KPMG To Shutter UK Small Business Accounting Unit

Corporate accounting and auditing firm KPMG is shuttering its small business services unit, reports in The Business Desk said Thursday (Feb. 7).

According to the publication, KPMG’s Small Business Accounting (SBA) service, which launched in 2014, will be closed in the U.K. In a statement, a KPMG spokesperson confirmed that the company is “proposing to withdraw the provision of our Small Business Accounting (SBA) service in the U.K., which offers cloud-based bookkeeping to small and micro-businesses.”

The company added that the closure is part of KPMG’s efforts to refocus on core operations in  the U.K., and that its small business services in markets other than the U.K. will remain unaffected. The spokesperson did not note whether Brexit had any impact on the company’s decision to close the U.K. SBA operations.

Staff within KPMG’s SBA operations will be redeployed to other areas of KPMG, and existing small business clients will be transitioned to alternative service providers, the spokesperson said. According to reports, KPMG is in the process of contacting all of those customers to notify them of the changes.

The move to close SBA operations comes just weeks after KPMG introduced its small business tax and accounting service, Spark, for small businesses in the U.S. Designed for firms with less than $50 million in annual revenue, the tool mixes automation and human support, the firm said in its announcement of Spark in December.

“KPMG Spark reflects KPMG’s commitment to bringing innovative solutions to an expanding range of clients so we can help them drive growth, gain efficiencies and create greater value,” said KPMG Americas Vice Chairman of Tax Services Jeffrey C. LeSage in a statement at the time.

In 2016, KPMG announced a partnership with Funding Xchange, an alternative small business lender, to link small business clients under its Small Business Accounting arm to the marketplace lender.