For accounting professionals
Max Financial Alliance helps accounting professionals launch, manage and grow their practices through business guidance, technical support, education and practical tools. You keep your name, your clients and your independence. We put a CPA firm's experience and infrastructure behind you.
The independent alternative to private equity.
Our support covers
Our promise
For accountants
Build a firm you own, from your first credential to your last day in practice, with a CPA firm's capability behind you and more than one door open when you are ready to step back.
Own your firm. Borrow our depth. Choose your exit.
For their clients
Your accountant, with a CPA firm behind them: accounting, consulting and advice in one relationship, from getting organized to leaving a legacy.
You don't outgrow us; we grow with you.
What always stays yours
Every practice that grows serves its clients better, and every client who grows makes the practice worth more. Private equity captures that growth for investors. The Alliance keeps it with the accountant and the client.
The alternative to private equity
Private equity has been buying accounting firms, offering capital, systems, specialists and an exit in exchange for ownership and control. The Alliance gives accountants that support without asking for their firm, so they and their clients can grow, achieve financial success and leave a legacy.
| Question | Selling to private equity | Max Financial Alliance |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns the firm | The investor, in whole or in part | You do |
| Who makes the decisions | Shared with, or set by, the new owner | You do: prices, clients, staff and services |
| Your name and brand | Often folded into the buyer's platform | Yours, unchanged |
| How support is paid for | With equity in your firm | With a membership fee, for the support you use |
| The value you build | Shared with the investor | Stays with you and your family |
| Your clients | Served under the new owner's model | Served by you, with specialists behind you |
Membership never obliges you to sell. When the time comes to step back, you can pass the practice to a successor you choose, buy or merge with another member through the Alliance's process, or sell to any buyer, including an investor. Whatever you decide, you arrive at that decision with a stronger, more transferable firm and more than one door open. Approaching retirement? See how the Alliance connects you with future partners and buyers.
What members receive
Together they cover strategy, branding, sales, budgeting, finance, tax planning, talent management, AI and internal control systems. Every level draws on all five; what changes from level to level is how much personal time you have with us.
Build the foundation for a professional, organized practice.
Turn professional expertise into a sustainable business.
Access Max Financial professionals for engagements that need more expertise or capacity.
Develop your technical knowledge and your leadership, through Max Financial Academy and Max CEO Academy.
Put practical systems to work in your practice.
Between sessions
The Alliance's infrastructure, resources, training, tools and specialist coordination are available to you between your consulting sessions, so the work keeps moving when we are not in a meeting.
Who we serve
You don't have to be a CPA to elevate the excellence of your accounting practice to top CPA level.
Choose your stage to see what holds practices back there, what the Alliance does about it, the credential rules that apply to you, and your path from here.
For aspiring practice owners and EA and CPA candidates
For accounting professionals ready to work for themselves, and for EA and CPA candidates building toward a practice of their own.
Where you are
You can do the work. Pricing it, winning clients, choosing systems and running your own books are a different job, and few people are taught it.
A tax practice earns most of its revenue in a few months, while your household pays bills every month. Your credit, budget and reserves decide when you can open and what you can pay yourself.
Which titles you may use, which registrations you need, and what you may do before the IRS all shape what your firm can sell and what it can call itself.
What the Alliance does for you
Your credential
Your path
For bookkeepers
Monthly work is the strongest foundation an accounting practice can have. The Alliance helps you price it, systematize it and build on it.
Where you are
Hourly and per-transaction pricing caps your income and makes every efficiency a pay cut.
Catch-up projects and messy files crowd out the steady monthly work that builds a practice.
Tax, payroll and financial questions arrive before you are ready to answer them, and clients take that work elsewhere.
What the Alliance does for you
Your credential
Your path
For accountants
For accountants who are not licensed CPAs, whether you work in industry, at a firm, or already on your own.
Where you are
Without a license, some services and titles are off limits. Knowing exactly where the line sits lets you build a practice that never crosses it.
Owners look for someone who can explain the numbers, plan taxes and help them borrow. That is where the value and the fees are.
Systems, templates, pricing and specialists take years to assemble on your own.
What the Alliance does for you
Your credential
Your path
For enrolled agents
Enrolled agents have unlimited rights to represent taxpayers before the IRS, in any matter and for any taxpayer. The Alliance helps you turn that credential into a year-round practice.
Where you are
Most return fees come between February and April, with a smaller wave at the extension deadlines. The rest of the year has to carry the practice.
Notices, examinations and collection matters are often treated as add-ons to a return, when they are among the most valuable work you can offer.
As clients grow, they need bookkeeping, financial statements and work only a CPA firm can perform. Without a partner for that work, they leave.
What the Alliance does for you
Your credential
Your path
For CPAs
For licensed CPAs, from sole practitioners to small partnerships, who want their practice to grow without growing their hours.
