, charity, pension and SRA solicitor-firm audits. Audit is a Jack Ross specialism through our own audit practice and our sister site auditgroup.co.uk
- Tax-led and advisory-led accountancy firms in our wheelhouse
- Annual fees broadly in the £150k to £1m range, the size where finding a buyer through a broker is often more expensive than the route is worth
- Greater Manchester, East Lancashire, Cheshire, and parts of West Yorkshire as our home territory
- Principals who genuinely want to retire and step back, not those looking for a continuing role under a new umbrella
If your practice sits outside one or more of these typical points, that is a conversation, not a closed door. The first call is fifteen minutes.
What happens to my staff and my clients when I sell my accountancy practice?
In every first conversation with an accountant looking to sell their accountancy practice, the same four questions come up. Finding a buyer is one part; deciding which buyer to trust with twenty years of staff and client relationships is the other. The answer below covers what we commit to in writing in any practice we acquire.
Your staff
Twelve-month no-redundancy clause written into the SPA. Salary parity. Role continuity. Pension and PII covered seamlessly. Specific commitments, not platitudes.
Read the staff pageYour clients
Joint introduction letter, your name first. Joint meetings on top accounts. Existing software stays. Communication style retained for twelve months. The 85 per cent retention test in the SPA aligns our incentives with yours.
Read the client pageThe payment structure
50 per cent on completion. 25 per cent at month twelve. 25 per cent at month twenty-four with a single 85 per cent retention test. No equity rollover. No broker fee. No surprises.
Read the full structureThe transition
Twelve weeks from first conversation to first payment. Twelve weeks of handover after that. Year-one help on agreed days. After month thirteen, you are gone.
Read the timeline