How Business Brokers Work With Your CPA and Attorney During a Sale
A sale process moves faster when owners stop treating advisors like separate lanes. Business brokers, CPAs, and attorneys each “own” different risks, and coordination is what keeps timelines from slipping. A good starting point is aligning on valuation assumptions early, including how abusiness valuation calculator estimate will be validated with real financials and market comps.
What Each Advisor Owns
Business brokers focus on all aspects of the sale: market positioning, buyer qualification, price guidance, and managing the deal process. Your CPA focuses on financial accuracy, normalization, and the tax outcomes of different deal terms. Your attorney focuses on risk allocation, representations and warranties, closing conditions, and the enforceability of documents. The point is not to have three opinions. It is to build one coherent story that is supported by clean numbers and defensible documents.
How Valuation Inputs Flow From CPA to Broker
Most valuation disputes come from mismatched inputs. Your CPA helps confirm what the financials actually represent, including one-time expenses, owner compensation normalization, and whether revenue is recurring or project-based. Business brokers then translate those validated inputs into market expectations and buyer appetite.
Where the Attorney Matters Earlier Than Owners Expect
Owners often bring the attorney in “when there’s an offer.” That is usually late. Attorneys can flag landmines before listing, such as missing assignments on leases, weak customer contracts, unclear IP ownership, or non-transferable permits. A coordinated prep checklist reduces re-trades later in diligence.
Deal Structure: Who Advises What
Deal structure is where the CPA and attorney become critical, and where business brokers keep negotiations realistic. Allocation, working capital adjustments, seller notes, and earnouts all affect risk and net proceeds. Your CPA helps model the “after-tax” impact of structure choices. Your attorney ensures the terms are defined and enforceable and that risk is appropriately limited. Additionally, the American Bar Association offers a useful discussion of post-closing purchase price adjustments that explains many common terms.
A Coordination Routine That Keeps You Working in the Business
If you’re still running operations while selling, coordination has to be efficient. A practical cadence is:
Broker compiles buyer questions into one weekly list.
CPA validates financial responses and updates supporting schedules.
Attorney reviews any requests that change risk, scope, or wording.
The owner approves the final response packet and releases it on a schedule.
This “one packet per week” rhythm keeps you from reacting all day and reduces mixed messaging to buyers.
Common Failure Points and How Teams Prevent Them
The most common breakdown is inconsistent answers. A buyer asks a question, the broker answers from memory, the CPA answers from the ledger, and the attorney later discovers the contract language doesn’t match either answer. The fix is documentation: one source of truth for financial schedules, key contracts, and disclosures.
When business brokers, your CPA, and your attorney work from the same assumptions and the same document set, diligence becomes a managed workflow instead of a scramble. That coordination protects your time, reduces re-trades, and makes the sale easier to defend when buyers push on valuation or terms.
Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice.
