Thinking about selling your CPA/CFO firm?

If you are currently thinking about moving on to the next chapter of your life, and you are considering selling your CPA firm, then we may have the right (liquidity) solution for you. indinero has been acquiring (buying) CPA/CFO firms since 2017, and we have recently ramped up our efforts in order to be even more active in this area.

The following four web pages outline some of the general broad guidelines that we use as a reference point for valuations – because, broadly speaking, these are the going rates and current approaches in the market.

How Small Businesses Are Valued Based on Seller’s Discretionary Earnings (SDE)

Earnings Multiples for Small Business

EBITDA Multiples by Industry

What Add Backs Are Legitimate in an M&A Deal?

For the right types of CPA firms, we typically look at offering at least 70% payment upfront at the deal’s closing (this can potentially be more than 70% if the seller’s CPA firm is highly attractive for indinero), and the balance (i.e., 30%) over the next 2-3 years by means of annual down-payments that are proportionally linked to annual revenue retention – the seller does not need to be actively working during this 2-3 year period, but the seller basically then plays a stand-by role to assist indinero if anything comes up that we need the seller’s help with.

• Annual revenue of between $2,000,000 to $10,000,000.
• Personnel of anything between approximately 10 to 90 people.
• Annual revenue should (at minimum) be approximately sixty percent derived directly or indirectly from corporate/B2B clients.
• A very big plus for indinero is a CPA firm that is a mostly/entirely remote-first company – for example: most ideally, very few (if any) physical in-person meetings with clients and/or colleagues.
• An added bonus can potentially be any type of management consulting services – for example: most ideally, outsourced CFO services.