As Australia’s leading consulting firm in the accounting profession, we take enormous pride in honouring our mission statement daily. Our Consulting, Education and Mentoring are outcome-focused, delivering tangible and meaningful results.

In working with us, no accounting or professional services firm is too big or too small. Whether it is growth, succession, strategy, profitability, systems and processes, marketing, talent, leadership, or culture-based challenges you are facing, we’ve got you covered.

With over 7,000 clients in five countries spanning twenty-three years, our track record is second to none.

Our Best Practice Business Advisory Framework delivers a service model that all your team will understand, and our hand-holding implementation support means you will confidently demonstrate the technology stack that sets you apart from the compliance crowd and delivers a sustainable and scalable vast arrangement of value-adds, including various income stream opportunities into your firm. Most importantly, the ROI on customer satisfaction has been done for you, so your clients will rave about your brand and recommend you to others.

Learn which business advisory services are scalable and which are not. Find out what accountants will deliver as core services by 2028.

Embark on your Business Advisory journey confidently through our Best Practice three-stage blueprint, tech stacks, and framework for rolling out your business advisory services.

Founded on world-leading 2Microsoft Power BI technology, no other app tech stack delivers as much ROI regarding Accountability, Flexibility, customisation, and systemisation.

Imagine every conceivable KPI you could hope for on your smartphone or web-enabled tablet and your client’s phone, so you don’t need to get out of bed to deliver 24/7 customised reporting!

Unique & proven adult learning and behaviour change.

Building a culture of innovation through effective leadership and change management. Leadership, culture, and change management are critical to any successful organisation. Effective leaders establish a strong culture that supports the vision and goals of the organisation. Change management requires a thoughtful and intentional approach to implementing new strategies and initiatives. By embracing and then learning how to implement these key elements, organisations can create an environment that fosters innovation, growth, and resilience and enables them to adapt to the evolving needs of their industry and stakeholders.

Going hand in hand with our Fortune 500 Change Management and Talent Factory concepts, no specialist advisory firm to the professional services industries has assisted more small firms to dilute equity successfully to the “right” partners.

More than 2,000 firms have attended our succession planning highly structured programs over 12-24 months since 2011, and more than 7,000 firms Australia-wide have attended our unique Business Improvement workshops since 2012.

Over the past twenty-three years, learning how to attract genuine equity participants into your firm has become a life-changing initiative for hundreds of our client firms.

From a sole practitioner working 75 hours a week with the wake-up call of a mild heart attack, then increasing profits by more than $700K in only twelve months whilst only working 35 hours a week, to family-owned and operated firms that desperately needed income growth and efficiency gains, we are proud to claim our spot on the world stage as one of the most relied upon succession planning expert advisory firms in the world to the accountants and advisers.

No other Australian specialist advisory firm has assisted more accountants to buy, sell, merge or dilute equity than the Best Practice Group.

Our success is not purely based on being the best “brain surgeons” in the business; it’s also because our philosophy is to educate, mentor, coach, and nurture you and your teams’ skills and abilities whilst teaching you world-leading intellectual property that creates sustainable growth and succession outcomes within your very own firm.

One of our big “why’s” is teaching you the recipes and assisting you in achieving these outcomes. It’s so rewarding to us that it’s like a drug!

“Why” (a term made popular recently by thought leaders such as Simon Sinek).

Our best students (Accountants as clients) rarely must sell their firm on the open market because instead, they build world-class businesses that elevate themselves to work less and less over time, eventually seeing the firm and its next generations of participants continue to take it to the next level with less and less reliance on the firm’s senior partners.

Some of Australia’s fastest-growing firms are our current clients. Some of the world’s most globally recognised accountants were once sole practitioners attending our foundation programs for growth & / or succession.

No other specialist advisory firm to the accounting and financial services profession has created more custom growth strategies, improved organic growth performance, or facilitated as many game-changing initiatives as the Best Practice Group. Thousands of firms have implemented our Customer Care (growth) program. It has since been adopted to integrate leading tech platforms of choice, such as Ignition, XPM, Carbon, Now Infinity, and Microsoft Power BI. It also supports the integration of most industry-related media you prefer to include.

Today, our growth strategies include assisting you to master niche markets of interest, roll out advisory services, create award-winning business and productivity improvement initiatives, and have high customer engagement value-adding strategies.

We assist you in building a talent bank of emerging leaders that grows with your clients as your client base grows.

