Written by Heather Townsend, author of Accountants’ Millionaires Club and Founder of The Accountants’ Growth Club.

First published: 4th May 2025

It’s a question that surfaces time and again in conversations between accounting firm owners. Perhaps whispered over coffee or pondered during late-night planning sessions:

“How big do I actually want this accounting firm to get?”

It was a question that has been posed a number of times by accounting firm owners at our workshops.

This article asks important questions. Reflect on what you want from your practice. Consider what you truly need. As the article explains, your needs are key. These can be mental, financial, or physical. Your needs drive your personal growth decisions. They determine how big your firm should be.

You might see owners claiming success online. Industry gurus often praise huge revenues. You may feel internal pressure to always grow. This occurs when planning your firm’s future. In fact, an expert once told our member this: “Grow your firm to over £1 million.” “Otherwise, what’s the point?”. (True story!)

Growing your accounting firm for growth’s sake is not a strategy

But pursuing accounting firm growth for growth’s sake isn’t a strategy. Over the last 24 hours, I received two messages from club members who have been with us for over five years. One firm owner is highly delighted with a modest £28k increase in revenue for the last 12 months. The other is openly telling the world they have quadrupled the size of their business over the last 5+ years, achieving significant accounting practice expansion.

1accounts has nearly quadrupled in size

As you can see from Paul Donno’s 1accounts team size, 1accounts is no longer a tiny firm. But in the 5+ years he has been a member of The Accountants’ Growth Club his practice has nearly quadrupled in size. As these examples show, for accounting firm owners focused on scaling an accounting practice, it’s not always about being a top 100 UK firm or a 7-figure firm.

The truth is, there’s no magic number, no universal ‘right’ size for an accounting practice. Reaching £1 million in turnover is a significant milestone achieved by only a small fraction of UK businesses (around 4%, and even fewer start-ups hit it quickly), but whether that specific target, or any other size benchmark, aligns with your personal business development goals for your accounting firm is another matter entirely.

The optimal size for your firm is deeply personal.

It hinges on a unique mix of your aspirations, financial requirements, tolerance for risk and stress, and the practical capacity of your business as you grow your accounting firm. This article won’t give you a definitive answer, but it will provide a framework to help you explore the crucial factors, weigh the trade-offs, and make a conscious, strategic decision about the future size and shape of your practice – finding the ‘just right’ that aligns with your definition of success when you grow your accounting firm.

When we work with accounting firm owners on our Re-Energise Your Practice Day, we always go deep into what their ‘why’ is. After all, why are you putting yourself through this much pain in order to grow your accounting firm? When you understand your ‘why’ and the drivers behind it, you then, surprisingly enough, find the energy to restart your firm’s growth.

In the Accountants’ Millionaires Club book, chapter 2 delves into how to put together a growth vision and plan for your firm.

Why did you start your small accounting firm?

Before deciding how much you want to grow your small accounting firm, it’s essential to revisit your starting point. Why did you start your practice in the first place? After all, you swapped a secure paycheck and less stress for a high-stress role. Then, you hope the promise of making more money eventually comes true. But it’s not just about the money at the end of the day.

In the Accountants’ Millionaires Club book, chapter 2 directly asks this question. Why did you start your accounting firm?

For many, the motivations are deeply personal and often represent a desire for something different from traditional employment:

Control and flexibility:

Perhaps you stepped out of corporate life seeking autonomy – the freedom to dictate your hours, choose your clients, and work where and when suits you, maybe around a young family or other life commitments.

Building a pension pot:

You might be driven by the desire to build a valuable asset, something that provides long-term financial independence, funds a comfortable retirement, or creates a legacy.

The challenge:

For some, the entrepreneurial journey itself is the reward – the satisfaction of building something from scratch, overcoming obstacles, and seeing just how far you can take your accounting firm expansion. Or just showing someone in your previous life that, despite their doubts, you would amount to something. And yes, you could and would do better than what they would give you credit for.

Lifestyle goals:

Maybe the aim was always to create a business that supports a desired lifestyle, such as a lovely home, family holidays, hobbies, and ultimately, working fewer hours with less stress.

