We don’t offer financing currently so the buyer will have to arrange financing on his own.

We like to see the seller stay a few weeks for the initial transition and notification of clients. Following that the seller needs to be available for about a year to answer questions from the buyer and to encourage the clients to use the buyer.

The major risk associated is retaining the large clients. We recommend looking carefully at the 10 largest revenue producing clients from the prior year. Immediately after closing the purchase of a practice, a buyer should market himself to all the clients as if they were new prospective clients. If the buyer does his job, he should retain the vast majority of the clients. Failure to do so can risk loss of clients.

The most important task after purchasing an accounting firm is retaining the employees. Retaining the employees of the practice is very important to the success of the buyer. It is also critical that the employees not enter into competition with the buyer after the purchase. Carefully assess the possibility of their leaving the practice and taking clients with them.

Sellers represented by Accounting Firm Sales generally will not bear the risk of client retention. At Accounting Firm Sales, we believe that buyers have control over client satisfaction and that practices should not be sold under any type of “seller guarantee” or pricing formula that is based on the buyer’s success unless that is the sellers wish.