Why join
Grow like a platform. Run like your own firm.
Shared infrastructure lets each member firm grow EBITDA, expand services, outpace the consolidators on technology, and exit at platform scale, without surrendering local control.
The problem
The growth curve is shared. The mistakes do not have to be.
There are thousands of independent CPA firms in the country, each climbing the same growth curve in isolation. The path from $1M to $2M to $5M is walked alone every time, with the same predictable mistakes, because nobody who has already done it is in the room.
The Alliance puts those operators in the same room. A firm joining at $2M is not the first member firm to navigate the move to $5M. The firms who already did it are at the table, along with the partners who built them and the mistakes they paid for, so the next firm does not have to repeat them.
Four reasons
Four moves, one direction.
Each one starts with a problem every independent firm owner knows, and ends with what the Alliance takes off your plate.
01 · Capacity and staffing
Give partner time back. It's the scarcest thing your firm has.
The problem
In a small firm, the partner is also the HR department, the IT help desk, the payroll sign-off and the person chasing receivables. None of that work is billable, and all of it lands on the partner's desk. The average equity partner works far more hours than they charge to clients, and at smaller firms the managing partner carries the heaviest client load of anyone while still running the business.
Why it matters
Every hour spent administering the firm is an hour not spent with clients, growing the book or developing the next partner. The partner becomes the bottleneck on capacity, the team runs at the limit, and the firm leans on its owner for everything. That dependence is exactly what a buyer discounts when the firm is valued for sale.
"Most firms carry workloads far beyond their teams' ability to serve well. The result: burnout, turnover and a persistent revenue-per-person gap."
The 2025 Rosenberg Survey
What the Alliance takes off your plate
- Payroll, with consolidated benefits and technology pricing, through the Extended Back Office.
- Finance: statement preparation, AP, reconciliations and AR receipts.
- HR and IT services, so hiring paperwork and help-desk tickets stop routing to a partner.
- Recruiting: the Extended Back Office helps member firms find and hire their own accounting staff.
- Production capacity through large-scale offshoring and AI tooling that compress production hours.
02 · Expanded services
Add the services your firm cannot build alone. Stop referring the best work out.
The problem
Your clients already need wealth management, cost segregation studies, R&D credits, valuations and CFO-level help. Nearly every small firm refers that work out, and the fee and a piece of the relationship leave with it. Hiring a specialist for each one only makes sense at platform scale.
Why it matters
Most firms under $10M concentrate in tax, audit and bookkeeping, and the advisory work clients value most is the work a small firm sends elsewhere. Firms over $20M are far more likely to offer financial services, and firms that offer them report higher income per partner.
What the Alliance puts in house
- Shared Services Group: a wholly owned, licensed CPA firm with valuation, cost segregation and R&D credit specialists.
- Fractional CFO and CFO recruiting, growing offerings inside the Shared Services Group.
- Specialists at other member firms: audit, transaction advisory, IRS and state audit resolution and payroll sit at individual member firms, and any firm in the Alliance can offer them to its clients.
- Joint Ventures: Linked Wealth brings advanced tax strategy, private wealth management and family-office services to member firm clients, alongside a mortgage joint venture. Partners participate in the distributions as owners.
- Data-informed advisory tooling that identifies the next revenue opportunity client by client.
03 · Futureproofing
Outpace the industry on technology and data. Without making it a partner's side job.
The problem
Our industry is slow to move, especially when staying current is solely the partners' job. AI, automation and offshoring are changing how the work gets done, and a small firm has to evaluate, buy, implement and train on every tool by itself.
Why it matters
The firms pulling ahead are the ones that can put people, tools and offshore capacity to work at scale. Staff billable hours are falling across the profession, and larger firms already lean on outsourced production far more than small ones. A firm that tries to keep pace alone carries that whole cost and learning curve on its own.
What the Alliance builds for you
- One shared engine: member firms invest together in the technology that keeps them on the cutting edge, instead of each firm buying alone.
- AI tooling and large-scale offshoring that compress production hours.
- Selected platforms consolidated at the Alliance level, with technology pricing a single firm can't get. Most production software stays your call.
- Data-informed decisions: advisory tooling that surfaces opportunities client by client.
04 · Exit strategy
Exit at platform scale, not lifestyle scale.
The problem
Every owner eventually transitions out. For an independent firm under $10M, the buyer pool is usually a local successor or an internal buyout, and the price carries an owner-dependency discount: the firm is worth less because so much of it runs through you.
Why it matters
The succession clock is already running: 26% of partners at $2 to 5M firms are over 60. The value you have built is decided by how the firm is valued on the day you leave, and platform-scale enterprises are valued very differently from lifestyle practices.
What the Alliance changes
- Compound first: shared capacity and expanded services grow revenue and EBITDA before any transition is considered.
- Less owner dependency: a shared back office, shared specialists and shared process keep the firm running without any one partner.
- Exit at scale, on your timeline, as part of a larger organization owned by its member firms, not a fund.
The economics
The math nobody else publishes.
Independent CPA firms below $10M are valued one way. Platform-scale CPA alliances are valued another. The asymmetry is not subtle.
Solo exit
Apart
- Revenue multiple
- 1.0 to 1.5x
- EBITDA multiple
- 3 to 5x
- Buyer universe
- Local successor, internal partner buyout
- Market reality
- Lifestyle multiple, owner-dependency discount
- Owner outcome
- One sale, valued for what you built alone
Alliance exit
Together
- Revenue multiple
- 3x+
- EBITDA multiple
- 12 to 15x+
- Buyer universe
- Strategic acquirers, family office, private equity
- Market reality
- Comparable platforms clearing 17x+ EBITDA in 2026
- Owner outcome
- Compound first, then exit at scale
Multiples reflect 2026 CPA-firm M&A transactions and recently announced platform deals, not The Rosenberg Survey. Member firms compound revenue through shared capacity and expanded services before any transition is considered.
Survey figures: The 2025 Rosenberg Survey (The Growth Partnership), based on 2024 firm results. Averages use the middle 90% of each data set.
What we are not
Not like anyone you've met before.
Not a PE rollup.
Member firms own the Alliance. No outside investors, no fund pressure, no carry waiting at the bottom of the cap table.
Not a network license.
One organization, governed by a Board drawn from member firm partners. Members share the equity in what we build together, not a logo license.
Not a brand swap.
Member firms keep their local names and continue to run their own firms day to day.