In particular, this episode explores:

• [10:40] Leigh’s background and how you first started exploring the idea of selling her business
• [16:10] Speaking with your broker, how did they go about the valuation for the business
• [19:10] What did the marketing piece look like for you in selling the business?
• [20:00] How many offers were received and how did you go about deciding which offer to take?
• [24:40] Deal details - cash payment, retention clauses
• [28:08] The challenges of staying on and working in the business after sale during the transition period
• [30:40] How did you broach the conversation with your team and at what point did you tell them?
• [32:40] Deciding between buyers and offers
• [34:40] Learnings from working with the broker and lawyer
• [36:30] Any other lessons for other bookkeepers or accountants from your sale process
• [37:50] What did you do in the post sale phase? 
• [43:30]  Negotiating the contract, non-competes and restrictions

Leigh is a business consultant with over 20 years’ experience and is also a Registered BAS Agent with a Certificate IV in Accounting. Her logical approach combined with the ability to embrace and create change has been the foundation of her successful career. Leigh is skilled at identifying organisational requirements and implementing cloud solutions to enhance business efficiencies. After 19 years of building a profitable bookkeeping business, she sold to focus on her passion of improving business performance. Whether this is an ear of support, cashflow management or implementing systems to improve the overall running of the business it is what she loves to do.

You can connect with Leigh on Linkedin, and get more information about her work on the Mint Dynamics website, or on Facebook or Instagram.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors:

Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees. 

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co.

Rachel has over 25 years of experience in bookkeeping and accounting. She previously served as National Bookkeeping Lead for Deloitte, was the Accountants Group Leader for Sage, and led growth at a US based firm including the acquisition of two accounting firms. Rachel is known as an accounting technology expert and advocate in North America; for predicting where the market is heading. She takes a strategic approach to accounting software and applications, and understands how to position their features for a global market.

In particular, this episode explores:

• [11:40] Rachel’s background and overview
• [12:40] How acquiring RealtyTax came about, decision making process
• [18:01] What did the deal process look like, pricing & structure
• [25:35] What did the firm look like in terms of team members at the time of acquisition, did team members and co-founders stay on afterwards
• [28:50] What are the lessons learned from that deal process
• [32:30] Once you were handed the keys to the business, what were some of the key things you did in the first 60 days 
• [36:36] What is the core tech stack for the firm
• [37:40] As owner of the firm, the challenge of being accountable to deliver what has been sold to the clients - do you try to add value or simplify
• [46:00] Transitioning clients between tech platforms, their response
• [47:50] The story of starting a new role at Dext while still running the firm, how that came about and how to get the firm ready for that to happen
• [58:10] How to navigate removing yourself from client facing work and transitioning clients over to your team after they have already built a relationship with you
• [1:04:00] Get in touch with Rachel

You can connect with Rachel on Linkedin, and get more information about her work via websites at RealtyTax and Amalgam8.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors:

Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees. 

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co.

In this episode, we cover:

• [10:36] Why Electra decided to start her own firm
• [13:35] What did the transition look like for her team and clients when she moved out of the city?
• [23:40] How did she go about repricing clients?
• [30:30] Selling down from 800 to 30 clients and what that process was like - the broker, finding buyers, negotiation strategies, retention clauses
• [36:10] After selling and freeing up more time, beginning of Electrifi in the blockchain space
• [41:20] If a business comes to you needing crypto accounting expertise, what does that engagement look like?
• [48:30] Crypto software for accountants
• [51:50] Planning for a successful trade show - designing a booth, budgets, swag and timelines

You can connect with Electra on Linkedin or via her website.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors:

Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees. 

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co.

Brannon has been brokering accounting firms for two decades and has grown to a team of 20 people, having helped facilitate hundreds of deals all over the US and Canada. PGA helps firm owners buy, sell and grow their business and have thousands of qualified buyers in their database. Brannon is a thought leader and author of several books in the accounting space as well as the Accounting Practice Academy.

