Questions owners actually ask us

United Accountants is a technology company that buys accounting firms and grows them together with their owners.

We buy the firm one hundred percent, but not the way private equity does: the owner stays in charge, keeps their name, team, and clients, gets part of the money at close, and becomes a shareholder of United itself. From day one, a team of developers and a central back office work for the firm, and our platform takes over the repetitive work so the team can handle more clients without burning out.

No.

PE buys firms to resell them within a few years, and the staff and clients don't get a vote. We're building one company for the long run: there is no resale in the plan, and the owner doesn't exit; they become an owner of United. We make money when the firm gets stronger, not when it gets resold. Our head of partnerships, Darren Coe, integrated 26 deals inside a PE-backed roll-up before joining; our model was deliberately built as the opposite of what he saw there.

The deal is 100%, and here is what that means in practice.

On the outside, nothing changes: the name, the team, the clients, and the owner running the firm. On the inside, the owner is now a shareholder of United, and United is responsible for backing the firm: back office, engineers, recruiting, growth. The owner runs the firm; United does not approve their day-to-day decisions, pricing, hires, or how they serve clients.

Nothing changes on the outside.

The firm keeps its name, clients keep working with the same people, and the team stays. Their repetitive work shrinks and their capacity grows, and United plugs in recruiting help when the firm needs people. Back-office work (payroll, HR, IT, compliance reporting, bookkeeping quality checks) moves to a central team so it stops landing on the owner's desk.

Shares in United Accountants itself, the top company, not a subsidiary of a subsidiary.

That equity grows two ways: when the owner's firm gets stronger, and when every firm in the network gets stronger.

Three standard methods, worked together off the firm's real numbers: discounted cash flow, a multiple of earnings, and a multiple of revenue.

We don't quote a multiple before seeing financials, and we walk owners through the logic before any figure comes up. Firms running on our system get valued differently over time because their margins genuinely change.

Through liquidity events: when new investors come in, partners can sell some or all of their shares at the then-current value.

There is no open market for the shares, and we're honest about that: for someone who wants out within a year or two, this is the wrong structure. Life events are handled case by case.

A fair-market salary, plus growth bonuses that raise compensation each year.

There's no ceiling on it, and no numbers to quote here because compensation is set per deal.

Five years is the baseline expectation, and the build we're inviting owners into is long-term.

For someone looking to leave in a year or two, we're the wrong partner, and we'd rather say that upfront.

It's not a tool the firm has to learn; it's built around how the firm already works.

Our engineers map the firm's actual workflows, then build automation for them, client by client: the monthly close, chasing documents, categorizing transactions, month-end busywork. Two things it never does: it never guesses at math, because calculations run on fixed rules the same way every time, and it never posts anything to the books without a person at the firm approving it.

No.

The firm keeps its stack as long as it works; our product runs on top of tools like QuickBooks and existing tax software. The one requirement is adopting our platform itself.

No.

The platform takes over tasks, not jobs. The team stops doing the repetitive grind and starts reviewing and approving it, and freed time goes to client work. Clients still talk to people, and nothing reaches the books without a human at the firm approving it.

A general AI tool can automate a single task, and many owners try exactly that.

The differences show up at scale: a general tool has no math engine behind it, so it can guess; a demo that works once is not a system that closes hundreds of clients' books without breaking one; and someone has to secure and maintain it. Our platform runs math on fixed rules, requires human approval, and compounds: every partner firm's corrections make the shared system smarter, and improvements reach each firm only with its approval. A chat tool starts from zero every time.

United Accountants is led by Karl Paadam, Akim Arhipov, and Darren Coe.

Karl is the chief executive officer and previously worked as a global tax partner at PwC. Akim is the chief product and technology officer and has built financial technology companies. Darren leads partnerships and brings experience in accounting-firm mergers, acquisitions, and integrations. The wider team includes people with experience at Wise, Bolt, Pipedrive, PwC, Osome, and TaxDome.

Payroll and back-office services are part of the partnership today.

Wealth management and insurance are not built yet, and we won't pretend otherwise: they're the planned next phase after founding partners are live on the product, built inside each firm's own brand where regulations allow.

No.

The product only comes with the partnership, because the value is in the combination: the technology plus the back office plus growth plus ownership. For firms where partnership isn't on the table, our content and community are open.

No.

The sale is real and it's a one-way door, and we say that plainly because it matters. After close, United invests heavily in the firm's infrastructure, so there is no buy-back. That's exactly why the process before signing is slow and mutual: we would rather an owner walk away early than sign and wonder. What stays with the owner is everything clients see and every decision about them; what changes is ownership, and the owner holds part of everything United builds instead.

Simple, well-run firms with strong owners: roughly one to five million dollars in revenue, bookkeeping-first with tax on top, standardized tools, and no heavy audit work (audit and attest don't scale and aren't recurring, so audit-heavy firms aren't a fit).

The owner matters more than the numbers: one clear decision-maker who wants to grow and keep running the firm for years. We also partner with smaller, fast-growing firms whose owners are tech-driven builders. We're honest about who we're not for: owners looking for a retirement exit or a full cash-out.

Yes, by design rather than by promise.

Each firm's data is isolated from every other firm's, every change links to its source document and its approver, calculations run on fixed rules, and nothing posts to the books without a person at the firm approving it. The system is built around the IRS Safeguarding Taxpayer Data framework.

One private conversation, with no pitch deck and no obligation.

Reach out through unitedaccountants.com: you'll talk to a person about your firm, and you can ask the uncomfortable questions.