Exit Planning Consultant: What They Do and Which Credentials Count

An exit planning consultant coordinates the sale or transfer of a business: sequencing the decisions, preparing the numbers and the owner, and keeping the CPA, the attorney, the valuer and the broker pointed at the same deadline. The credential specific to the field is the Certified Exit Planning Advisor, issued by the Exit Planning Institute after a five-day online program and an examination, renewable every three years. It is a private designation from a training body, not a license, and it is not one of the five accreditations the SBA will accept on a business valuation.

The short version: hire an exit planning consultant for coordination and preparation, and hire a separately accredited valuer for anything a lender, a buyer or the IRS has to rely on.

This page states published requirements and names the body that publishes each one. It is not tax or legal advice, and nothing here is advice about your business.

What an exit planning consultant does

Exit planning is not a licensed occupation in the way public accountancy is. The designations in this field are issued by private membership and training bodies rather than by state boards, and the work that is regulated sits on either side of the role: attest work is reserved to CPAs in licensed firms under state accountancy law, representation before the IRS is governed by federal rules, and a business valuation used in SBA lending has to come from one of the accreditations the SBA names. An exit planning consultant occupies the space between those, which is why the job is better described by its outputs than by its title.

In practice the engagement covers some combination of readiness work on the business before it goes to market, personal and financial goal setting for the owner, sequencing of the professional advice, and project management through to closing. The judgment to apply is simple: this is a coordination and preparation hire. The moment a deliverable has to carry a signature that a bank, a buyer or a tax authority relies on, someone else in the room has to sign it.

The Exit Planning Institute is the main training and membership body in the field. It states on its own home page that more than 8,000 advisors have achieved the CEPA designation. It also publishes owner-readiness statistics, including that “only 32% of owners have a documented exit plan” and that “53% of owners don’t have a written, formal transition plan.” Those come from the institute’s own surveys, which is worth knowing when the same figures turn up in a proposal: EPI sells the credential and the memberships, and it publishes no sample size for the survey work.

The credentials, and what each issuing body requires

Five designations matter here: the credential specific to exit planning, and the valuation accreditations an SBA lender will accept. They are issued by five different organizations and they are not equivalent to each other.

Some detail behind the table, because the differences are the point.

CEPA is a course-based designation. EPI’s published requirements are the program, the examination and renewal: the credential “must be renewed every three (3) years,” requiring “a minimum of 40 hours of exit planning related professional development,” of which “20 of the above hours need to be from the Exit Planning Institute.” The program is approved for up to 18 CPE hours and 14 CFP hours. Neither the program page nor the registration page states a prerequisite license, degree or experience requirement, so a CEPA on a business card tells you the holder completed the program, and tells you nothing on its own about an underlying professional qualification. Ask what else the person holds.

ABV sets the experience bar in hours. The AICPA requires a minimum of 1,500 hours of valuation experience in the five years before application for CPAs, and 4,500 hours for finance professionals on the non-CPA route. The examination is waived for candidates who have passed ASA BV 201 to 204, CFA Level III or the CBV exams. The AICPA’s page warns that missing the recertification deadline means “your ABV credential will be revoked,” which makes current status worth checking rather than assuming.

CVA runs several pathways. CPAs qualify on an active, valid, unrevoked license. Non-CPAs need a business degree or an MBA plus substantial experience, satisfied by two years or more of full-time equivalent business valuation experience, or ten or more valuations with a significant documented role, or a doctorate with published work, or a related certification from a recognized body. Every candidate demonstrates experience with a case study or an actual valuation report from the previous 12 months.

ASA is the appraisal profession’s route and it is the only one on this list that requires a full narrative report to be submitted and reviewed. The Accredited Senior Appraiser designation requires five years of full-time appraisal experience, where the society counts 2,000 hours as a year, plus “one (1) Comprehensive (i.e., complete narrative) Written Business Valuation Report that has been issued in the last two years” and a completed candidate report review checklist. The Accredited Member designation requires two years instead of five. ASA notes that changes to the AM requirements were recently approved, so confirm the current version with the society.

The list an SBA lender actually uses

This is where a credential stops being a marketing line and acquires a consequence. SBA SOP 50 10 8.1, effective October 1, 2026, defines a “Qualified Source” for a 7(a) change-of-ownership business valuation as an individual who “regularly receives compensation for business valuations and is accredited by one of the following recognized organizations and is independent of the loan production function, not involved in the approval of the transaction, and must not have the appearance of a conflict of interest.” The five named accreditations are:

• ASA, Accredited Senior Appraiser, American Society of Appraisers
• CBA, Certified Business Appraiser, Institute of Business Appraisers
• ABV, Accredited in Business Valuation, AICPA
• CVA, Certified Valuation Analyst, NACVA
• BCA, Business Certified Appraiser, International Society of Business Appraisers

CEPA is not among them. An exit planning consultant holding only the CEPA designation cannot produce the valuation an SBA lender needs, and a document from that person will not satisfy the requirement unless the same individual also holds one of the five.

Three further conditions in the same procedure decide whether a valuation is usable at all. It “must be requested by and prepared for the Lender,” and “the Lender may not use a business valuation prepared for the Applicant or the seller.” It must state “the individual’s conclusion of value” along with the valuer’s qualifications and signature. And it “must support the Purchase Price … regardless of how the debt is structured. If the amount paid for the business exceeds the business valuation, the difference must be made up by equity.”