Passion for the work:

You might simply love the core work of accounting and advising clients, finding fulfilment in helping them succeed.

Think about the level of challenge and income you need

When we run our Re-energise Your Practice Day, we show delegates this 2×2 matrix, where the axes are Challenge and Income.

We then ask delegates to reflect on what prompted them to start their practice and how their need for challenge and income has changed over the years. In fact, I often share my own story of why I founded The Accountants’ Growth Club and what led me to work with accounting firm owners who wanted and needed help with strategies for growing their accounting practices.

This is how my motivation to grow my business changed over time

See below for how my motivation has changed since setting up The Accountants’ Growth Club and now.

At one point, I thought I wanted and needed to grow my business until it hit the dizzy heights of £1m in revenue. After all, I wrote the book The Accountants’ Millionaires’ Club. However, a conversation with my accountant highlighted some key facts:

• My business’s profitability would drive my business’s valuation, and what did I really want, to say I was a £1m business OR to get a valuation of over £1m?
• If my business had a value of £1m, who would buy it? And did I really need £1m?

It was a lightbulb moment to have someone get me to think about what I really wanted and needed. And it wasn’t what our society deemed I should be aiming for.

Take a moment to reflect honestly. How would you plot your current journey between the two drivers of income and challenge? What has or hasn’t changed? Now, consider what your primary drivers were? And crucially, how have they evolved? What does success look like for you now, not just in terms of revenue or headcount, but in the quality of your life, your stress levels, and your overall satisfaction? Your business should be a vehicle to achieve these personal goals, not the other way around.

Ambition vs appetite: How big do you really want to grow your firm?

It’s easy to get caught up in external benchmarks. We hear phrases like ‘I want to rapidly grow my accounting firm to £1m turnover in 5 years‘ or ‘I want to be a Top 100 firm’. These sound ambitious, and perhaps feed the ego, but they often lack connection to personal reality.

Graeme Morris needed a dose of reality to find out what he really wanted from his accounting firm

In fact, Graeme Morris, when he joined the Accountants’ Growth club, wanted to grow his accounting firm to £5m. When we talked about what he really wanted, the scale and size of his ambitions reduced significantly. When Graeme worked on his WHY and managing expectations, he started to think about what it was he really wanted. To use an analogy, we all ‘want’ a fancy, expensive car, but do we really need that to get from A to B? And in knowing he needed to make changes, did that mean he had all the answers and knew it all? (Spoiler alert: no one knows it all!).

A dose of reality, courtesy of his Growth expert and attendance at Daily Power Ups and various Accountants’ Growth Club programmes, started to give Graeme a perspective shift. Graeme began to clarify what he truly wanted by actively listening to and engaging with other Accountants’ Growth Club members in a safe and open forum. This opened his eyes to various ways they were handling similar issues related to scaling an accounting practice. It helped him understand where he could flex and what would or wouldn’t work for him, given his current situation. And if he was ‘wrong’, it was always okay to pivot and try something different. It also put his growth ambitions onto a more modest but achievable footing. As Graeme says here, he credits the club with stopping him from either selling up or having a heart attack.

Answer the question: Do I truly want to?

The critical question isn’t just ‘Can I?’ but ‘Do I truly want to?’. Growing an accounting firm significantly requires more than ambition; it demands a genuine appetite for what’s involved. When faced with the practicalities – the need for substantial investment (often personal capital initially), the challenges of hiring for accounting firm growth, managing a larger team, the relentless focus on sales and marketing for accountants, the potential dilution of control, and the inevitable increase in complexity and stress – does the desire to grow your accounting firm to a certain size still feel appealing?

Do you really know what you are deciding to commit to?

There have been several instances when I have met with accounting firm owners who wish to grow their accounting firms. The conversation can often go along these lines:

Them: “I want to grow my accounting firm to be more than £1m+”

Me: How big are you now, and when do you want to get to this point?

Them: “I want to be there in 3-5 years” (and normally their size is under £150k)

Me: How many leads are you currently generating (a key part of lead generation for accounting firms), and what is their value?

