Template example. The narrative below is an illustrative structure for a real member story, not a specific person's account. Every figure and quote is a placeholder marked NEEDS-REAL-DATA until we publish a permissioned member's deal.
The business
The target was an established CPA and bookkeeping firm serving small-business clients across [region] for [XX] years. Most revenue was recurring, monthly bookkeeping, payroll, and annual tax engagements, with retention measured in years, not months. The owner planned a transition period to hand off client relationships before fully stepping back.
Recurring revenue, sticky clients, and light capital needs are why professional-services firms are among the most financeable businesses to buy and why lenders compete to fund them.
Finding and analyzing the deal
Diligence centered on the client base: concentration (no single client too large), revenue by service line, and how much of the book was genuinely recurring versus one-time project work. The buyer also mapped which relationships were tied to the departing owner personally, the single biggest risk in an accounting acquisition, and confirmed the cash flow covered the loan using the DSCR calculator.
Structuring the offer
The deal used an SBA 7(a) loan with a seller note and a modest buyer injection. Because client transition is everything in this industry, the offer built in a defined transition and consulting period plus a client-retention holdback, the seller's payout partly tied to clients staying through the handoff. A seller note on standby kept the seller invested in a smooth transfer.
Closing and the first 90 days
From accepted offer to keys took about [X] months. The first priority was relationships: joint introductions to top clients, keeping every staff accountant, and preserving the systems and software clients were used to. In a firm, continuity is the product, the goal after closing is that clients barely notice the ownership changed.
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Run any target through our SBA loan calculator and DSCR calculator before you make an offer.
