Marketing for accountancy firms, plus the automation that gives you your time back.

Your own website counts. The CAP Code has covered marketing on a company’s own website, and other non-paid-for space it controls, since 1 March 2011 under Scope I(h). Most practices assume the ASA only polices paid advertising, so nobody checks the service pages. Accountancy also has no FCA carve-out for compliance and tax work, so there is no exemption to fall back on.

Not that we can find, and we searched the ASA rulings database properly rather than guessing. That is the point worth understanding: it is not that the rules do not apply, it is that the sector has not been targeted yet. The ASA has already issued sector-wide Enforcement Notices to tax repayment agents (2 May 2024) and, jointly with HMRC, to tax scheme promoters (26 November 2020), and has upheld rulings against tax advisers and law firms for the exact copy patterns that appear on ordinary accountancy websites.

The code binds every member, and licensed members more tightly still: you must be honest and truthful, you must not make exaggerated claims about the services you offer, the qualifications you hold or the experience you have, and you must not make disparaging references or unsubstantiated comparisons to another firm’s work. Paragraph 250.2 goes further and requires a licensed member in doubt about a piece of marketing to consult AAT before it runs.

No, and this catches people out because the website itself is the breach. Under the AAT Licensing Regulations a licensed bookkeeper must not provide or hold themselves out to offer services outside their tier, so a Tier 4 bookkeeper advertising tax or accounts work is in breach the moment the page goes live, whether or not anyone buys. The same logic applies to the words themselves: no “chartered” or “audit” unless you are authorised, no “accountancy” if you are licensed only for bookkeeping.

Usually, yes. The AAT Code prohibits unsubstantiated comparisons to another firm’s work, and CAP rules 3.32 to 3.34 require comparisons with an identifiable competitor to be objective and to compare material, relevant, verifiable and representative features. A tidy tick-and-cross table against three named local practices is very hard to evidence. We do not build them.

No. The advertising code names it specifically: giving greater prominence to positive reviews over negative ones, or filtering out the negative, counts as publishing reviews in a misleading way. Plenty of firms embed a widget set to display five stars only. Rule 3.45 also requires you to make clear where reviews have been incentivised.

Only with the authorisation behind it. The advertising code says a marketing communication must not display a trust mark or claim approval, endorsement or authorisation by any body without it, or outside the terms of that authorisation. It is worth a five-minute check of what each badge on your footer entitles you to say. AAT logo rules sit behind the member toolkit, so check yours in MyAAT rather than taking anyone’s word for it.

The advertising code allows a VAT-exclusive price only where everyone the price is clearly addressed to can recover VAT, and even then it needs a prominent statement of the VAT amount or rate. If you market to sole traders and individuals as well as VAT-registered companies, a bare “£99 per month” without VAT is a risk. State the rate.

Full registered company name including the Limited or LLP suffix, the company registration number, the registered office address plus the trading address if different, and where the company is registered. Those belong on the website, business letters and email. If you are a sole practitioner trading under a business name, your own name and business address go on your letterheads and stationery too.

No, and any agency telling you otherwise is selling you something it cannot deliver. ICAEW is explicit that firms may outsource marketing but remain responsible for any marketing or publicity carried out on their behalf, whatever the quality or reputation of the agency. What you get from us is work drafted to the standard in the first place, and our reasoning shown for any claim, so your approval is a short conversation rather than a rewrite. The regulatory duty stays with you because it was never ours to hold.

There is no legal duty to. The Money Laundering Regulations put publication powers on the supervisor, not on you, and we could not find any requirement in the CCAB anti-money laundering guidance for firms to display it. Plenty of sites carry it anyway and it reads as a trust signal, so we usually keep it. Worth knowing it is a choice rather than an obligation, because a lot of firms have been told otherwise.

Both, and the automation is why practices pick us over a normal agency. We build the website and the back-office systems: recurring deadline tracking for year-end, VAT and the rest, client reminders and chasers, and the repetitive data handling that currently gets rekeyed by hand. If it is manual and it repeats, it is a candidate.

No. One monthly fee from £350 plus VAT, website included, no five-figure upfront build. Ongoing SEO campaigns are separate, from £1,000 a month, and we will tell you straight if you do not need one yet.