M&A Integration Staffing for the Year After Close
Contract integration leads, controllers, SOX and HR specialists who combine two companies while your people keep both running.
M&A integration staffing places contract specialists inside an acquirer after a deal closes, including an integration lead, controllers, purchase accounting and SOX consultants, and HR integration staff. KORE1 employs them on our W-2 and bills hourly until the work ends.
Last updated: September 29, 2026
- This page
- The finance, people and program seats an acquisition needs in its first year, and the deadlines that start the day the deal closes.
- Covered elsewhere
- Retiring the seller’s systems after close is covered on our post-acquisition systems integration page. Engineering review before you sign is technical due diligence staffing.
Closing day feels like the finish. It isn’t. The deal team moves on to the next deal. And the work of combining two companies lands on a controller, an HR director and an operations lead who already had full jobs before anyone said the word integration to them.
That’s the gap M&A integration staffing fills. We supply contract people for a defined stretch, usually through our contract staffing desk, or as a scoped team under project staffing if what you want is a finished piece of work with an acceptance date. Your people keep the decisions. Ours carry the volume, and they leave when their deadline passes.
M&A Integration Staffing Is Mostly Not IT
Ask a buyer what integration means and they’ll say systems. Now look at who’s still at a desk at 8 p.m. in month three. Finance. HR.
- Integration leadRuns the integration office, keeps the decision log and chairs the weekly meeting nobody else has time to chair. Usually a former controller or operations director. Rarely a first-timer.
- Close accountantsTwo month-end closes become one calendar. Until they do, someone reconciles intercompany balances, maps the acquired chart of accounts and keeps the first combined quarter on time. It’s slow work.
- Purchase accountingThe opening balance sheet. Fair values, the working capital true-up, provisional numbers that get finalized later. Auditors ask about every one.
- SOX and controlsDocuments how the acquired company approves, books and reconciles. Then tests it. Then fixes what fails, before the auditors pull it into their internal control audit.
- HR and benefitsTwo org charts, two payrolls and two benefit plans have to become one of each by the end, and any workforce change along the way gets timed against federal notice rules so the buyer isn’t the one explaining a missed deadline.
- ProcurementWho finds the software both companies pay for? This seat does, along with the duplicate suppliers and the contracts that quietly renew themselves in November.
Systems still matter. When it’s the ERP that has to move, we staff that through our ERP consultant staffing desk and send the data conversion to our data migration specialists, usually a different set of people working to a different deadline.
The Deadlines M&A Integration Runs Against
Some integration dates are yours to set. These aren’t, or not entirely. Each one starts on the closing date, and each one ends when two of something have become one.
Acquired companyYour companyCombined
- First combined closeAround month 3 Two month-end closes turn into one reporting calendar. Set by your own reporting cycle. Close accountants
- Workforce changes60 days of notice first Federal WARN rules require 60 days of written notice before a covered mass layoff or plant closing, and once the sale takes effect, giving that notice is legally the buyer’s job. HR integration lead
- Duplicate vendorsBefore each renewal Suppliers renew on their own dates. Not yours. Miss a notice window and the double spend runs another year. Procurement analyst
- Seller servicesOn the TSA schedule Anything you still rent from the seller ends when the transition services agreement says it does. That’s a systems exit. Different team. Systems team
- Benefit plansNext plan year Two plans run side by side until one plan year replaces them, usually timed to an open enrollment. Benefits specialist
- Opening balance sheetNo later than month 12 Provisional fair values can be adjusted during the ASC 805 measurement period, which ends no more than one year after the acquisition date. Purchase accounting
- Control assessmentNo later than month 12 A public buyer may leave the acquired business out of its internal control report for no more than one year and one annual report. SOX consultant
Two of those rows are hard stops. The SEC’s staff guidance on internal control reports caps the exclusion at one year, and the accounting standard caps the measurement period the same way, which means both finance rows land on the same anniversary whether or not the rest of the integration is ready. The workforce row is law too, since the WARN Act moves notice duty to the buyer the day the sale takes effect. The Labor Department keeps a WARN compliance page for employers checking whether a change is covered.
