For accountancy firms
How to describe what your firm does
We ask every firm to use the same terms, so business owners can compare like with like. Here are the terms and the kind of evidence we would ask for.
The seven kinds of finance support
These are the same seven kinds our form asks business owners about. Tell us which ones your firm provides. A firm does not need to offer all seven.
| Service | What we mean | Evidence we would ask for |
|---|---|---|
| Bookkeeping and systems | Keeping day-to-day records up to date, for example in accounting software, and setting up or running that software. | A service page, or an anonymised example of a monthly bookkeeping engagement. |
| Accounts, tax and VAT | Annual accounts, tax returns and VAT returns. | A service page, or an anonymised engagement letter. |
| Monthly management information | Figures each month or quarter that show how the business is doing. | An anonymised sample management accounts pack, with the period and how soon after month end it was sent. |
| Planning and cash forecasting | A forecast of cash and profit for the months ahead, and keeping it updated. | An anonymised sample forecast, and how often you update it. |
| Financial controls and approvals | Setting up who approves payments, who signs off invoices and who checks the bank figures. | A description of the work, or an anonymised example of a controls review. |
| Finance leadership | Someone responsible for finance decisions, such as a part-time finance director. | Who does this work in your firm, and an anonymised description of a current engagement. |
| Specialist support | Experience in one sector or type of work, such as online selling or selling abroad. | Sector pages on your site, or the number of current clients in that sector (a count, no names). |
Please remove client names and anything else that could identify a client from any example you send us.
Client size
Tell us which sizes of business you take on. We use our own size bands, based on number of people. They are not the legal size categories used for company accounts.
| Band | Number of people |
|---|---|
| Micro | 1 to 2 |
| Small | 3 to 20 |
| Medium | 21 to 100 |
| Large | Over 100 |
Also tell us which types of business you work with: sole traders, partnerships, limited companies, or a mix.
Other things we ask about
- Sectors: only those where you have current clients or can show past work.
- Software: the accounting software you work with day to day.
- Permissions: for example audit. Tell us the public register entry that shows it.
- Professional body: which body your firm or its accountants belong to.
- Capacity: whether you are taking on new clients now.
What happens to the evidence
We record what we checked and the date. Checking what a firm says it does is not the same as checking how good its work is: we do not check whether an accountant is competent, qualified or suitable for a particular business, and we say so where firms are shown.