Them: “Minimal and normally price-sensitive clients or the occasional client referral”

Me: Have you considered what it will take to grow organically and achieve your target? [I then go through the maths]

Them: “Now you put it that way, I hadn’t considered the scale of how many new clients I needed to win to get to that point”

Me: “If growing organically is not going to work for you, then how about doing 2 or 3 acquisitions to achieve that accounting firm expansion?”

Them: “That feels too risky”

Me: “What do you really want, and shall we talk about what’s achievable for you and your firm if you want to grow and scale it?”

Often, a frank conversation, such as the one above, reveals that the stated ambition doesn’t match the willingness to commit to the journey required to grow an accounting firm. This isn’t failure; it’s having the clarity to know what you want and what you are willing to do to achieve it. It leads to a more honest assessment:

What’s really driving the ambition?

Is it societal pressure, competitor comparison, or a deeply held personal goal? After all, the small business community fetishes achieving a 7-figure business. But let’s be honest, if it is going to make you miserable to grow your accounting firm to £1m+, why are you even considering doing this?

How much money do you need versus want?

• How much income is required to support your desired lifestyle now?
• What level of wealth are you aiming for in the medium term?
• What value do you need from an eventual exit to secure your future (e.g, pension pot)?

Be honest with yourself: lying to yourself isn’t going to help you going forward

Answering these questions honestly allows you to set accounting practice growth goals grounded in your reality and appetite, rather than chasing arbitrary numbers. You might find that a highly profitable, efficient smaller firm perfectly meets your financial needs with far less stress than a larger, potentially lower-margin operation.

This is all about self-leadership. I.e. are you stepping up to lead the practice you want to? Funnily enough, we find that 60% of participants who take our Growth Assessment Tool score highly in this category. Knowing the size of firm you want to be is a key part of enjoying the journey to grow your firm. Click here to take our free Growth Assessment to see how you score and where you need to improve.

Why grow bigger? (I.e. What’s in it for you if you do grow your firm to the next level?)

Despite the challenges, pursuing significant growth holds undeniable attractions, particularly pushing towards and beyond the £1 million revenue mark. Why do accounting firm owners go on this demanding path to grow their accounting firm?

Increased revenue & absolute profit:

While margins might fluctuate, a larger firm simply has the potential to generate significantly higher absolute profits, leading to greater personal wealth for the owner(s).

Higher capital value on exit:

Accounting firms in the UK, up to about £750k to £1m in revenue, are often valued on a multiplier of gross recurring fees (GRF). That margin is currently somewhere between 1.0 and 1.5 if you are prepared to take payment over 2 years in 3 instalments and also wait for 2 years to support the handover. If you want to cash out quicker, then you are probably looking at a multiplier of GRF under 1.0.

Economies of scale (The theory):

While challenging in people-centric services, larger firms may gain efficiencies through bulk purchasing, leveraging technology, or negotiating better overhead rates, aiming to increase accounting firm revenue faster than their costs. We are currently seeing this theory being played out as private equity money buys up small practices to consolidate them into a much larger firm.

Access to larger opportunities:

Size can be a prerequisite for winning larger, more complex, and often more profitable contracts from bigger clients or public sector bodies. Smaller firms might simply lack the perceived capacity or track record.

Innovation & delivering more services:

Scaling an accounting firm provides the resources to develop new service lines (particularly advisory), adopt cutting-edge technology, and meet changing clients’ demands.

Attracting & retaining talent:

Growing firms are often seen as offering more dynamic career paths and opportunities, crucial in the ‘war for talent’. Growth itself can motivate ambitious staff.

Legacy:

Some owners are driven by the desire to build an enduring firm that outlasts their involvement. Pursuing scale, particularly beyond the £500k-£1m threshold, often signifies a shift from a firm built around the cult and billable hours of the owner, to a firm which delivers the clients’ workload mostly via a team of fee earners.

Growing pains for growing accounting firms

Growth isn’t a smooth upward curve; it’s a series of transitions, each bringing distinct operational challenges when you grow your accounting firm. Mistaking simple revenue increase for true, profitable scaling is a common and costly error. Pushing for growth before your systems, team, and cash flow are ready can strain resources, damage service quality, and erode profits.