The rest slide. Only one way, though. Every month a second close, a second benefits plan or a duplicate software contract keeps running is a month the savings in the deal model don’t show up, and the board tends to notice by the second quarterly review. So we staff to the rows, not to a headcount.
Your Team Decides. The Contract Bench Carries the Load.
Integration tends to break in the same place. The acquired company’s controller, the one who knows which undocumented spreadsheet feeds the revenue report, gets asked to do the old job, teach the new owner and build the combined close at the same time. Something gives. Usually it’s the controller.
Contractors change that. They take the grinding part, meaning the documentation, the mapping, the testing, the reconciliations and the savings tracking against the deal model, while your own people keep the calls that need judgment and history and the acquired team finally gets enough room to breathe, and to stay.
A purchase accounting consultant may be finished by month five. The SOX lead may not start until month four. Different clocks. Each seat ends on its own row, so nobody should be billing you in month thirteen for work that wrapped up in month nine.
Not every seat should be contract. We’ll tell you which. If the combined company needs a permanent controller or HR director at the end, hire that person early through direct hire and let them build what they’ll run. And if the integration lead turns out to be someone you want to keep, contract-to-hire terms can sit in the agreement from day one.
92%
of KORE1 hires still in the role after a year
17 days
typical wait for a KORE1 IT hire
2005
KORE1 founded in Irvine, California
30+
metro areas where KORE1 recruits
Figures from Why KORE1.
The Desks Behind M&A Integration Staffing
Four KORE1 desks supply nearly every integration seat. Each recruits in its own field every week, not only when a deal closes.
Finance
Close, consolidation and SOX
Controllers, technical accountants and internal controls consultants for the combined close and the first audit.
Accounting and financePeople
Org charts and benefits
HR business partners, benefits and payroll specialists who fold two workforces into one without losing either.
HR staffingProgram
The integration office
Program and project managers who keep the decision log current and the weekly integration meeting honest.
Project managersSystems
ERP and data
ERP consultants, data migration specialists and integration engineers for when the systems have to move as well.
ERP consultants
Common Questions
How is M&A integration staffing different from hiring a consulting firm?
The difference is who runs the work. A consulting firm sells a team, a method and a fee, and it usually leads the integration. We supply individual specialists who work under your integration lead, on your plan, billed by the hour, so you keep control and pay only for the seats you need.
Which integration roles make sense as contractors?
Anything with an end date. Purchase accounting, SOX documentation and testing, close integration, benefits consolidation and vendor cleanup all finish when their deadline passes. The roles the combined company needs for good, like its long-term controller, are usually better as direct hires.
How fast can an integration contractor start?
17 days is our average for IT roles. Finance and HR searches vary more with the specialty. Some close faster. Plenty of buyers open the reqs between signing and close, so people are in their seats the first week.
Can contractors work with confidential deal information?
Yes, under the NDA and access rules your counsel sets. Before close, antitrust law limits what two companies can share with each other, so early planning often runs through a clean team, and any contractor on it works inside those same limits.
Does a private buyer still need SOX work after an acquisition?
Not by law, in most cases, since Section 404 applies to public companies. But lenders, auditors and your next buyer will all ask how the acquired company’s controls work. Documenting them during the integration costs less than doing it later under an audit deadline. A lot less.
How long do integration contractors usually stay?
Each seat ends on its own date. A purchase accounting consultant might finish in four or five months, while close and SOX work often runs toward the one-year limits. We plan every seat to its own deadline instead of hiring everyone for a year.
What do you need from us to get started?
Honestly, not much. The closing date, both org charts and whatever deadlines you already know about. We map seats to those dates and come back with names.
Bring Us the Closing Date
Send the close date, both org charts and the deadlines already on your list. That’s enough. A KORE1 recruiter will match seats to dates and call back with names.
Talk to an Integration Recruiter →Or call 949-706-6990