We cover:

• [11:40] What does a business broker or CPA Intermediary in the accounting space like Brannon, really do?
• [15:10] How do you find firms that are on the acquisition side?
• [16:42] How did you get started as a business broker and what does your firm look like now?
• [20:50] What are some of the trends in deals that you are seeing so far in 2024? Increase in private equity buyers
• [25:32] In private equity deals, how are they being structured? Valuations, deal terms
• [28:25] Outside of private equity, what other trends are you seeing in 2024?
• [30:19] Are you seeing an increase in ageing accounting firm owners that are looking to exit and retire in the next 10 years? “The silver tsunami”
• [31:52] Have you ever sold a firm where the seller isn’t really motivated to sell?
• [35:10] What happens when there are multiple partners and a couple want to sell but one doesn’t want to and slows the deal down?
• [37:00] A story of a husband & wife team that sold to a brother & sister team
• [39:50] Listed a multi-franchise firm that went wrong at the last minute, were there any red flags present earlier in the process?
• [41:48] What’s the worst employee issue that you’ve seen come up in a deal?
• [45:08] What’s the smoothest deal you’ve seen?
• [46:35] What’s the most frustrating part of deal making?
• [50:35] Any potentially dirty tactics that sellers should look out for?
• [51:56] Helpful resources - “How to prepare your CPA practice for sale”, “How to scale your cloud accounting practice” if you are looking to sell one day, “how to take an unplugged vacation” for firm owners - find them here

You can connect with Brannon on Linkedin or via the Poe Group Advisors website.

Meryl was featured on the Marketing For Accounting Firms Podcast recently - listen here on the topic of Minimal Viable Branding for Accounting Firms.

Brannon also interviewed Meryl on his podcast - Accountant’s Flight Plan. Listen here to that episode on Navigating Growth, Niching Down and Other Helpful Lessons.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors:

Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees. 

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston.

• [2:11] How Meryl managed to sell part of her business in 3 months utilising her network alone
• [7:02] Networking differently to attract clients vs business partners vs team members
• [12:41] Networking as an introvert
• [15:00] A brief masterclass from Tyler Caskey on networking authentically
• [19:14] Why every accountant should be posting online to create serendipity with Jason Staats
• [22:57] Strategic preparation for a conference to maximise networking opportunities
• [28:07] Can networking be outsourced?
• [30:07] How would Meryl approach networking if she was to start a new accounting firm today?
• [33:08] Linkedin strategy for networking
• [37:02] CRM for networking and tracking tools - are they useful?

You can connect with Jason Staats on Linkedin or Twitter and Tyler Caskey on LinkedIn or via the Bean Counters Website.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by our sponsor, Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees.

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co.

We cover:

• [20:17] Jaclyn’s intro and backstory
• [32:29] The opportunity for accounting firms to add education and community revenue streams 
• [38:20] Should the ‘expert’ also create the course content or should you split this role?
• [39:55] How to get started creating educational content. What should you start with?
• [45:46] Why Intuit is investing in partner training for CAS (Client Advisory Services)
• [50:49] Is Community Building a top of funnel activity to drive leads or is it a retention strategy to build relationships with clients

Jaclyn is small business and accounting community enthusiast who has spent more than 10 years developing scalable, compelling initiatives at leading SaaS companies, honing her ability to drive a dual bottom line. When she’s not busy creating programs that educate, motivate, and break the mold, you can find Jaclyn around the Bay Area with her husband and two beautiful girls. You can connect with Jaclyn on Linkedin.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees.

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co.

Why? Because Speaking comes back to effective communication. It's about storytelling, persuasion, getting people on board, creating community and understanding. Whether you are wanting to get more clients, lead your team, recruit staff or find a new business partner, guaranteed public speaking in some way shape or form will play a role in achieving that goal.

Meryl chats to multiple guests on the topic over this episode including past guests Tyler Caskey and Heather Smith, as well as Producer of The Lifestyle Accountant Show and keynote speaker, Eleanor Carey.