The phrase conclusion of value is doing real work in that sentence. NACVA’s Professional Standards define two levels of engagement: a valuation engagement, in which the valuer applies the approaches and methods their own professional judgment calls for and reaches a conclusion of value, and a calculation engagement, in which the client and the valuer agree the approaches, methods and procedures in advance and the result is a calculated value. A calculated value has to be presented in a calculation report carrying a legend that begins “This Calculation Engagement did not include all the procedures required for a Conclusion of Value.” A calculation engagement is the cheaper and narrower of the two. Ask which one you are buying before you pay for it.

How exit planning consultants charge

Fees in this field are quoted, not published. No trade body publishes a fee schedule for exit planning work, and the same is true one step along the chain: the International Business Brokers Association publishes no broker fee schedule, and its glossary contains no entry for the tiered commission formulas that circulate online. Treat any percentage you are quoted as that firm’s proposal rather than as an industry rate, and get the fee basis, the scope, what falls outside it and the minimum fee in writing before you sign anything.

The nearest published fee data covers advisory work bought from accounting firms rather than exit planning specifically. Ignition’s 2025/2026 U.S. Accounting and Tax Pricing Benchmark, an online survey of 219 US-based accounting professionals fielded in July 2025, reports the share of firms offering CFO and controller services in each monthly fee band: 22.2% charge $1,000 to $1,499 a month, 15.6% charge $1,500 to $1,999, 15.6% charge $2,000 to $2,500 and 23% charge more than $2,500. On annual tax planning and advisory fees for one entity and its associated individuals, 24.9% of firms charge more than $2,000. Ignition sells proposal and billing software and the report states that its sample consists of its own customers, so read the bands as a shape rather than as a market rate.

One price in this field is published, and it belongs to the advisor rather than to you. As of September 2026 the Exit Planning Institute lists CEPA tuition at $3,500 standard and $2,795 early bird, with the early rate stated as ending 9/30, and annual memberships at $495 for CEPA, $3,600 for CEPA Plus and $23,000 for CEPA Mastery. That is what the designation costs the person selling it to you, which is context worth having when the credential is presented as the reason to hire.

How to compare proposals

Ask every candidate the same questions and compare the answers side by side rather than the brochures.

• What is the deliverable, named? A written plan, a valuation, a readiness assessment, a monthly coaching rhythm and a project managed to closing are five different purchases.
• If a valuation is included, which engagement is it? A conclusion of value or a calculated value, and in whose name is the report issued.
• Which accreditation signs it? If SBA financing is anywhere in the deal, ask the lender who it will accept before you engage anyone, because the report has to be requested by and prepared for the lender.
• Is the credential current? Designations lapse. The AICPA revokes an ABV for a missed recertification deadline, and CEPA renews on a three-year cycle.
• How is the fee structured? Fixed fee, retainer, hourly or contingent on a closing, with the minimum fee stated. Ask in writing what happens to the fee if the sale does not happen.
• Who else gets paid? Referral arrangements with brokers, insurers, lenders or investment firms should be disclosed before you hire, not discovered at closing.
• What does this person not do? Tax filings, legal drafting and any report expressing assurance sit outside the role. A consultant who says otherwise is describing someone else’s license.

What a CPA or a fractional CFO does that an exit consultant does not

A CPA is licensed by a state board, and that license carries work nobody else may do. Audited and reviewed financial statements are issued by CPAs in licensed firms under state accountancy law. On the tax side, the IRS states that “enrolled agents, certified public accountants, and attorneys have unlimited representation rights before the IRS,” so a CPA, an enrolled agent or an attorney can act on an audit or a notice arising from the sale, and an uncredentialed preparer has had no representation authority since January 1, 2016. The allocation of the sale price across asset classes on Form 8594, the installment reporting on Form 6252 and the question of which parts of your price are ordinary income rather than capital gain are all CPA work, and all of them are decided by the purchase agreement rather than by the return filed months later.

One adjacent requirement is worth knowing because it is new and because people assume it names the CPA credential. SOP 50 10 8.1 requires a Quality of Earnings report, in addition to the business valuation, on Business Expansion and Initial Acquisition transactions where the purchase price is $3 million or more, measured before buyer equity, seller debt or other financing. The procedure says the report “must be performed by an independent, experienced financial professional” and “may not be prepared by or for the borrower or seller.” It does not say CPA. Ask the lender who it accepts.

A fractional CFO or controller does the third thing, which is the one owners leave latest: making the numbers survive contact with a buyer. Clean monthly reporting, a close that finishes in days, margin analysis by customer or contract, and a general ledger that reconciles to the bank are what a diligence process tests, and they take months to build rather than weeks. Fractional CFO work is a different hire from both the exit consultant and the tax preparer, and it is the work that decides whether a buyer’s diligence confirms your numbers or discounts them.

Who to bring in, and when

For a business heading toward a sale, the team is a CPA for tax structure and reporting, an attorney for the agreement, an accredited valuer from the SBA’s list if a lender or the IRS will rely on the number, a broker or intermediary if the business is going to market, and an exit planning consultant if the coordination between those four is the thing that is missing. Our directory lists CPA firms by state and city. Where the gap is not the transaction itself but the profitability and reporting underneath it, that is consulting work, and it belongs a year or two before any of this starts. The sequence matters more than the roster: see the exit planning process checklist, and how to value a small business for what a valuation engagement involves.

Frequently Asked Questions