Experience

Accounting Practices Limited

• New Zealand
• Accounting
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Consultant (ex Director and Founder)

  • Jan 2005 - Present

  The idea of this site came to me after successfully selling my practice a few years ago. I wondered why I had to wait for the Accountants Journal to come out each month before I saw what advertisements appeared either to buy or sell practices or a block of fees. The wait after submitting my advertisement until the Journal came out was frustrating and filled with a certain amount of anxiety. And then of course, I had to wait again until I received the responses! Then there are the increasing numbers of tax agents who are NOT Chartered Accountants. They may be qualified by experience or belong to an organisation like Taxation Institute of New Zealand. They do not have ready access to the Journal and so feel left out on a limb. Advertisements for practices or blocks of fees always seem to draw heaps of responses. In my case we got something like 16 replies and of those there were six who were serious and completed their confidentiality agreement. So, there is the background to me. I am now sort of retired although the jobs and opportunities seem to keep on coming through the door. I have sold three practices in my professional career, so I know the angst and heartache this process brings! Price of sale (and of purchase) of a practice or block of fees is always a talking point. In my young days the goodwill yard stick was 50c per $1 of fees. Recently this has moved up as the likes of WHK and other consolidators who have moved into the market in both Australia and New Zealand. So the current price is what you make it! As always there must be a range. If you have heard David Connell from Anzam speak you will have heard of the very high prices of practices that he relates in Australia. In my view it is the fee earning (and so net profit) potential that you should consider. Clients in my experience are loyal and will stay with a new owner and will also give him/her the benefit of the doubt before they decide to leave. Show less