The Best Practice Leadership Programs are unique. Founded on the world’s best-practice adult learning methodologies. Before 2001, this business development was limited to Fortune 500 companies. We have spent years perfecting our content and implementation support. Our programs are applicable and affordable, right across the scale – from sole practitioners just starting with a turnover of as little as $100K to multi-partner firms with $5-10M looking for growth & /or a succession plan. Delivery is available in Private and Group formats.

Every small – medium business requires two levels of leadership and managerial skills and structure. The greatest challenge in these cases is creating a training program that delivers not only world-class leadership knowledge and skills but also integrates specific time management, production, and workflow management practices and procedures to ensure that your talent factory is being led and managed as you would teach and manage them and that leaning, and development becomes a natural ongoing element in your workplace. This ensures that younger inexperienced team members learn to take on more and more responsibility and, in doing so, increases your firm’s ongoing capacity. This also reduces the risk of staff turnover due to stagnation.

Professional service firms grapple with the ROI of delivering high-quality services they can recover. Having assisted over 2,000 accounting and financial services firms on their daily performance and productivity needs since 2003, please forgive us if we claim to know a thing or two about how to dramatically improve your firm’s capacity, productivity, cash flow, and profitability.

A recent Best Practice National Accounting firm of the Year ran a $1.6M fee base with a 5.2 FTE headcount pumping out $460K EBITDA after all salaries and drawings.

We have sole practitioners who reduced their time at the desk by as much as fifteen hours a week in their first 90 days of working with us and then go on to triple their profitability, all in their first twelve months.

We have two partner firms that, in 12-24 months, find themselves completely above the day-to-day running of the firm, and multi-partner firms transforming their culture and productivity inside the first 12 months of engaging with us, even after multiple years of stagnation.

The great thing about our productivity systems is how we straighten up underperforming teams. Even when infighting within your partnership, our productivity systems will leave no one second-guessing roles and responsibilities. Therefore, all directors will intuitively find themselves finally getting on the same page and driving massive change.

We even have aging firms that start frustrated and sensing all is but lost, who completely turn their lives around, achieve massive work-life balance improvement, and enjoy regular high-quality holidays, which have been long overdue through our transition to the retirement system.

Nothing improves your self-confidence and sense of potential more than learning how to get more work done each day in less time than ever before!

Our client organisations often report amazing productivity and performance improvements with the same team or FTE (full-time equivalent).

No specialist advisory firm to the profession knows more about improving your team’s productivity or overall performance. Having assisted over 1,800 accounting firms on their daily routine and productivity needs since 2003, please forgive us if we claim to know a thing or two hundred about how to dramatically improve your firm’s capacity, productivity, cash flow, and profitability. The 2018 Best Practice National Accounting Firm of the Year was running a $1.6M fee base with a 5.2 FTE headcount pumping out $460K EBITDA after all salaries and drawings.

We have sole practitioners who reduced their time at the desk by as much as fifteen hours a week yet simultaneously tripled their profitability, all in a single twelve-month period. We have two partner firms that, in 12-24 months, find themselves completely above the day-to-day running of the firm; we have multi-partner firms that come to us reporting multiple years of stagnation, infighting within the partnership finally getting on the same page and driving massive change, and we even have ageing firms that start frustrated and sensing all is but lost, whom completely turn their lives around and achieve huge work-life balance improvement and start enjoying regular high-quality holidays which have been long overdue through our transition to retirement system.

Nothing improves your self-confidence and sense of potential more than learning how to get more work done each day in less time than ever before!

Our client firms have long reported their amazing productivity and performance improvements, often with the same team or FTE (full-time equivalent).

Clarity, Focus, Implementation!

With clarity, business owners and leaders know what to focus on. And without focus, we lack confidence in what to implement next.

Arguably our most coveted value add is assisting accountants and advisers in clarifying their strategic direction, determining what to focus on year after year, and then building a crystal clear each quarter. An Implementation plan that delivers progress and transformational results.

Leadership is the most important skill for Business Directors and emerging leaders to learn. It is an essential ingredient that few professional service firms understand regarding its massive impact on growth and succession. Technically proficient industry sectors like professional services often lack leadership and business-related skills training. The result is that accountants and advisers “don’t know what they don’t know.”

Some of Australia’s fastest-growing firms are our current clients. Some of the world’s most globally recognised accountants were once sole practitioners who engaged in our strategy workshops and foundation programs for growth & / or succession.

