Integrating an acquired block of fees without hiring

• A block of fees usually prices between 0.9 and 1.5 times gross recurring fees (GRF), with a clean general-practice block landing nearer 1.0 to 1.3 times (sellmyfees.co.uk, 2026).
• 30 to 50% of the price is typically deferred over 12 to 24 months, with 10 to 20% of that subject to clawback if the acquired clients leave during the deferral period (blockoffees.co.uk, 2026).
• That clawback window is exactly when production quality matters most, and it is the wrong moment to decide a salary and an employment contract for someone who has never met the acquired clients.
• Size a seat to the acquired block's hours before completion, so the new clients arrive into capacity that already exists. The alternative is a vacancy still being advertised when the first client call comes in.
• Hold the client list steady until the first few months of retention figures are in, then extend the seat's hours as the deferred payments de-risk.

What changes when a block of fees arrives

Buying a block of fees — the client list of a retiring or departing practitioner, sold separately from the rest of their practice — adds a known amount of work on a known date. That is different from organic growth, where new clients arrive one at a time and capacity can flex to match. A block arrives all at once, usually with a transition period already agreed with the seller, and the buyer has to be ready to produce the work from day one of that period, not from whenever a new hire finishes their notice period elsewhere.

Pricing for a block is usually set as a multiple of its gross recurring fees. The realistic range in 2026 runs from 0.9 to 1.5 times GRF, with a clean general-practice block — few complications, good records, low client concentration — landing closer to 1.0 to 1.3 times (sellmyfees.co.uk, 2026). The multiple moves on the same factors a buyer would check before taking on any new client: how recurring the fee is, how concentrated the GRF is in a small number of accounts, and how much support the seller is providing during handover.

The clawback period sets the pace

Most deals do not pay the full price on completion. A typical structure defers 30 to 50% of the price over 12 to 24 months, with 10 to 20% of the total subject to clawback: the deferred amount is reduced if the acquired clients leave during that period (blockoffees.co.uk, 2026). The clawback mechanism is agreed in the sale contract — which clients count, how retention is measured, what reduces the final payment — and it means the buyer's own production standard in the first 12 to 24 months has a direct line to the final price paid for the block.

That is the argument for keeping capacity flexible during the clawback window. A new employee hired to cover the acquired clients is a multi-year cost decided in the week of completion, before any of the deal's deferred consideration has been earned. A seat sized to the block's hours is billed one month at a time with one month's notice, so the hours covering the acquired clients can be held steady, extended or reduced as the clawback period plays out and retention becomes clearer.

Sizing capacity before completion

Map the acquired block's hours before the first client transfers, split by the type of work: accounts and tax, bookkeeping and VAT, payroll. A seat is one person in one of those roles, so a block with a mix of work usually needs more than one seat — for example a Production seat for the bookkeeping and VAT clients and a smaller Accounts seat for the compliance deadlines that fall due during the transition.

Start the seat before completion, not after the first invoice for the acquired clients bounces. The same staged approach that works for any new seat applies here: a handful of the most straightforward acquired clients in the first week, reviewed line by line, building to the full list over the following weeks — covered in full in the first 30 days with an outsourced team. The difference with an acquired block is that the clients are also new to the buying practice, so the role brief has to come from the seller's handover notes. The practice has no file of its own on these clients yet.

A worked example

Illustrative, using our own published rates and the deal terms described above. A practice buys a block of fees from a retiring sole practitioner: 32 clients, combined GRF of £95,000 a year, at a multiple of 1.1 times GRF. The price is £104,500: 60% on completion (£62,700) and 40% deferred over 18 months (£41,800), with 15% of the total (£15,675) subject to clawback if more than a fifth of the acquired GRF is lost in that period.

The two seats cost £1,950 a month, both started a month before completion so the role briefs and access are ready on day one. Against acquired GRF of £95,000 a year — £7,917 a month — the new capacity costs under a quarter of the fee, before the review time the practice keeps in-house and before the deal price itself. The practice does not employ anyone new; it holds the 32-client list steady at those two seats until retention over the first two quarters shows how much of the £95,000 GRF is staying, then decides whether to extend the seats' hours or bring on a third.

What to check during the clawback period

Check these figures against the deal's own clawback terms, not against a general target, since the threshold that protects the deferred payment is the one written into the sale contract.

If retention starts to slip

Stop adding acquired clients to the seat's list and look at why a client left before assuming the answer is price or service. A client lost in the first quarter after an ownership change is often reacting to the change itself — a new point of contact, a different way of working — and a short call from the practice owner often settles that faster than any change to the file, even with the seat already doing the production work well. Log every client lost against the clawback clause so the deferred payment calculation has a clear record at the end of the period.

Hold the seat's hours at their current level while this is sorted. Extending them further can wait. A seat billed monthly with one month's notice can come back down if the acquired client list turns out smaller than expected — a new employee hired on the strength of the deal alone cannot.

Where to start

Work out the hours an acquired block needs with the capacity calculator before agreeing completion, then read how it works for how a seat starts. The first 30 days with an outsourced team covers the staged handover in detail, and re-pricing your client fees ahead of MTD 2027 covers resetting fees once the acquired block is fully integrated. For bookkeeping, payroll or back-office production, the back-office page sets out what moves and what stays with the practice. When a block of fees is in front of you, get in touch and we will size the seat before you complete.

Published 3 November 2026. Tax rules and rates change, so check current figures on gov.uk before relying on anything here. This is general information for practice owners and is not advice.