Operational Challenges:

Accounting firm owners must navigate critical inflection points – see the image below

Common Audience Pains:

Scaling an accounting practice inevitably exacerbates the challenges many small firm owners already face: getting stuck in the business instead of working on it; inadequate systems causing bottlenecks and errors; cash flow pressures limiting investment; difficulties setting and raising prices; finding time for effective marketing and sales for accountants; and the constant struggle with time management and ‘firefighting’.

The Talent Challenge:

Perhaps the most persistent barrier to successfully grow an accounting firm, especially beyond £500k, is attracting, training, managing, and retaining skilled staff in a competitive market. After all, the bigger local firms are often looking to poach your good people and lure them away with the promise of a faster career path and more money. Escalating salary costs add further pressure. Learning to delegate effectively is crucial, but it can be a challenging task. For people-based businesses, failing to solve the talent challenge fundamentally threatens scaling ambitions.

How overwhelm hinders your accounting firm’s growth

The cumulative weight of these growing pains – the constant firefighting, the cash flow worries, the people management demands, the struggle to find headspace for strategic thinking – often leads to significant owner fatigue and overwhelm when trying to grow an accounting firm. You know you should be implementing that new practice management system, sorting out your firm’s prices, documenting processes, or delegating more client work, but you simply lack the energy, time, or mental bandwidth to tackle it.

Overwhelm is a key red flag that something needs to change

In fact, most new members of the Accountants’ Growth Club report significant levels of overwhelm at the point they join. Take Natalie Binstead-Wey. She felt stuck and overwhelmed when she joined. But under 12 months later she was working a 4-day week and had a chilled busy season.

This state of overwhelm becomes a barrier in itself. It prevents you from making the very adjustments needed to ease the pressure and break through to the next stage of accounting firm growth. You get stuck in a cycle of being too busy because the systems aren’t adequate or there are problems with people, pricing or new client acquisition for your accounting firm. But you feel you are too overwhelmed to fix the problems.

Over time, this can lead you to feeling stuck and downhearted, as if nothing seems to work, which can then become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Recognising this fatigue trap is the first step in addressing it, which involves a hard look at priorities, delegation, and potentially seeking external help.

Find out where the source of your overwhelm is with our free Growth Assessment

Feeling overwhelmed with growing your practice or just your current workload? You’re not alone. Our Growth Assessment Tool showed that, only 20% of participants scored high in managing work overload. Then 30% scored really poorly on this category.

Discover how you can improve by taking the free self-assessment today and gain insights into balancing your workload effectively. Don’t let stress hold you back from achieving your growth targets! Take the free assessment now: click here. You’ll get a personalised report with recommendations on how you can change things structurally to stop feeling overwhelmed.

On our Certified Growth Advisor programme (a 6-month programme just for club members) we help our members think through what is stopping them from moving forward with their growth plans. This is what Sarah Fenton, owner of Smart Bookkeeping and Accounts and Accountants’ Growth Club member,  had to say about her experience of presenting her growth plan on the programme:

How about keeping your accounting firm intentionally smaller?

Amidst the focus on scaling an accounting practice, it’s vital to recognise that there are benefits to being small. I.e. operating what’s often termed a ‘lifestyle business’. This isn’t about lacking ambition; it’s about directing ambition differently, prioritising the owner’s quality of life, autonomy, and personal fulfilment alongside financial sufficiency.

After all, how much money do you really need to fulfil your current and future lifestyle? For example, can you clear £50k of profit (after you have taken out salary and pension) from your business? This can be reinvested into other assets such as property. You then don’t need to bank on selling your practice becoming your pension pot.

Whilst it sounds idyllic, you can achieve this profit margin. If you decide to invest in an offshored or outsourced team plus some admin support in the UK you can grow your accounting firm to £300-350k annual turnover without breaking yourself or the business in the process. This model, particularly if you don’t have office premises, can return a 50% profit margin.

