CPA Firm Evolves into Partnership

After 12 successful years as a sole practitioner, Mike Mauldin has big goals for how he wants his public accounting firm to evolve, and has called on a longtime friend to make it happen.

Mauldin, owner of Fayetteville firm Michael V. Mauldin CPA, has officially entered into the growth phase by hiring Christian Vaught as partner.

Vaught, who spent nearly three years as director of finance at Rogers-based sales and marketing firm The Harvest Group, now has a 50-percent ownership stake in the company, which has seven employees and specializes in a variety of small businesses, from the basics of payroll up to consulting on buy-sell agreements, succession planning and exit strategies.

“We expect for our business to double in five years; that’s the goal,” Mauldin, 39, said. He said the opportunity to work with Vaught, a longtime friend, was too good to pass up.

The firm is in the process of rebranding to MauldinVaught CPAs.

“It’s time,” Mauldin said. “Business is good, life is good and it’s time to get some much-needed help.”

 

Beneficial To Both

Vaught, 38, departed The Harvest Group earlier this year with an eye on opening his own CPA firm in Northwest Arkansas. He had previously spent 12 years as a public accountant, and was one of three original CPAs to open the Fayetteville office of Oklahoma-based HoganTaylor LLP in January 2002.

He helped grow the office to 20 CPAs before leaving for The Harvest Group a decade later. He termed his experience in the corporate world “great,” but said it was time to do something else.

“It made me realize how much I love public accounting and really loved doing this kind of work,” he said. “I love working with different clients and having new challenges.”

As Vaught began exploring his options, Mauldin, naturally, was a helpful source of information. With a clientele numbering between 750 and 1,000 and a 25-percent revenue increase in the last three years, Mauldin has not just survived as a sole practitioner, but prospered. So much so that he bought a half-acre just off Joyce Boulevard four years ago for $128,000 and built a 3,100-SF office building for his firm.

The more the two men talked, though, they came to a fundamental understanding that going into business together would be beneficial to both.

Both are University of Arkansas graduates — Vaught a Tulsa native and Mauldin born and raised in Springdale — and they also worked together after college as CPAs for a local firm before Mauldin left to hang his own shingle, and Vaught joined HoganTaylor.

The bottom line of their reconnection, Mauldin said, is this: Working with like-minded professionals, and taking advantage of the opportunity that comes with more than one CPA in an office will better position the firm for continued growth.

“It goes without saying you need some extra hands,” Mauldin said. “We each have our strong suits, and it is better that way than to try and be all things to all people.”

Having a peer to share problems and concerns with is also a benefit not afforded to a sole practitioner, and Vaught added the quality of life component is a factor that shouldn’t be overlooked.

“You kind of hit a point where, unless you want to work ‘till midnight every night … it’s a quality-of-life balance,” he said. “We want a model that is scalable for a larger firm. We’re still growing.”

 

Local Landscape

Of the 624 CPA firms licensed in the state by the Arkansas State Board of Public Accountancy, it is unclear what percentage are sole practitioners. A spokesman for the organization said that isn’t a figure that is tracked.

But locally, Mauldin has a sense the landscape is shifting, with the number of sole practitioners on the decline.

 “I can think of four CPAs in Fayetteville alone that are retiring and either trying to sell their CPA practices, or have just sold their practices,” he said. “It’s surprising. Just something that is hitting this year.”

And the turnover should mean more opportunities for MauldinVaught to add new clients.

“We’re excited about opportunities to specialize more in some areas,” Vaught said.