Unlocking Growth: Lending Insights for Accounting and Financial Planning Firms

Navigating the evolving landscape of the accounting and financial planning industry requires strategic foresight and decisive action. Mergers and structured sell-down strategies have emerged as powerful tools to drive significant growth, enhance service offerings, secure capital for retiring professionals, and ensure a sustainable future for your firm.

Equity participation - whether through full partnership or employee share schemes - emerges as a crucial strategy for "locking in" key team members and adding deeper meaning to their professional endeavours.

For small practices, off-market opportunities – strategic mergers with larger firms - offer a pathway not just to expansion but to a redefinition of what small practices can achieve when they leverage the right partnerships.

These strategies aim to preserve the relationships you've meticulously built and seek to enhance the practice's growth and continuity post-transition. The focus: keep the client's best interest at heart.

In today's dynamic accounting marketplace, vendors contemplating retirement or looking to scale down their involvement face a landscape rich with opportunities.

The sun is fast setting on the old way of business brokering. The privileged position of a business broker as a gatekeeper to information and connection is under threat in a world where clients can now find each other via searches on smartphones, LinkedIn etc., and that means the most fundamental adage of business survival applies: adapt, or die.

The Private Broker Network™ (PBN) is a members-only walled garden marketplace for business brokering and succession transactions. It is intended to be used by large networks of member businesses such as financial planning dealer groups and franchises.

Client relationships within an accounting practice portfolio are anchored on mutual respect, trust and understanding. They can take a professional lifetime to build. As you near retirement, the onus is on you to ensure a smooth transfer of these relationships to guarantee continued success for the practice.

Retirement, while a celebratory milestone, presents unique challenges for accountants. Successful transition demands a precise strategy to secure the value built up over a lifetime of professional practice.

Beneath the warm glow of a Zoom call, two business partners lock eyes, or rather cursors, and prepare for a brave new world. Their partnership, formed during the great pandemic, has been forged in the crucible of COVID-19. Now, as they brace for an AI-enabled future, they turn to the prophetic wisdom of futurist Alvin Toffler for guidance.

Capital partners are emerging as a potent alternative to banks for financing expansion via acquisition, especially within accounting and financial planning practices.

The ability to acquire and transition equity within the accounting practice is an ongoing challenge. This is often a result of having to navigate the different financial position and career stage of each partner (and future partners). The more partners in the practice, the more difficult this can become.

Today’s hypothetical for accounting practice owners: Imagine you are seeking to sell your house. Somebody knocks on your door and makes you an offer. It seems legitimate, the buyer has the funds, the terms pass your first inspection. Do you sign on the dotted line?

Some practitioners are comfortable with the assumption that they will continue working until the end of their life, what might be considered the 'die at your desk' model. Fair enough, but there are big problems if you arrive at this position by default.

Succession can take many forms depending on your situation and goals. Considering a merger can give you options beyond a simple all-or-nothing sale.

Selling your business is a high-complexity high-stakes process. Some transactions take months to complete. Some never complete at all.

Ever since we commenced selling accounting practices in 2001 the normal range of price for accounting fee parcels hasn't varied much from where it sits today which is 70 cent to $1.10 of expected recurring turnover.

A long weekend is a welcome break from the weekly routine, a chance to rejuvenate and reconnect with family. Maybe a short trip away from home, fishing trip, weekender or just a chance to put your feet up and forget the schedule for a day. What if this were the norm, not the exception?

There are many pathways to succession. Many practitioners in the accounting space are choosing to broaden their succession options by appointing an equity partner. But how do you find the right one?

When I bring up the topic of succession with accountants there is a common theme: "I want to improve my work/life balance and maybe take some equity off the table, but I don't want to retire yet."

One of the most disappointing things I see is when an overworked practitioner writes to some of their long-time clients to say that they can't represent them anymore. It's the business goodwill equivalent to burning cash.