We cover:

• Why public speaking is such an essential skill for accounting firm owners
• Opportunities to gain from speaking
• What are the different types of public speaking
• How to be an amazing panel moderator
• How to prepare for a keynote or presentation
• What are the different ways you can practice your communication skills via public speaking

You can connect with Heather Smith on LinkedIn or Twitter, Tyler Caskey on LinkedIn or via the Bean Counters Website and Eleanor Carey on her website or via the show.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors:

Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees. 

Fathom: All-in-one reporting, analysis & forecasting.

Brieff: Structure advisory. Highlight your value.

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co.

Amy started Clarity Street over six years ago after having the realisation that none of the individual software providers in the ecosystem had the time or the knowledge of how all of the cloud apps should be set up, to provide an efficient client lifecycle with clean dataflows between apps. 

Clarity Street is on a mission to help the industry understand how and what software connects to each other and what mindset, processes and procedures need to be changed, to achieve success. 

We cover:

• [11:50] Intro and backstory on Amy and Clarity Street
• [16:00] Case Study 1: Accounting firm doing $2m in revenue - Practice Management, Document Management and Engagement
  
• [20:05] What is Document Management? 
• [26:41] Case Study 2: Tax Firm doing $500k in revenue - Microsoft vs Google
• [33:22] Case Study 3: Bookkeeping Practice - sole practitioner & contractors
• [40:20] Case Study 4: An Accountant about to start their own firm
• [45:16] Tech stack considerations when scaling a firm to $10m

You can connect with Amy on Linkedin and find out more on the Clarity Street website.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors:
Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees. 
Fathom: All-in-one reporting, analysis & forecasting.
Brieff: Structure advisory. Highlight your value.

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co.

Tyler is an experienced CFO and Accounting Partner with a demonstrated track record improving or maintaining high performance Finance and IT functions.

Tyler was previously on the show talking about why he turned down a Director role at a Big4 firm to start his own firm. As well as being an experienced CFO and Accounting Partner, Tyler’s also a great leader and communicator and someone who is living a full life.

In particular, we deep dive:

• [17:41] Business partners

• [31:25] What financial metrics to share with your team (how transparent to be)

• [38:04] Executive assistant

• [41:12] Time and materials billing

You can connect with Tyler on LinkedIn or via the Bean Counters Website

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors:

Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees. 

Fathom: All-in-one reporting, analysis & forecasting.

Brieff: Structure advisory. Highlight your value.

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co.

He also breaks down the key steps to get started with the ‘direct’ model and we also talk about why it is a myth that hiring direct is non-compliant.

Isaac Smith is the founder of TeamUp which helps accounting firms hire direct in the Philippines. If you’re a regular listener of the show you’ll know that TeamUp is a regular sponsor.

This episode covers:

• [06:04] Unpacking the myth that hiring direct in the Philippines is non-compliant
• [12:30] The pros and cons of hiring direct vs going through a BPO
• [16.45] Salary expectations in real numbers
• [26:15] Common mistakes when hiring direct
• [28:30] What does the recruitment process look like
• [35:00] 3 ways to manage computers with offshore staff
• [40:19] Onboarding and how to build strong relationships with new staff remotely
• [44:39] Fostering happy staff and a positive workplace culture
  

You can find out more about TeamUp here and connect with Isaac on LinkedIn.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors:

Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees. 

Fathom: All-in-one reporting, analysis & forecasting.

Brieff: Structure advisory. Highlight your value.

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

If you enjoyed this podcast please leave us a rating or review by heading over to ratethispodcast.com/lifestyleaccountant and  simply select your preferred streaming platform

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co.

Yarty Kim is the Founder of Growthier, Co-founder of A4E (bookkeeping and tax services company), and Co-founder of FP&HEY after starting his career originally at a Fortune 100 company. 

In this episode we cover:

• [11:54] The reasoning behind choosing to take a sabbatical over an accounting role at Amazon
  
  
• [20:23] How and why they made the tough decision to pause growth at their firm
  
  
• [23:08] Navigating parenting with two ambitious working parents 
  
  
• [26:48] Tracking time to assess whether he is spending time on what he most values and re-prioritise
  
  
• [37:27] How to relax when you also have a burning ambition to be successful
  
  

You can connect with Yarty at FP&Hey or on LinkedIn.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors:

Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees. 