No other specialist advisory firm to the accounting profession has created more custom growth strategies, improved organic growth performance, or facilitated as many game-changing initiatives as the Best Practice Group. More than 600 1- 5 partner firms have implemented our Customer Care Program (growth program) since 2008. It has since been adopted to integrate leading tech platforms, such as Ignition, XPM, My Prosperity, Now Infinity, and Microsoft Power BI. Also, it supports merging just about any other technology or industry-related platforms you prefer to include.

Today, our growth strategies include assisting you to master niche markets of interest, roll out advisory services, create award-winning business and productivity improvement initiatives, and have high customer engagement value-adding strategies.

We also love assisting you in developing emerging leaders from within your firm so that you build a talent bank (or talent factory) that grows with your clients as your client base grows.

Going hand in hand with our Fortune 500 Change Management and Talent Factory concepts, no specialist advisory firm to the profession has assisted more small firms to dilute equity successfully to the “right” partners. More than 600 firms have attended our succession planning highly structured programs over 12-24 months since 2011, and more than 1,800 firms Australia-wide have followed our unique Discovery workshop since 2012.

Over the past eighteen years, learning to attract genuine equity participants into your firm has become a life-changing initiative for hundreds of our client firms. From sole practitioners working 75 hours a week who’s a wakeup call of a mild heart attack, then increasing profits by more than $700K in only twelve months whilst only working 35 hours a week, to family-owned and operated firms that desperately needed income growth and efficiency gains, we are proud to claim our spot on the world stage as one of the most relied upon succession planning expert advisory firms in the world to the accounting profession.

No other Australian specialist advisory firm has assisted more accountants to buy, sell, merge or dilute equity than the Best Practice Group.

Our success is not purely based on being the best “brain surgeons” in the business; it’s also because our philosophy is to educate, mentor, coach, and nurture you and your teams’ skills and abilities whilst teaching you world-leading intellectual property that creates sustainable growth and succession outcomes within your very own firm.

One of our big “why’s” is teaching you the recipes and assisting you to achieve these outcomes. It’s so rewarding to us that it’s like a drug!

“Why” (a term made popular recently by thought leaders such as Simon Sinek).

Our best students (Accountants as clients) rarely sell their firm on the open market because instead, they build world-class businesses that elevate themselves to work less and less over time, eventually seeing the firm and its next generations of participants continue to take it to the next level with less and less reliance on the firm’s senior partners.

Best Practice Business School delivers the best and most proven leadership training today. In addition, our skills development and competency frameworks make leadership development achievable in today’s fast-paced environment.

Thousands of Accounting and Advice firms have entrusted their leadership development to Best Practice Group. Our results include developing growth and succession programs and influences that have seen senior partners successfully dilute equity internally rather than having to sell their firms on the open market, and younger future equity participants become sound, self-assured young equity partners, client managers, and team leaders.

With hundreds of testimonials and case studies, you cannot overlook exploring how your firm’s leadership competencies, skills, and culture might benefit from the training, development, and ongoing support the Best Practice Group can offer you.

Our founder is one of the world’s most experienced and regarded leadership experts in accounting. John Peterson is Australia’s only Jack Zenger (Zenger Miller) certified practising expert advisor to accountants. He has developed industry-specific content that transforms leadership effectiveness, team culture, and the productivity and capacity of thousands of accounting firms.

Older, ageing principals learn how to navigate change and engage in greater accountability and acceptance for change and continuous improvement from their existing teams. Younger team members gain confidence and skills to innovate. Many then also want to buy in or participate in their employer organisation’s equity opportunities and succession needs because they feel they have the knowledge and skills to do so effectively.

No longer can any firm avoid the technology discussion. It’s now an industry-wide mandate and an essential agenda item in your monthly partner’s ongoing meetings.

• What tech are we using?
• What tech do we aspire to use?
• Why?

Efficiency gains, integration with other apps, ease of use, implementation tips and tricks, not to mention which tech you should roll out and in what order, and what the customer experience will be / how they will benefit from each App integration are now all key topics that no accounting professional today can ignore.

Why? – because we know that there are only three profiles of accounting industry professionals when it comes to technology adoption.

1. Those making it happen, creating a leading-edge tech stack
2. Those eager to embrace and adopt technology
3. Those struggling to adopt and keep pace with technology

Imagine if you were ahead of the curve ten years ago and jumped into the “bleeding edge” technology such as Xero and other cloud apps.

Knowing how to break down your business into key “technology categories” is now an essential strategic planning tool that every serious accounting industry professional must consider. An example of these key categories is as follows:

• Practice Management Software options
• Time Sheets options
• Cloud Server options
• OCR Expense Capture options
• Video Conference options
• Training Video production options
• Cloud Communications options