Fifteen minutes with Harvey. No pitch. Just an honest conversation about your options, founder, partner, or successor, we speak your language.
“We don’t take on clients, we take on the responsibility of everything you built.”Harvey, Founder & CEO
Zmartly Ltd, founded 2018, based in London, serving clients across the UK.
London-based, CIMA-regulated firm, backed by professional indemnity insurance. You are dealing with a real firm, not a holding vehicle.
Zmartly is a CIMA-regulated accountancy and advisory firm based in London. We serve hundreds of clients nationwide with a growing team of qualified accountants (ACMA, CGMA, ACCA, FCCA).
We’ve grown because we invest in the right things: people who care, technology that works, and specialist expertise in areas like eCommerce, crypto, and cloud automation that most traditional practices don’t offer.
Now we’re looking for established practices to welcome into the Zmartly family. Not to strip down or rebrand overnight, but to honour what you’ve built and give your clients a future that’s even better than what they have today.
Maybe you’ve thought about it seriously. Maybe it’s just a flicker. Either way, you’ve earned the right to explore it on your own terms.
We’re open-minded. Fit matters more than size.
Even if your practice isn’t a perfect match on paper, we’d still love to talk. Every practice is unique.
Book a 15-minute confidential call with Harvey and we’ll give you an honest valuation range within 48 hours. No obligation. No broker fees.
An accountancy practice with £240K GRF and £80K recurring EBITDA, sole practitioner, ecommerce client base, might be valued at £240K × 0.8 = around £192K. As a smaller practice it would typically be paid 50% on completion and 50% after 24 months, tied to client retention.
Indicative range only, every practice is different. Actual multiples depend on client mix, concentration risk, staffing, and owner dependency. We’ll give you a precise number after a confidential valuation call.
We move at your pace. Some conversations happen over weeks, others over months.
15 minutes with Harvey. Your situation, your timeline, what a good outcome looks like.
A fair, honest range, and a clear explanation of what drives the number.
We review the essentials. Quick, respectful, never intrusive.
Price, structure, timeline. Everything clear in writing before we proceed.
Clients introduced with care. Staff looked after. Professional clearance, HMRC transfers, PI run-off arranged. Your name respected throughout.
I started Zmartly because I believe accountancy should be personal, modern, and built around the client. When I speak to practice owners about their future, I’m not looking at a spreadsheet, I’m thinking about the decades of trust you’ve built with people who rely on you.
If you want a straight conversation about your options, even if you’re years away from a decision, I’m happy to have it. And if we’re not the right fit, I’ll tell you that too.
You’ll also meet: Dal (Chief Operations Officer), Simran (Chief Financial Officer), and Isabel (Chief of Staff), the people who will look after your clients and team throughout the transition.
I’ve used several accountants in the past, but hands down there is no one better than Harvey at Zmartly. He really understands exactly what advice you’re looking for and explains everything clearly and professionally. Nothing ever feels rushed…
I’ve had an excellent experience working with Zmartly. Harvey and the team are professional, responsive, and genuinely supportive. They explain things clearly, stay on top of deadlines, and always look for practical ways to save tax and improve…
I started working with Zmartly Accountants after having serious issues with my previous accounting firm. They were missing deadlines, incorrectly calculating VAT, constantly late, and extremely difficult and frustrating to communicate with. Switching to Zmartly was a huge…
Great proactive service always up to date regarding accounting legislation. Harvey and Team will be always helping you with advise how to make your books look good. Already over 4 years using their service very happy.
I've had a terrible experience with multiple accountants. Zmartly have been incredible. If you do ecommerce / Amazon FBA you definitely need to go with someone who understands the complexities with it. Thanks to Harvey and his amazing…
I’ve used several accountants in the past, but hands down there is no one better than Harvey at Zmartly. He really understands exactly what advice you’re looking for and explains everything clearly and professionally. Nothing ever feels rushed…
I’ve had an excellent experience working with Zmartly. Harvey and the team are professional, responsive, and genuinely supportive. They explain things clearly, stay on top of deadlines, and always look for practical ways to save tax and improve…
I started working with Zmartly Accountants after having serious issues with my previous accounting firm. They were missing deadlines, incorrectly calculating VAT, constantly late, and extremely difficult and frustrating to communicate with. Switching to Zmartly was a huge…
Great proactive service always up to date regarding accounting legislation. Harvey and Team will be always helping you with advise how to make your books look good. Already over 4 years using their service very happy.
I've had a terrible experience with multiple accountants. Zmartly have been incredible. If you do ecommerce / Amazon FBA you definitely need to go with someone who understands the complexities with it. Thanks to Harvey and his amazing…
The part of a practice sale most sellers underestimate. Here’s a straight explanation.
Practice sales aren’t paid entirely in cash on day one, and the structure is tied to the size of the practice. We’d rather be straight about this up front than overstate the day-one figure.
Half on completion, half after 24 months.
Three equal instalments over 36 months.
The deferred portion is tied to client retention. When structured fairly this is normal, and a sign of a serious buyer rather than an aggressive one.
Why the deferral exists: the buyer is paying for recurring client relationships they haven’t yet had a chance to retain. An earnout protects the buyer against fee attrition that happens after completion, clients who leave because of the change, or fees that turn out to have been one-off rather than recurring. Without it, practices would simply be over-priced.
What a seller should watch for: clawback clauses (how much can be pulled back, and over what window), measurement methods (is retention measured by client count, fee value, or billable hours?), and control (after completion, you often no longer decide how clients are served, so any retention metric that depends on your actions after sale should be mutually agreed). We walk every seller through this line by line before terms are signed.
Most practice-sale guides are written by brokers, who dangle a high headline multiple and then take a percentage of the deal. Here is the honest contrast, so you can compare what you actually keep, not the number you are quoted.
Take a practice with £300K GRF. A broker dangles a 1.0xheadline, £300K, then charges a 12% fee of £36K, leaving £264K before tax. Selling direct to Zmartly at a straight 0.8x is £240K with no fee. The gap narrows fast, and the direct route comes with one confidential buyer and the founder’s direct attention. Across the three practices we have acquired in the last five years, average client retention has been 94%, which is what protects any retention-linked deferred consideration.
Illustrative figures only, to show how a fee changes the maths. Individual results vary. Every practice is different and actual multiples, fees and tax depend on your specific circumstances. The acquisition and retention figures are our own, stated as fact.
Whether you’re ready now or just starting to think about it, the first step is a quiet, confidential chat with Harvey.
Prefer to just pick up the phone? 020 8175 5145
Your details will never be shared. No public listing. No tyre-kickers.
Valuations, deal structures, tax, and how to prepare, whether you sell to us or not. We’ll email it straight over.
