Buying and selling accountancy practices

The client

A brokerage for accountancy practices, which began as a division of our company-formation client and later became a business in its own right.

The challenge

Selling an accountancy practice is a long, confidential process. The brokers needed to keep track of every seller and would-be buyer, follow up at the right time, and match the two by location and size, while the public website had to bring in enquiries without giving away who was selling.

What we built for the brokers

• Records of sellers and buyers, with what each is looking for and where
• A contact diary with follow-up reminders
• Checks for duplicate contacts, and clear stages for every deal
• Territories for a network of local agents

What we built for the website

When the brokerage became a separate business, we built its own website on a content management system, so staff could keep it up to date themselves:

• Practices for sale, listed without revealing who is selling
• A practice valuation tool and a growth "health check" for practice owners
• Registration forms for buyers and sellers

Technical details

The brokers' system was a module in the company-formation client's Windows back office, with its own data model for buyers, sellers, diary entries and agent territories. The later stand-alone website was built on Umbraco, replacing an earlier ASP.NET Web Forms version.

• .NET
• Windows desktop
• ASP.NET Web Forms
• Umbraco CMS
• SQL Server