Choosing this path is an intentional strategy. Success is measured not just by turnover, but by the quality of life the business enables. Profitability remains crucial, but it serves the owner’s lifestyle goals rather than being pursued relentlessly through scale. Remember, you don’t need to prove anything to anyone. Your business is your business and it needs to work for you.

Finding your balance: Well-being vs ambition when you grow your accounting firm

The path you choose to grow your accounting firm has a profound impact on your personal experience as an owner. Being your own boss gives you autonomy, flexibility and a level of freedom. However, it’s also undeniably stressful. Long hours, the struggle to switch off, financial worries, and responsibility for staff take their toll. Issues like worrying about staff resigning, cash flow or whether your clients will accept a much-needed fee increase. These can ramp up your stress levels and possibly mean you decide you can’t hack this level of growth or size of practice.

Your self-care and sanity is not optional

Regardless of size, proactive management of your well-being is vital. Growing and scaling an accounting practice is hard. So, it’s important to make sure that you enjoy the journey going forward. Key strategies to make your journey that little bit easier:

• Setting boundaries
• Effective delegation
• Time management techniques
• Self-care
• Leveraging technology

Importantly, research shows engaging professional advisors (hint, hint, you know where we are), demonstrably reduces owner stress and improves well-being. Investing in advice is investing in your resilience.

Time for some self-reflection

What to ask yourself when thinking about “How big do I want to grow my accounting firm?”

• Stripping away external pressures, what does ‘success’ genuinely mean to me?
• What specific sacrifices (time, control, stress, financial risk) am I truly willing and able to make for accounting firm growth?
• What are my biggest internal limitations (skills, mindset, time) hindering my preferred path to grow my accounting firm. How can I address them?
• What are the most significant external challenges (market, funding, talent) for my chosen path to grow my accounting firm. How can I mitigate them?
• Does a target like £1m revenue have a meaningful strategic objective? And is this objective tied to specific outcomes? Outcomes that align with my accounting firm expansion plans, or just an arbitrary number? What tangible benefits would it unlock?
• Could a highly efficient, profitable, and fulfilling smaller firm adequately achieve my core personal and financial objectives? Would this mean less risk and stress? Rather than focusing solely on how to grow an accounting firm in size?

In summary

It’s a personal journey

Defining your firm’s ‘right’ size is a personal journey. It is unique to you. No single signpost marks ‘success’ for everyone. Scaling beyond £1 million offers rewards. Consider the potential financial gain and market impact. However, this path demands significant changes. Expect more complexity, investment, and stress. Your role within the firm will shift fundamentally.

Growth requires more than just ambition. You need a deep appetite for the climb. After all, growth brings mental challenges. Think about the payroll differences between a £1m firm and a £100k firm. This difference in scale can play with your mental state!

A lifestyle-focused firm may work for you better

Conversely, a smaller practice offers advantages. Think about a ‘lifestyle-focused’ firm. It provides greater autonomy. You gain better work-life balance. Deeper client relationships become possible. Its capital value on exit might be less. However, the firm can be highly profitable. It can be sustainable too. You can build a great business you enjoy running.

Ultimately, the power lies in making a conscious choice. This lets you define what ‘big enough’ means for you.

• Decide how your accounting firm should grow.
• Honestly evaluate your motivations first.
• Consider your appetite for growth’s demands.
• Analyse market realities.
• Assess operational readiness.
• Understand your financial needs too.

Don’t let external benchmarks sway you. Avoid ego-driven targets too. Engage with trusted advisors. Seek perspective from mentors, coaches, and peers. The Accountants’ Growth Club community can help. Their insights are invaluable for this decision. Choose a path allowing your firm to thrive. Mere survival is not enough. Select the way that truly works for you.

About the author – Heather Townsend

Heather Townsend is the founder of The Accountants’ Growth Club. She is the author of The Accountants’ Millionaires Club and Profitable Pricing for Accountants. She has spent the last 20 years helping accounting firm owners grow and scale their practice. Connect with Heather on LinkedIn or subscribe to her substack ‘Start Up To Grown Up‘. Find out more about Heather here.