Fathom: All-in-one reporting, analysis & forecasting.

Brieff: Structure advisory. Highlight your value.

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

If you enjoyed this podcast please leave us a rating or review by heading over to ratethispodcast.com/lifestyleaccountant and  simply select your preferred streaming platform

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co.

Earlier in the year I heard Kelly speak about how GrowthMD uses a waiting list strategy and only runs ‘client intakes’ for new clients at certain times of the year and I knew I had to have her on the podcast to talk about it.

Waiting lists are the topic for today's episode. We cover:

• [3:50] Studying the CA program, working and bringing up 3 kids 
• [16:28] The pros and cons of listing a minimum fee on the website
• [19:35] Why you should ask leads ‘What would you love your accountant to do for you?
• [23:05] How to avoid giving free advice during the discovery process
• [29:08] Whether to send proposals via email or go through them on a call 
• [31:27] How to keep clients ‘warm’ if they are waiting 3-4 months to be onboarded
• [35:50] The impact on workflow and capacity planning after implementing a waitlist

You can connect with Kelly at GrowthMD or on LinkedIn.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors:

Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees. 

TaxValet: Sales Tax Done for You

Liveflow: Advanced financial reporting on autopilot

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co.

If you are loving the podcast, please leave us a review. It’s quick and easy, just head to RateThisPodcast.com/lifestyleaccountant.

She recently ran a cyber security project which included cancelling their contract with an IT-managed service provider and bringing it in-house.

Having some kind of data breach at a firm would be terrible. I see it as one of the major risks in our industry and something that we should all be thinking about.

We cover"

• [05:19] Why they chose to run a cyber security project instead of other projects and what the deliverables were
• [08:14] Problems with using password managers
• [14:50] A better way to handle 2FA with team members across timezones 
• [21:16] Risks associated with AI in our practice management tools 
• [22:22] Getting the team onboard with changes to IT policies 
• [24:36] The pros and cons of client portals.
• [29:19] Nicole’s favourite cyber security tools

Tools mentioned:

• Spanning: Google Workspace backup
• Webroot: antivirus
• 1password: password management 
• Content Snare: client onboarding
• Rewind: QBO backup
• Nord layer: VPN

You can connect with her on LinkedIn.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors 

Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees. 

TaxValet: Sales Tax Done for You

Liveflow: Advanced financial reporting on autopilot

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co.

Luke runs a CFO firm called A2 advisers, a software product called FinDaily and two newsletters. He also spends most Fridays doing something in the outdoors with friends. Usually golf or fly fishing.

Prior to building his own firm, Luke has grown three CAS/coaching lines into over six figures, including  top-100 regional firm.

We cover:

• [08:58] Is it the outsourced CFO’s role to hold the bookkeeping team accountable?
• [12:46] Blocking off Fridays to do something outdoors with friends - usually golf! 
• [14:09] The risk of attaching your identity to being a business owner
• [14:53] Only taking on eight CFO clients at a time
• [15:34] Anchoring CFO pricing to improvements in net profit
• [18:03] Charging for an initial assessment or Financial Health Check
• [19:31] Building a writing habit of 15 minutes per day and data-driven writing 
• [22:17] The pros and cons of scaling the CFO business, the software product or the newsletters
• [38:09]  Capturing ideas for articles using a system like Building a Second Brain

You can connect with him on LinkedIn, Twitter of the A2Advisers website.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors 

Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees. 

TaxValet: Sales Tax Done for You

Liveflow: Advanced financial reporting on autopilot

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co.

For the last 7 years, Rob has been running Planet Consulting which helps owners and managers run better acounting firms.

Today we’re focusing on leadership and management skills. We’re working through a series of challenging situations a new manager could face and discussing how to approach them.

