The need

Principals in Professional Service (PS) firms face the same
issues over and over again:

• No time or attention to partnership agreement
  
  
• How to bring on new partners/principals?
  
  
• Progression or succession planning
  
  
• Pension planning
  
  
• Exit of a principal/ disposal of a practice
  
  
• Financing a practice
  
  
• Profit share evaluation
  
  
• Profit sharing methodologies
  
  
• Tax, VAT and accounting treatment of WIP
  
  
• Valuing a practice or a share
  
  
• To incorporate or not?
  
  
• Key man planning Audit/ accounts for the firm and individual tax and wealth planning for the individual

Credentials

We specialise in advising Professional Service firms. Some are sole practitioners, some are partnerships and some are incorporated. Some are very large multi-office, national players and some are niche specialists operating from a modest office.

They are engaged in a range of activities: legal practices, medical practitioners, architects, quantity surveyors, consulting engineers, real estate agents, marketing and management consultants, tax and accounting firms.

Professional Service firms have needs that:

• Are quite unique and different from any other type of business activity.
  
  
• Need “grey hair” input: the issues are involved and sensitive but a specialist advisor will have seen it all before.
  
  
• Very bound up with the individual principals involved: Whether the principals are partners or directors/ shareholders, you cannot even begin to consider the business strategy without factoring in the principals’ circumstances.

Motivating, developing, supporting and rewarding the principals, these must underpin every decision that is made. 

Advisors to professional service firms need to be expert and have knowledge – especially of valuation and financial arrangements. But this is only a small part of the equation. Your advisors must have confidence in themselves and win over the confidence of the principals – individually and as a group.

They must understand how and why professional service firms excel.

Advisors must be good listeners and be able to diligently factor in the different needs of principals – while respecting the primacy of the business and the inherent mutuality of a firm.

Working with a professional services firm involves:

• Consulting with the principals in an appropriate forum to fully
  understand the issues.
  
  
• Reporting back to and meeting all the principals (including an option for individual meetings), take instructions and agree roles for the process.
  
  
• Information-gathering within the firm.

Features of our service

We operate at a number of different levels with our professional service clients:

• Accounting/ audit role with extensive consultations for advice.
  
  
• Informal consultative service available to the managing and/or
  finance director/ partner on an ad hoc basis.
  
  
• Specific projects (e.g. drafting the partnership agreement, preparing a 5 year plan, implementing a new profit sharing system, advising on the retirement of a principal, managing partner/director selection, merger, acquisition or sale, resolution of disputes among principals).
  

Benefits to you

The benefits of hiring Horwath Bastow Charleton flow directly from the fact that we specialise in advising Professional Service Firms:

You can delegate tasks to us, we know what is involved and we will get it done. No matter how sensitive or individual or high-level the issues, we will take the time and apply the resources to deliver
the result.

We will structure the process, the disruption and effort required will be minimised, everyone will know their role and progress will be made at the appropriate pace.

You will fast track the learning process, we’ve seen it all before, you can cut to the chase.

You will always have someone to talk to managing directors/partners often have a lonely job and often need an external reality check.

For further information contact: