“Chartered Accountants” in the Footer: What an Accountancy Website Must Say About the Firm

Most accountancy websites end with a logo, a phone number and the words “Chartered Accountants”. Three different rulebooks have something to say about that footer. One decides whether the firm may use those two words at all. One lists what a prospective client is entitled to know before they sign. One applies to every limited company with a website.

Our page for accountants argues that a practice website is a due-diligence page: the visitor is checking you out, and a credential they can verify carries more weight than any amount of persuasion. This post covers the credentials the rules require you to show, and the one they only allow under conditions. It sits alongside our earlier posts on rebuilding an accountancy website and on money laundering rules at the point of onboarding. It is not legal or regulatory advice. Your institute’s rules and its advisory service decide how any of this applies to your firm.

“Chartered Accountants” is a description a firm has to qualify for

Individual members can call themselves chartered accountants. A firm cannot automatically do the same, and the three main bodies run three different tests.

For ICAS the count is of heads. A “Chartered Accountant” here means a member of ICAS, ICAEW or Chartered Accountants Ireland (regulation 7.2), and a sole practitioner who is a member may use the description (7.3). Where half or fewer of the principals qualify, the firm needs the committee’s discretion under 7.5, possibly with conditions attached. Two further rules catch Scottish firms. Under 7.8 the letters “CA” may not appear in the registered name of a limited company or LLP. Under 7.9 a firm that is entitled to the description has to apply for permission before using “CA” in its place.

ICAEW counts ownership instead. Under its regulations on the use of the description, a partnership or LLP qualifies where chartered accountants hold more than 50% of the voting rights. A company needs three things together: at least half the directors are chartered accountants, they hold more than 50% of the voting shares, and they hold more than 50% of all shares, voting and non-voting combined. In a 2024 regulatory news piece ICAEW named the mistake it sees most often: a chartered accountant and a spouse who is not one, each owning half the firm. The firm is not automatically entitled to the description, however inactive the spouse is, and would need a dispensation. Any principal who is not a chartered accountant also needs ICAEW general affiliate status, even if they belong to another accountancy body.

ACCA’s test combines both. Its guidance factsheet on control and description requirements (issued January 2025) says a firm may describe itself as “Chartered Certified Accountants” provided “at least half of the firm’s principals are ACCA members and these same persons, among them, control 51% or more of the voting rights”. A mixed firm may not combine the titles as “Chartered and Certified Accountants”. It can say that its principals are members of either body, provided the chartered accountants have their own institute’s permission to say so.

Why this is a website problem

The description rarely appears only in the footer. It is in the page title, because “chartered accountants in Dunfermline” is the phrase people search for. It appears in the meta description, the structured data, the Google Business Profile and the logo lockup. A web agency writing for keywords will put it everywhere without asking whether the firm qualifies. And the firm’s entitlement can lapse without anyone touching the website. A partner retires, a director who is not a member joins, and the ownership crosses a threshold the site knows nothing about. ICAEW says a firm that keeps using the description when it should not can be referred to its Practice Assurance Committee and face a penalty.

What a client is entitled to know before they sign

The Provision of Services Regulations 2009 apply to almost every business that sells a service in the UK, and ICAEW’s own helpsheet confirms they cover accounting, audit, insolvency and tax work. Regulation 8(1) opens plainly: “The provider of a service must make the following information available to a recipient of the service”. For an accountancy practice the list comes down to:

• The firm’s name, and its legal status and form: sole practitioner, partnership, LLP or limited company.
• A geographic address, and contact details that let a client reach the firm “rapidly” and directly, including email where the firm uses it.
• Any public register the firm appears on and its number there, which for most practices means the audit register.
• The competent authority, where the work needs authorisation, such as audit or insolvency.
• The VAT number, where the firm is VAT registered.
• The professional body the firm is registered with, and the professional title.
• Professional indemnity insurance: under regulation 8(1)(n), “the contact details of the insurer or guarantor” and “the territorial coverage of the insurance or guarantee”.

Regulation 8(2)(c) says the information counts as made available if it is “easily accessible to the recipient electronically by means of an address supplied by the provider”. A page on your website meets that. Regulation 11 adds that it must be given “in a clear and unambiguous manner” and “in good time before the conclusion of the contract”.

The website matters more than the engagement letter here because of who counts as a recipient. The regulations, as amended on 1 October 2026, define a recipient as a person in the UK who “uses, or wishes to use” the service. The person comparing three practices on a Sunday evening is a recipient. The information duties themselves were not changed by that amendment. They have been in force since 2009, and most practice websites still leave half of them out.

Some information is owed only on request under regulation 9: the professional rules that apply and where to read them, how the firm handles conflicts of interest, and any codes of conduct with an online address and the language they are published in. Regulation 10 adds dispute resolution. ICAEW’s helpsheet reads it as the complaints information already owed to clients: the principal to complain to, and the client’s right to take it to the institute. None of that has to sit on the website. A practice that publishes it anyway does not have to answer the same questions one client at a time.

The insurance line most practice websites leave out

All three bodies make professional indemnity insurance compulsory for members in public practice. ICAEW states it is required “regardless of the amount of practice income”. ICAS sets a minimum cover of £2 million, or two and a half times gross fee income for firms earning under £800,000, subject to a floor of £250,000. Because the insurance is compulsory, regulation 8(1)(n) applies to every practising firm.