We cover:

• [09:20] Encouraging accounting firm owners to focus on strategy and act more like typical shareholders 
• [12:45] Why accountants often do a bad job of project management and how to improve this
• [20:16] How to handle an underperforming team member
• [26:18] The problem with KPIs at accounting firms and why they aren’t incentivising managers to spend time training their teams 
• [28:35] Dealing with ‘constant’ interruptions as a new manager
• [33:26] Creating an equitable workload amongst your team while balancing the needs of different individuals. 
• [40:02] Managing up: Working effectively with a disorganised boss 
• [45:44] Negotiating salaries with team members

You can connect with him on LinkedIn of the Planet Consulting website.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors 

Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees. 

TaxValet: Sales Tax Done for You

Liveflow: Advanced financial reporting on autopilot

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co.

Alex is the founder and former CEO of TaxValet. These days he serves as their Visionary and Community Ambassador.

TaxValet is a bootstrapped sales tax services company with no investors or debt, which has scaled to about sixty employees. 

Today we cover:

• [04:41] From product marketing at a sales tax software company to starting a sales tax firm
• [11:38] Hiring his mum as Employee #1
• [25:51] How to attract talented people when you can’t pay market-rate salaries
• [31:25] Why putting a 6 month freeze on taking new clients helped them to grow
• [33:22] How TaxValet structures their Org Chart with 60 staff. Hint: it’s not like a typical accounting firm and there are no ‘partners’. 
• [39:00] Rating clients as easy, medium, or hard in the sales process and using this as a factor in allocating their onboarding start date
• [47:05] How Alex stepped out of the CEO role 
• [51:29] Getting comfortable with team members giving advice in a high risk area like sales tax.

Here are a few parts of the conversation that stood out to me.

• Alex started the business because he kept hearing about the problem. When he was working at the sales tax companies, customers wanted someone to take care of the full process end to end. But the software companies didn’t want to do that which creates an opportunity for.

• I also loved hearing about how Alex structures his team. He doesn’t have ‘sales tax partners’ who are providing high-level advice for an expensive hourly rate. He’s broken down the process into lots of different parts from sales, to onboarding, 5 people doing sales tax registration opening and closing.

• We didn’t have a chance to get into Alex’s life outside of work. But he’s a great example of the Lifestyle part of the Lifestyle Accountant. He’s built an incredible company while managing complex health issues and finding time to travel and have adventures.

You can connect with him on LinkedIn or via the TaxValet website. 

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors 

Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees. 

TaxValet: Sales Tax Done for You

Liveflow: Advanced financial reporting on autopilot

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co.

In this episode she breaks down the process for us and shares some mistakes to watch out for in acquiring or selling a firm.

We discuss:

• [09:55] The pros and cons of working with a broker
• [13:06] Vetting the acquirers: what Kelly was looking for
• [16:48] Why the first deal fell through
• [17:52] A clever way to structure the retention clause
• [21:08] Vendor financing and why Kelly decided against it
• [25:12] How Kelly selected the successful acquirer
• [27:20] When to tell your staff the firm is being acquired
• [31:39] What life is like now a few months after the acquisition

Kelly Berger is a management accountant and BAS agent and the driving force behind Bookkeepers Support. A group that provides training and mentoring to bookkeepers.

Kelly recently sold her bookkeeping practice Business Simplicity and is now focusing her energy on Bookkeepers Support.

You can connect with her on LinkedIn or via the Bookkeepers Support website.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors

TaxValet: Sales Tax Done For You

Electrafi:  Blockchain Training and Consulting for Accountants

Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees.

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston.

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co

Tyler is an experienced CFO and Accounting Partner with a demonstrated track record improving or maintaining high performance Finance and IT functions. 

He’s known for installing the Day 1 month-end reporting methodology. 

We’re discussing why Tyler turned down a director role at a Big4 Firm and a partnership opportunity at a mid-tier firm and ultimately started his own firm.

We cover:

• [8:39] How Senior CFO roles compared to director roles at the Big4
• [10:02] A partnership opportunity at a mid-tier firm and weighing up the pros and cons
• [16:31] Why Tyler doesn’t use fixed fee or value based pricing and prefers billing based on time
• [19:51] The lifestyle benefits from running his own firm 
• [22:31] Tips for building high performing teams 
• [24:02] Why Tyler doesn’t want to grow revenue 

Here are a few parts of the conversation that stood out to me.

