Is This Your Last Tax Season?

With tax season in full swing the last thing on most accounting and tax practice owners’ minds is buying, selling or merging their firms.  But for someone that hopes to sell their firm before the 2011 tax season, that is a year from now, the time to start is immediately after this tax season is finished.

We have found that those practice owners that start the selling process in April, May and June are much more likely to have a successful outcome (better choice of buyers, more money upfront and better overall price) than those that wait until October or November.

Many practitioners believe that buyers and merger partners will not want to close a transaction until the fall, or even just before the next tax season, and end up starting of the process too late.  Most buyers realize that in a competitive market, the time to buy or merge is when the best firm is available and that is not always on their time line. 

Another reason practice owners miss the sales window is they begin the process as a “For Sale By Owner” and work with only one or two buyers at a time.  They start talking to someone about buying or merging in May or June, and then let that process play out all summer, only to find out in the fall that the buyer or merger candidate is either not qualified or not as interested as they initially let on, leaving the seller less time to identify their successor.  

Keep in mind, most buyers see “For Sale Buy Owner” as an opportunity to get better terms from the seller and ultimately pay less.  A better way is to work through a process to identify multiple ready, willing and able buyer or merger candidates.  This aligns market forces so that you can identify the best successor for your clients (and staff) and ultimately end up with the best price and terms.