Tax-efficient ways to structure a UK accountancy practice sale
The headline price on an accountancy practice sale is the number that gets talked about. The net cash that arrives in the seller's bank account is the number that matters. Between the…
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Goodwill vs recurring fees: what UK practice buyers actually pay for in 2026
When a buyer prices an accountancy practice, the headline number is built up from a view of two distinct things: what proportion of the fee book is genuinely recurring, and what the…
Reading a Heads of Terms: a clause-by-clause decoder
The Heads of Terms is the document that records, in two-sided agreement, what you and the buyer think the deal looks like. It is not the contract. The contract is the SPA,…
Tax structuring questions to take to your independent adviser
Not tax advice. A list of the questions worth taking to your independent tax adviser before you sign anything binding. The specific facts of your practice, your other affairs, your pension position,…
What to ask your solicitor to focus on when selling a practice
Most retiring principals' solicitors are good corporate solicitors who have not done many practice acquisitions. The country has perhaps two hundred firms of accountants changing hands in any given year, against many…
Ten questions to ask any buyer before exclusivity
Once a buyer asks for exclusivity, the negotiation changes shape. You stop talking to other buyers, the clock starts on due diligence, and your bargaining position weakens. Everything you wanted to test,…
Communicating the sale to your team: a week-by-week sequence
The first practical question retiring principals ask is rarely "what is my book worth?" It is "how do I tell my team?" The good answer is operational, not emotional. Done properly, communicating…
An illustrative end-to-end acquisition
This is a worked illustrative example. No specific seller is being described. The practice profile, the dialogue, the figures, the tax outcomes, and the timeline below are constructed to show what an…
What to prepare before a first valuation call
Gross recurring fees are the annualised fees a UK accountancy practice will continue to bill for the same services next year if no client leaves and no new client joins. The figure…
Succession planning for retiring UK chartered accountants: a thorough guide
The principal of a UK chartered accountancy practice who has decided, in the abstract, that they will retire within the next five years has not yet started planning. They have started thinking.…
Sell Your UK Accountancy Practice: Direct Buyer, No Broker Fee
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Private equity vs trade buyer: which is right for your practice?
If you are exploring exit and you have had any conversations with the active buyers in the UK accountancy sector, you have already encountered the two dominant categories: PE-backed consolidator platforms and…
Exit options for the sole practitioner accountant
If you are a sole practitioner UK chartered accountant in your late fifties or sixties, the question of what to do next is not abstract. Why "what is your fee book worth"…
What is your accountancy practice worth? GRF multiples explained
** WARNING: connection is not using a post-quantum key exchange algorithm. ** This session may be vulnerable to "store now, decrypt later" attacks. ** The server may need to be upgraded. See…