On a Wednesday afternoon in March, we had a call from a concerned relative.  His brother had just died.  His brother was an accountant and had clients that needed looking after.  His sister-in-law, was who was now a widow, did not want to have to deal with the clients of the practice on top of her own personal grief. As …

Is it really 4 years?  Apparently, it is, I hadn’t noticed. Actually, it is nearer to 5 years ago that my wife, Kaye, my partner in our Oxfordshire based firm handed me a glass of red, looked me in the eye and said, “Do you really mean it?”  A few minutes earlier I had suggested that we’d had enough.  FRS101 …

Just because you have stopped working does not mean that you are not liable for the work you have done in the past – you have an open period for claims to be made as set out under the statute of limitations.  Generally 6 years past the last date at which advice was given is the accepted norm. You may …

MTD is going to be introduced in 2019. At Draper Hinks we predict that there will be many accountancy firms that will not want to embrace the changes necessary to be MTD compliant. This will affect the market place. This is a great opportunity to buyers because we envisage there will be more practices coming on to the market for …

We only deal with the buying and selling of accountancy fees and to date have done over 215 deals. Although our methodology is transferable to other professions, we choose to specialise in this market place. If you work with us then you know you are dealing with a broker that has a lot of experience, market knowledge and a willingness …

Question: How long do you think it should take to sell a practice:- • Two years? • One year? • 9 months? • 6 months? The answer – like so many – is it depends. Question: What does it depend on? Answer: Many things but mainly on the size of the practice. If you have a practice with an office, …

I have just done my first public speaking event in Leicester, in front of a group of accountants from a national network. I was invited to talk about “What does a buyer look at when considering buying fees”. I covered:- • How much of the practice is being sold. • Time frame from start to finish. • What happens if …

As a business broker we work with both the buyer and the seller. We are not an agent who works for only one side. Our aim is to help the vendor get more than one offer so that they can have a choice. We also aim to help all buyers put their best offer forward. If a buyer has not …

I often get asked if there is a good time or a bad time for selling accountancy fees. The obvious answer is not to try to sell your accountancy practice in December or January. I am now going to contradict myself by saying you can actually sell fees any time in the year, if you have to. We have had …

Confidence has a great impact when selling or buying an accountancy practice. The vendor has to be confident that the buyer can look after the practice post sale or no deal with ensue. We once had a buyer with a turnover of £10k looking to buy a practice with £300k. The vendor was not confident the buyer would cope with …