Most owners never think about who owns their accounting firm. They think about the partner who has known their books for years. When that firm changes hands, it is a good moment to ask how much of your company's financial history lives only in somebody else's building, even if nothing about the service changes.
Central Ohio owners got a reason to ask this month. Whalen CPAs, a Dublin firm founded in 1945 with clients across the region in manufacturing, construction, real estate, healthcare and other industries, has joined UHY, a national firm backed by private equity, Accounting Today reported.
A new owner brings a new plan, even for your accountant
I have sat in capital board meetings from both sides of the table. Any owner who buys a business, a private equity firm included, buys it with a plan to grow it, and that plan sets priorities for the people who work there. UHY has been growing this way for a while: the same report lists eight other firms it has bought since taking private equity investment in December 2024. That is how ownership works, and it can mean more resources and more specialists for the clients. It also means the firm you rely on now answers to goals you did not set.
Most of what happens to the firms around you is outside your control. What you do control is how much your company depends on any one of them.
Your books may live in your accountant's head
Your outside firm may do more than file the return. It may make the year-end adjustments, keep the history of why the company is structured the way it is, and remember the tax positions taken years ago and the reasons for them. If your team closes the month and the outside firm makes the numbers final, this section is about you.
That arrangement can work for years. The risk is that the knowledge sits with a person you do not employ. Owning a company and operating it are two different roles, and as a company grows, what the operator does has to be written down so the business is not just relying on one person. The same goes for what your outside firm does for you. You do not have to do this work yourself. What matters is that it gets done, and that someone inside the company can see it and explain it.
Keep the relationship and own the knowledge
A long relationship with a good local firm is worth keeping. Loyalty to a relationship that has served you well is a strength, and a sale does not have to change it. What should change is where the knowledge lives.
- Ask your firm plainly what changes and what stays: who works on your account, who you call when something comes up, and whether the partner who knows your history is staying on it.
- Write down what only the outside firm knows today: the entity structure and why, the year-end entries your team never sees, the tax positions and the reasoning behind them.
- Make sure your records live in systems your company owns and could hand to anyone.
- Give one person inside the company ownership of the financial picture: the close, the reporting, the forecast. They should be able to explain the numbers without the outside firm in the room. That can be a controller, a full-time CFO, or a fractional CFO for a company not yet ready for one.
If your team already closes and owns the books, little changes
Some companies use their outside firm only to review the year and file the return, from books a strong internal team closes and understands. If that is you, a change of owner at the firm is mostly a change of letterhead, and the conversation to have with them is about service.
Start before your next year-end meeting
Before you sit down with your accountant for year-end, list what they know about your company that nobody on your payroll does. Every item on that list is something your company relies on but does not own. It is the same rule as building a marketing plan that outlasts your CMO, applied to your numbers. If you would like help working through the list, I am glad to talk.
John Wyatt · John Wyatt's page · All posts · RSS