The duty is narrower than firms often assume. It asks for the insurer’s contact details and the territorial coverage. It does not ask for the policy number or the limit of cover. ICAEW publishes suggested wording, agreed with the main insurers:

Two details from the same helpsheet. If the cover is layered or shared between insurers, name the first-layer or lead insurer. If the policy has been extended to cover the US and Canada, remove that exclusion from the wording. The usual failure on a website is not the wording, though. It is a paragraph written five renewals ago that still names an insurer the firm left in 2023.

If the practice is a company, Companies House rules apply to the site

The Company, Limited Liability Partnership and Business (Names and Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2015 are explicit about websites. Regulation 24(2): “Every company shall disclose its registered name on its websites.” Regulation 25 adds the part of the UK where the company is registered, its registered number, and its registered office address. An LLP has equivalent duties.

Two common slips. The first is a trading name with no registered name anywhere on the site. ICAEW recommends a plain statement such as “XYZ is the trading name of ABC Limited”. The second is a site that shows the registered office but not the number, or the number but not where the company is registered. “Registered in Scotland, SC123456” covers both in four words.

Regulated work has its own wording

If the firm is registered for audit, ICAEW’s helpsheet on practice names and letterheads lists three permitted descriptions and says the firm “must not vary the wording”: “Registered Auditor(s)”, “Statutory Auditor(s)”, or “Registered to carry on audit work in the UK by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales”. It suggests quoting the audit register reference so a client can check it. Insolvency practitioners should name their licensing body early in any dealings. A firm authorised by the FCA follows the FCA’s rules. Whichever body you answer to, the website should use its exact wording, not a version someone shortened to fit the design.

Where all of this belongs on the page

None of it needs to clutter the homepage. In a practice website we build, it lives in two places:

• The footer, on every page: registered name, the part of the UK and the company number, registered office, VAT number, the professional body, and the firm’s description only if the firm qualifies for it.
• A regulatory information page, linked from the footer and from the engagement letter: legal form, professional body and a link to its rules, audit registration where it applies, the insurer and territorial coverage, the complaints route, the conflicts statement, and the code of ethics with its address.

The more useful decision sits behind the page. Store each fact once, in the site’s settings, and let the footer, the regulatory page and the structured data read from it. Schema.org’s AccountingService type has fields for the legal name and VAT number, so search engines see the same facts a client does. When the insurer changes at renewal or a new director joins, one change updates every page. It also gives somebody at the firm a single place to check at each renewal or change of principal.

A ten-minute check of your own site

• Does the firm still meet its body’s test for “Chartered Accountants” or “Chartered Certified Accountants”, counting every current principal and shareholder?
• Is that description also in page titles, structured data or the Google Business Profile, and would it still hold if a partner retired tomorrow?
• Can a visitor find the PII insurer and territorial coverage without asking, and is it this year’s insurer?
• If the practice is a company, are the registered name, number, place of registration and registered office on the site?
• Is any audit, insolvency or FCA wording exactly as your body gives it?

Common questions

Two principals: one ICAS member, one ACCA member. Can we say “Chartered Accountants”?

Not automatically under ICAS. One of two is exactly 50%, and regulation 7.4 needs more than 50%. Regulation 7.5 lets the committee decide, so ask ICAS. ACCA’s guidance rules out combined titles such as “Chartered and Certified Accountants”, and offers a statement that the principals are members of either body instead.

Do we have to publish how much cover we hold?

No. Regulation 8(1)(n) asks for the insurer’s contact details and the territorial coverage, not the limit or the policy number.

Is the engagement letter enough on its own?

The regulations allow several methods, and ICAEW lists the engagement letter among them. But the duty covers people who wish to use your services as well as clients, and the trading disclosures for companies are specifically about websites. The website is the only place that reaches everyone it needs to.

We are a sole practitioner. Does any of this apply?

Most of it. The Provision of Services Regulations apply to you, including the insurance line. ICAS and ICAEW both allow a member sole practitioner to use the description. The Companies House rules apply only if you trade through a limited company.

Can we use the institute’s logo?

That depends on your body’s brand rules, which are separate from the description rules. ICAEW lets firms entitled to the description use its member firm brand mark. The ICAS “CA” mark is ICAS’s registered trade mark. Check your body’s current guidance before putting any badge in the trust row.

Sources and method

• Provision of Services Regulations 2009, regulations 8 to 11, read as amended to 1 October 2026 by SI 2026/435.
• Company, LLP and Business (Names and Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2015, regulations 24 and 25.
• ICAS Public Practice Regulations (effective 29 May 2025), Part 7, and ICAS PII Regulations, regulations 4.2 and 4.3.
• ICAEW regulations on the use of the description ‘Chartered Accountants’; ICAEW helpsheets on the Services Directive and on practice names and letterheads; ICAEW PII Regulations (effective 1 October 2026).
• ACCA guidance factsheet, Control and Description Requirements (issued 1 January 2025), which defers to the ACCA Rulebook.

All were read on 17 October 2026. Central Systems is not a regulator, a law firm or a compliance consultancy. Regulations and guidance change, and the linked text is authoritative where this page is not.