Where you are
Every client, review and decision runs through you, so growth means longer days.
Planning and CFO-level advice is bundled into compliance fees instead of priced for its value.
A practice built on one person's capacity is hard to sell and hard to hand over.
What the Alliance does for you
Your credential
Your path
For growing accounting firms
For multi-person firms from $250,000 to $1 million in revenue and beyond, preparing for scale, new partners or an eventual transition.
Where you are
Client relationships, pricing and review still run through the founder, which limits growth and lowers what the firm is worth.
Team members are busy, but realization and margins do not improve as the firm adds people.
Without a plan, the founder's exit becomes a single negotiation with whoever happens to be interested.
What the Alliance does for you
Your credential
Your path
For accountants approaching retirement
If you plan to step back in the next few years, the Alliance connects you with members who could become your partner, your successor or your buyer, and helps you prepare the practice so you have a real choice. You are not alone in planning this: in the AICPA PCPS and Succession Institute 2020 survey, 44% of sole practitioners planned to retire within five years, and fewer than 10% had a practice continuation agreement.
Where you are
Most small practices sell to another individual practitioner. Without preparation, the founder's exit becomes a single negotiation with whoever happens to be interested.
Client relationships, pricing and review depend on the founder, and buyers discount for exactly that.
Clients who trusted you for years need someone who will serve them well, not only someone who buys the book.
What the Alliance does for you
Your choices
Your path
Credential rules are general information, not legal advice. Rules vary by state; confirm them with your licensing authority and your own attorney.
Membership levels
Your level is set by your practice's annual revenue, taken from your most recent filed return. If you have not yet filed a return for your practice, you start at Launch. Each level begins with a diagnostic of your practice and carries a 12-month initial commitment.
| Level | LaunchUP TO $250,000 | GrowthOVER $250,000 TO $500,000 | AdvancedOVER $500,000 TO $1 MILLION | Million PlusOVER $1 MILLION |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who it fits | Credential candidates, practices not yet open, and practices in their first years | Established practices ready to build systems, staff and recurring revenue | Firms preparing for scale, partners or an eventual transition | Multi-partner and multi-office firms building enterprise value, growing by acquisition, or planning a founder transition |
| Initial consulting | Launch Diagnostic and Blueprint | Firm Structural Diagnostic | Transferability Review | Enterprise Value Review and three-year strategic plan |
| Personal consulting | 2 hours a month 6 a quarter | 4 hours a month 12 a quarter | 8 hours a month 24 a quarter | A dedicated engagement team, with hours set in your annual plan |
| Also included | Alliance Power across all five pillars, member consulting rates for additional time, and preferred client pricing on every non-audit service offered within the Alliance | |||
| Initial term | 12 months | 12 months | 12 months | 12 months |
See the full Million Plus offering. Fees for each level are set out in the Levels of Service and Fee Schedule, which we review with you in our first meeting.
Million Plus
At this size, revenue alone no longer sets what a firm is worth. Two $1 million firms can carry very different values depending on how much of their revenue recurs, how concentrated their clients are, how much the work depends on the founder, and how well the firm is documented. Million Plus works on all of it, so the firm can grow, add partners, buy other practices, and choose its own future.
How membership works
We review your practice, or your plans for one, and deliver a written plan you can act on: structure, positioning, pricing, operations and, for new owners, your personal finances and launch window.
Monthly personal consulting with Max Financial: meetings, preparation, document review, strategy and follow-up, recorded in quarter-hour increments with a monthly statement.
Training, templates, tools and peer learning between sessions, through Alliance Power.
When a client needs representation, compliance support or more capacity, Max Financial professionals take the engagement under a separate engagement letter.
Consulting hours pool by calendar quarter, so you can use more in one month and fewer in another within the same quarter. Hours left at the end of a quarter expire.
Education
Members learn the craft and the business of accounting in Max Financial Academy. Members, their staff and their clients learn to lead and grow a company in Max CEO Academy.
For Alliance members
Technical and professional education for accounting professionals and their teams.
For everyone, including your clients
Business education for owners and leaders, open to members, their staff and the clients they serve.
Exam support
Many capable professionals stall on an exam part or two while working full time. Max Financial Academy helps you get through it.
When your clients learn alongside you, the conversations get better: they understand the advice, act on it, and value the advisor who brought them there.
Master the whole trade
You may leave your former job highly specialized, or come out of college highly educated, and still need to develop the technical, management and administrative skills that running a practice demands. Many experienced accountants have never kept a full set of books from scratch or run a payroll. We make sure you have the tools and training to master the accounting trade in all its forms.
Bookkeeping, payroll, a monthly close that starts on a cash basis and converts to accrual, and financial statements an owner can use.
Individual and business returns, payroll and sales tax, planning, and IRS notices and representation.
