Thinking of selling your practice?
Buzz Accounting buys accountancy practices and fee blocks in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Buzz Accounting
Buzz Accounting is an accountancy firm with its own clients. We file the returns, run the payroll and take the phone calls, from offices in London, Manchester, Ballymena and Pretoria. We are AAT licensed, registered in England and Wales as company 15182358, and we are part of Practice Group, which has bought and integrated four accountancy practices this year.
We run the practices we buy, with our own people looking after your clients.
You would be dealing directly with Andy Jackson and Peter Allen, who own it.
What we buy
England
Up to around £350,000
Practices and fee blocks up to around £350,000 of recurring fees, in general practice with compliance-led, owner-managed clients.
Northern Ireland
Any size
Practices and fee banks of any size, run from our Ballymena office.
Scotland
Our first Scottish office
A practice with a team as well as a book of fees, to become our first Scottish office.
Larger firms and firms with an audit function are bought by Practice Group, which has the same owners.
How a sale runs
- 1
A conversation
A twenty-minute conversation by phone or email, whichever you prefer.
- 2
Your numbers
A fee list without client names, the last two years’ accounts, and who is on the team. Enough for us to give you a real figure instead of a range.
- 3
An offer and heads of terms
Part on completion and part over the following year or two, tied to the fees still billing at each anniversary. We will show you the shape of it before you commit to anything.
- 4
Diligence
We check engagement letters, work in progress, AML supervision and professional indemnity. We tell you what to tidy before we start rather than finding it halfway through.
Introductions
Over several months you introduce us to your clients personally. This decides whether they stay, and we spend most of our time on it.
The firms that keep their client base are the ones where the outgoing owner makes the introductions personally and early. We will ask you to do that, and we will work around your diary to make it possible.
3 to 12 monthsHow long most owners stay to make introductions
Your staff
Where we buy the business and its assets, your employees transfer with it under TUPE on their existing terms. We buy small practices partly for the people in them: a team that can run the work is most of what we are paying for. If continuity for a particular person matters to you, put it in the heads of terms rather than taking a verbal assurance, from us or from anyone else.
Questions about selling your practice
What size practice do you buy?
In England, practices and fee blocks up to around £350,000 of recurring fees. In Northern Ireland and Scotland we will look at anything from a small fee bank upwards. Larger practices are bought by Practice Group, which has the same owners.
What happens to my staff?
Where we buy the business and its assets they transfer with it under TUPE, on their existing terms. If continuity matters to you it belongs in the heads of terms.
What happens to my clients?
You introduce them to us personally, over months rather than in a letter. It is the part of the process that decides whether they stay, and the part we spend the most time on.
How long do I have to stay?
Most owners stay three to twelve months to make introductions. If you want to stay longer in a paid consultancy role, that is a separate agreement with its own fee rather than part of the purchase price.
Will anyone find out I am talking to you?
We keep your firm’s name and the conversation confidential.
What if I am not ready to sell yet?
Practice Group runs a succession planning session for owners who are years off: what the practice is worth now, what would raise it, and what to do first. If the problem is capacity rather than an exit, Muckin puts a permanent team on your production work.
Tax and pensions when you sell your practice
A financial adviser works out what the sale proceeds need to pay for, when you can stop working and how much tax falls due in each tax year.
Buzz Financial Services is a trading style of Equity & General Financial Services Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (No. 474163).
Accreditations and partnerships