• Tyler doesn’t believe in regret, but he does think about whether he made the jump from Big4 to commerce too early. Becoming a partner at a Big4 firm could have been amazing. As someone who was not interested in that path at all, it was interesting hearing that perspective from Tyler.
• I enjoyed hearing about Tyler’s schedule and how he prioritises mornings, but he’s also fine working hours to accommodate his international clients. 
• I also enjoyed the story of his boss who wouldn’t allow him to go part-time

You can connect with him on LinkedIn or via the Bean Counters Website

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors 

TaxValet: Sales Tax Done For You

Electrafi:  Blockchain Training and Consulting for Accountants

Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees. 

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co

We discuss:

• [07:02] The story of Sarah’s buying into a bookkeeping firm 
• [10:00] - why Sarah became interested in acquisitions 
• [14:35] A breakdown of the 1st acquisition - buying a book of fees from Bean Ninjas 
• [22:00] Why Sarah believes a retention clause is critical and how to negotiate it with the seller
• [28:14] Acquisition No 2 and the pros and cons of buying through a broker
• [38:34] Transitioning clients and an unexpected factor that can make the transition difficult 
• [47:29] Acquisition No 3 and lessons from three very different acquisitions 

Sarah Parkinson the owner of Diverse Business Consultant, a remote 25-person bookkeeping firm based in Australia.

Sarah lives on a farm with her husband and three children and their closest town has a population of 100 people.

Diverse won Xero’s Australian Bookkeeping Firm of the Year award for FY23.

You can connect with her on LinkedIn or via the Diverse Business Consultants website.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors 

TaxValet: Sales Tax Done For You

Electrafi:  Blockchain Training and Consulting for Accountants

Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees. 

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co

We cover a range of topics including:

• [03:58] The Arbor group's strategy to partner with accounting firms 

• [08:52] - how would a bookkeeping or accounting firm owner benefit from selling down a 40-60% stake in their firm?

• [16:10] - how Jason would finance these deals 

• [20:10] Jason and his business partner Rohan also have a VC fund. Accounting firms  don’t fit the brief of a typical VC investment. Jason explains how these acquisitions sit in the overall strategy of Arbor group.

• [22:37] The way Brett Kelly of Kelly Group typically structures his accounting firm acquisitions

• [25:29] Is it better to increase the revenue of your accounting firm via acquisitions or via sales and marketing?

"Jason Andrew is a chartered accountant and founder of the Arbor Group - a holdco of financial services business ranging from accounting and tax services, funds management and corporate advisory.

His personal mission and passion is to improve the financial literacy of entrepreneurs and executives and change the current worldview of the accounting profession."

You can connect with him on LinkedIn or Twitter. 

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors 

TaxValet: Sales Tax Done For You

Electrafi:  Blockchain Training and Consulting for Accountants

Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees. 

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co

• [04:04] Why Jason recommends graduate accountants start at a small firm rather than a mid-tier or Big 4 firm

• [11:32] Starting SBO.Financial and not getting paid for the first two years 

• [13:07]: Hiring a CEO to run SBO.Financial and what Jasons’ role looks like today 

• [20:38]: The Arbor Group structure and the benefits of using a Hold Co

• [23:51] Incentivising team members and why Jason prefers bonuses to equity   

• [26:22] Why SBO.Financial started a tax division the interesting structure they have in place with their Head of Tax 

• [31:25] The pros and cons of rollups in the accounting industry and why acquiring accounting firms can fail 

"Jason Andrew is a chartered accountant and founder of the Arbor Group - a holdco of financial services business ranging from accounting and tax services, funds management and corporate advisory.

His personal mission and passion is to improve the financial literacy of entrepreneurs and executives and change the current worldview of the accounting profession."

You can connect with him on LinkedIn or Twitter. 

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors 

TaxValet: Sales Tax Done For You

Electrafi: Blockchain Training and Consulting for Accountants  

Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees. 

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co.

[08:08] Networking: Fun, work … or both? 