Systems, processes, pricing and the structure of a client's business.
Planning, budgets and projections, financing and CFO-level guidance.
Buying and selling businesses, due diligence, and SBA and commercial financing packages.
Career paths
Both credentials can lead to a practice of your own. They differ in who grants them, what they let you do, and what it takes to earn them. The Enrolled Agent credential is federal and granted by the IRS. The CPA license is granted by each state board of accountancy, following the model law that NASBA and the AICPA publish, the Uniform Accountancy Act.
Why EA?
Enrolled agents are federally authorized tax practitioners with unlimited rights to represent any taxpayer before the IRS, in any tax matter, in every state.
Tax-focused professionals, bookkeepers adding tax and representation, and candidates who want a credential within months while they work.
Enrolled agents may not perform audits or reviews or use the CPA title.
Why CPA?
CPAs hold a state license. Licensed CPA firms are the only ones permitted to perform audits and reviews, and CPAs also have unlimited IRS representation rights and can offer tax, advisory and CFO services.
Professionals who want to perform attest work, serve larger and regulated clients, or own a CPA firm.
Licensure is state by state. Check your state board's current rules before you plan your coursework.
In May 2025, NASBA and the AICPA amended the model law to add a third pathway. Each state must adopt it by law or rule before candidates can use it.
| Pathway | Education | Experience | Exam |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bachelor's plus 30 | Bachelor's degree plus 30 additional credit hours (150 in total) | 1 year | All four sections |
| Graduate degree | Bachelor's and master's degrees | 1 year | All four sections |
| New pathway | Bachelor's degree | 2 years | All four sections |
General information as of October 2026, not legal advice. Requirements change; confirm with the IRS and your state board of accountancy.
For business owners and individuals · why it matters that your accountant is a member
Your accountant stays your accountant. Membership puts a CPA firm's experience, specialists and standards behind the person who already knows your business.
When your situation calls for more than one professional can cover, your accountant can bring in Max Financial specialists for tax compliance, financial statements, advisory and CFO support, without you starting over with a new firm.
If you receive an IRS notice or face an examination or collection matter, Max Financial professionals can represent you before the IRS, working with the accountant who prepared your records.
Members can draw on overflow support during filing season and around extension deadlines, so a busy spring does not delay your returns or your questions.
Member firms work from written engagement letters and documented onboarding, and keep training, so you know what you are getting, when, and at what fee.
Members keep a written information security plan, exchange documents through secure portals, and share your information with another professional only with your consent.
Clients of member firms can join Max CEO Academy, where owners learn to read their numbers, lead their teams and build businesses that are worth more.
When a member plans to retire or sell, the Alliance has a process to match the practice with a qualified successor, so your records and your relationship are handed over with care rather than left to chance.
Membership adds support behind your accountant. It does not change who you work with.
Membership standards
Questions
No. You don't have to be a CPA to bring your practice to top CPA-level standards of excellence. Bookkeepers, accountants, enrolled agents, CPAs and credential candidates all join. Each member practices within its own credential, and work that needs a credential you do not hold goes to an eligible professional.
Yes. Max Financial Academy offers study materials, practice questions for the Enrolled Agent exam, a study plan built around your work schedule, and progress coaching. Schedule a 30-minute meeting and bring your score reports.
You do. A referral never transfers a client. Work referred for a specialist service returns to you, and every client remains free to choose its professional.
From the gross receipts on your practice's most recent filed return. If you have not yet filed one, you start at Launch. Levels are reviewed each January; a practice that has passed its level's revenue band moves up for the new year, and no member moves down during its first 12 months. You may also choose a higher level. Practices above $1 million join at Million Plus.
Hours pool by calendar quarter. Hours left at the end of a quarter expire. Time beyond your allowance is billed at your level's member consulting rate, and only after you approve an estimate.
The initial term is 12 months, then membership continues month to month. The initial consulting fee is paid in three installments: at signing, at the draft diagnostic and at the final. The monthly fee is paid by ACH on the first business day of each month. We review the fees for your level in our first meeting.
Because the best successions are prepared, not negotiated at the last minute. Joining early gives you time to make the practice less dependent on you, and puts you in front of members who could become your partner or your buyer. You approve every introduction, nothing is required of you, and you remain free to sell to anyone.
A private equity buyer pays for ownership of your firm and shares in its control and its future value. The Alliance asks for no ownership. You pay a membership fee for the support you use, and the firm, its decisions and the value you build stay yours. If you later decide to sell, you choose the buyer.
No. You keep your firm name, brand, prices and clients. You may say you are a "Member, Max Financial Alliance," but you do not use the Max Financial name as your own, and members are not partners, employees or offices of Brickell CPA, Inc.
Next step
A short Google Meet or Zoom to discuss your practice, your goals and the level that fits. Email or call to set a time. It helps to have ready: