ICAEW and ACCA rules: what you can and can't claim on your website

Most website copy for accountancy practices is written by someone who does not know that the profession has rules about what you may call yourself. Most of it is fine. A meaningful minority contains a claim the practice is not entitled to make, usually written in good faith, usually by an agency, and usually never reviewed.

This is a plain-English tour of where accountancy marketingtends to trip over professional rules. It is not advice, and your own body's current code is the authority. But knowing where the edges are makes the copy conversation much shorter.

The word “chartered”

The most common problem, and the one with the least excuse. Chartered status is a protected description tied to membership of a chartered body, and it applies to firms as well as individuals. A firm describing itself as a chartered accountancy practice when it does not hold the relevant firm status is making a claim it cannot support, regardless of what any individual within it holds.

The subtlety that catches people is that an individual member being chartered does not automatically entitle the firm to describe itself that way. The requirements for firm-level description are separate. If your website says it anywhere, check which basis you are saying it on.

Regulated, registered, and the difference

“Regulated by” and “a member of” are not interchangeable, and neither is a synonym for “registered with.” Each has a specific meaning, and the correct form usually depends on which activities you carry out.

Audit registration is the clearest example. Only registered audit firms may hold themselves out as able to carry out statutory audit, and the wording is prescribed rather than free text. Vague phrasing like “full audit and assurance services” on the site of a firm that is not registered is a genuine risk, not a stylistic quibble.

Anything that promises an outcome

Professional codes are generally built on a duty not to bring the profession into disrepute and not to make misleading claims. In practice that means outcome promises are where copy goes wrong.

“We will reduce your tax bill” is a promise you cannot keep for every client. “Guaranteed savings” is worse. “Aggressive tax planning” is a phrase that has aged extremely badly and now signals the opposite of what its authors intended.

None of this stops you being specific. “We review whether the way you take income from your company is the most efficient available to you” describes real work without promising a number. It is also, usefully, better copy.

Comparisons with other firms

Being disparaging about named competitors is a straightforward way to create a problem, and it also reads badly to prospects. Comparisons in general terms are normally fine. Naming a local rival and criticising them is not a fight worth having.

The same caution applies to the switching page, which is a page every practice should have, and which works best when it is matter-of-fact rather than critical of the outgoing firm. We cover the right tone in the switching page every practice is missing.

Testimonials and case studies

Confidentiality does not switch off because a client is pleased. Naming a client, describing their circumstances, or quoting figures all need permission, in writing, and it is worth keeping a record of it.

Anonymising helps less than people assume. “A local dental practice with three sites” may be perfectly identifiable in a town the size of Exeter. The test is whether a reader could work out who it is, not whether you used a name. There is more on gathering proof properly in trust signals for accountancy firms.

Where FCA rules cut across

Most accountancy work sits outside FCA regulation, but the boundary is thinner than it looks. If your practice carries out regulated activity, or strays into anything resembling investment or pension advice on the website, a different and much stricter regime applies to what is then a financial promotion.

The risk is rarely deliberate. It is a paragraph about retirement planning written enthusiastically, or a page about wealth that reads like advice. If any part of your firm is FCA-authorised, the whole website needs reviewing with that in mind, which we go through in FCA financial promotions and your website.

The practical version

Read your own site as though you were a regulator with no goodwill. Every claim, ask two questions: is it true, and can I evidence it? Most problems fall out at that point without needing any specialist knowledge.

Then get whoever writes your copy to run new pages past someone in the practice who knows the code. It is a ten-minute check, and it is far cheaper than the alternative.

Common questions

Our agency wrote it. Whose problem is it? Yours. The obligations sit with the practice and its members, not with the supplier. This is a good reason to work with people who ask about your professional body before writing anything.

Can we say we are “the best accountants in Exeter”? Unevidenced superlatives are best avoided both on code grounds and on advertising standards grounds. They also persuade nobody, so you lose very little by cutting them.

Do these rules apply to social media? Yes. Professional obligations follow the claim, not the platform. A LinkedIn bio describing a firm as chartered is the same claim as the homepage making it.

This is general information, not compliance advice, and codes are updated. Check the current guidance from your own professional body before relying on anything here.

Part of our guide to website design for accountants. If you want a fresh pair of eyes on what your site currently claims, a free audit is a reasonable place to start.