If you are thinking of selling your accounting practice this year you might want to consider a few of the following ideas and thoughts:
- Is Confidentiality Important? – Obviously selling your CPA practice or selling your tax practice is a big decision. When selling your practice, disclosing your identity can be very harmful to the practice. If employees get wind, they may be upset or uneasy and start looking for other employment. If your competitors find out, they could use this as a competitive advantage and try to start cherry picking your client base. A confidentiality agreement or non-disclosure agreement is needed in order to prevent a prospective buyer from soliciting your clients and employees. This document should be signed prior to getting into any discussions with any buyer. A professional accounting brokerage firm, such as Naab Consulting can get this document for you. One of the roles we play is helping a practitioner in keeping their identity sealed. We obtain these confidentiality agreements prior to discussing any intimate details about the owner’s practice. This includes information such as staff, average billing rates, breakdown of clients, etc. If you are trying to sell your practice on your own, confidentiality agreements are pretty much a moot point considering you will want the prospect to sign it without knowing your identity but how else would you get this information to him or her?
More tips to follow….