[21:10] The surprising benefits of the Big 4 brand

[22:49] The expectations of a Big 4 partner and how it ties to compensation

• What sacrifices will you need to make along the way?
• What kind of salary can you expect?
• How does the buy-in process work?
• How is performance measured?
• Who should consider becoming a partner at a Big 4 firm and who shouldn’t 
• Why Christine left the Big 4 and moved to a private equity-backed commercial disputes firm.

Christine also answered some listener questions:

• [39:39] What is your tip for someone that's looking to make partner in the next twelve months?
• [41:31] 100 years from now. What do you think the professional partnership model will look like?
• [42:43] You're making a recommendation to an accounting graduate. Should they start at a big 4 firm a midtier firm a boutique firm or a small suburban firm which one 

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors 

TaxValet: Sales Tax Done For You

A2X: automated e-commerce accounting 

Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing monthly fees. 

Episode guest: Christine Oliver

Christine Oliver is a Senior Managing Director at Ankura where she provides expert evidence in a wide range of commercial disputes. 

Prior to joining Ankura, Christine was a partner at a Big 4 global accountancy firm, where she led their Australian dispute advisory practice.

You can connect with her on LinkedIn.

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co.

We chat about a range of topics including:

• [05:12] Why Matthew’s business partner Kenji decided to bring Matthew into the business when Acuity was almost 10 years old 
• [14:42] Their unique approach to employee compensation which allows team members to share in the risks and rewards 

• [20:05] How Acuity leverages professional sales people to generate leads and run the end to end sales process 
• [23:39] How Acuity generates deal flow
• [26:08 Why Matthew became interested in acquiring other firms
• [31:31] A breakdown of Acuity’s first acquisition, factors they considered in deciding to move and why it wasn’t the outcome they hoped
• [35:30] A breakdown of having another firm merge with them

You can connect with him on LinkedIn or Twitter. 

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors 

TaxValet: Sales Tax Done For You

A2X: automated e-commerce accounting 

Teamup: Hire top Filipino accountants without ongoing BPO fees. 

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co.

In particular, we discuss:

• [06:17] How Jason originally came to buy into an accounting firm
• [14:40] Why he started to consider leaving the firm
• [20:23] How he approaches making tough decisions knowing he is going to disappoint people 
• [23:51] How Jason brought up leaving with his business partner 
• [27:11] Putting in place a transition plan

You might know Jason from his daily YouTube show for accountants ‘Jason Daily’.

Prior to 2023, Jason ran an accounting & tax firm in Oregon. 

He started producing video content from his garage in 2020 and now he is focusing full-time on being a creator and running Realize a community for accounting firm owners. He has produced commercials for companies like LinkedIn and Zapier.

You can connect with him on LinkedIn or Twitter. 

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors 

TaxValet: Sales Tax Done For You

A2X: automated eCommerce accounting

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston. 

For more information or to get in touch with us, head over to our website lifestyleaccountant.co. 

Andrew Van De Beek has had 4 team members buy into Illumin8. In this episode, we walk through the details of each situation including: 

• [07:14] Why Andrew decided to have his leadership team own some of the business
• [09:52] Key terms of the shareholder agreement to consider  

• [12:20] Agreeing on salaries and when dividends should be paid 
• [14:54] What happens if a team member who owns equity no longer wants to work at Illumin8 
• [24:06] Andrew’s evolution from full-time co-founder of Illumin8 to part-time advisor 

I think it’s best to let him introduce himself! 

Hey, I’m Andrew and although I dream of running my own whisky bar, right now I’m an accountant (I guess). 

Founder of Illumin8, podcast host, co-working space owner, coordinator of retreats, mentor of up & coming accountants, keynote speaker & generally getting myself into interesting situations in the world of accounting

I push the boundaries, it’s the only way I can make the difference I want to make. I ask lots of questions. I listen to the answers and I’m not afraid to challenge what I hear.

You can connect with Andrew on LinkedIn and make sure to check out his podcast ‘Aly and Andrew’s All Aussie Accounting Adventures and his personal website.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors

TaxValet: Sales Tax Done For You

A2X: automated e-commerce accounting

The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses, while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston.