Accounting firms
Say on your Google Business Profile which businesses your accounting firm takes and how it works
Your manager works on the Business Profile so that it says what your firm really does: which kinds of business it takes, what the monthly service includes and what it leaves to other advisers, whether a client brings documents to an office, the firm visits the client or everything runs remotely, and how a first consultation goes. Qualifications go up only as the firm words them, nothing predicts a tax result, and no client's papers appear anywhere.
One location from €75 a month
Discuss my profileThe request is free and creates no obligation; a manager replies within one business day.
Which clients, what the service includes, how the work is done, the first consultation
The order is typical and is adjusted to your listing as it stands. Every step closes with wording the firm approves before publication.
- 1
Which businesses the firm takes
You describe the kinds of business, the size and the accounting method the firm works with, in your own words, along with which it turns away. The manager turns that into service entries an owner recognizes as their own company and adds a line naming what is not taken. You sign off the list for this month, and it is revisited whenever intake opens or closes.
- 2
What the service includes, kept apart from advice, audit and payroll
The regular service is written as the firm describes it. Tax advice, audit and payroll are separate engagements, named as such where the firm offers them and left off where it does not. The manager adds no sentence about what a rule means for anyone and no promise of a saving or a refund. Every line of the scope waits for your approval.
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How the firm works with clients: office, visit or remote
You say which of the three the firm really offers. Where the answer is remote only, the profile shows no address, because nobody is received at one. An office that welcomes a client with documents says so, with the entrance and the appointment rule, and a firm that visits describes where. The manager checks all of it against the rules Google sets before it goes up.
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The first consultation and the way documents travel
The manager clicks through from the profile to the first consultation as an owner would, to the very last screen: the link, the number and any message link. The consultation is described the way the firm actually conducts it, and the route for documents is named as a route, with a plain line that nothing about the owner's accounts is needed to book. You confirm the terms of the meeting.
Tell us which clients you take and how they reach you
Send the profile link, the kinds of business and sizes you take, what the monthly service includes and which of the three ways of working the firm offers. The manager reviews whatever is published under your name, flags every line that promises a result or points to an address nobody visits, and suggests which package fits each address.
Discuss my profileHow a business owner picks an accounting firm on the map
The search carries the owner's own kind of company as well as the word accountant, and listings are compared before anyone is called.
- The query names the business before the service: a sole proprietor with a handful of invoices a month, a small shop with daily sales, an online store selling abroad, a company with a foreign owner. A profile that says only accounting services matches none of them.
- Size decides fit as much as type. A firm that keeps books for owner-run companies and a firm built for several entities and a payroll of dozens are different services, and a listing that suggests it takes everyone reads as suiting nobody in particular.
- The language of the owner's papers and of the firm's reports. A founder running a business in a second language checks whether the office reads and writes theirs before looking at anything else.
- How documents travel: a folder of paper receipts carried to a desk, scans sent from a phone, or a shared system the firm provides. An owner decides on this before asking about a fee, and a listing that stays silent forces a call just to find out.
- In person or remote. Some owners want a person across a desk before a filing date, others never want to leave the shop. A listing that stays silent about which is offered looks like either, and so draws the wrong visit.
- What the service includes. Regular bookkeeping, preparing filings, tax advice, audit and payroll are separate kinds of work, and owners compare firms by that list, so the list on the map is the first thing read.
- Reviews are judged on conduct around deadlines. A reply that is careful about a stranger's affairs is itself a signal.
What has gone stale, and what exposes the firm
Two kinds of fault appear here: information that stopped being true, and public wording that promises more than an accounting firm can stand behind.
- A client list written as every kind of business, when the firm now takes only some, so owners of every size call, and several leave with a refusal that cost both sides a conversation.
- Promises of a result: lower tax, a refund, penalties avoided. A firm cannot promise them in public, and a disappointed owner quotes the sentence back in a review.
- One word covering four services. When bookkeeping, tax advice, audit and payroll all sit under accounting, a caller expects an audit or a payroll run that the firm does not do.
- A fully remote firm pinned to a mailing address or to a desk in a shared building where nobody receives callers. An owner who follows the map with a bag of documents finds a door with someone else's name on it, and Google treats a rented address at which the business does not operate as ineligible.
- Qualifications and memberships nobody can document, or a former partner's title still in the description. A title is written differently country by country, so a copied line can be wrong in the market where it is read.
- A photo in which a client's folder, a statement or a monitor can be read, posted by the firm. It puts a confidence on a public page, and it is the easiest mistake to make.
- Hours that describe an ordinary week while the office sees only booked visitors in the weeks before a filing date, so an owner with a bag of receipts reaches a counter that is not receiving walk-ins.
The fields where client types, scope and ways of working are stated
Each field states what a regulated service firm does and where it does it. Every one is filled from what the firm confirms, and none of them predicts a result.
- Categories: the primary one for accounting work as your country's list offers it, and a second one only for a service the firm really runs. A tax or audit category on a firm that keeps books sends it the wrong callers.
- Services, written as the owner's own kind of business: bookkeeping for a sole proprietor, monthly accounting for a small company, accounting for a shop with daily sales. Each says who it is aimed at, worded by the firm, and what it declines is named beside them.
- A scope line saying what the monthly service includes and what is a separate engagement: tax advice, audit, payroll. The line is the firm's wording, and the manager adds nothing about what a rule means.
- The way of working, stated plainly in the description and under the service entries: clients bring documents to the office, the firm visits the client, or everything runs remotely. Only the ones the firm really offers, and an address shown only if people can be received there.
- Hours for when someone receives visitors. Where clients are seen by appointment only, Google's guidelines say such a business shouldn't provide hours, so the appointment rule goes into the description, the service entries and the link instead.
- The first consultation described step by step: the place, the length the firm quotes, what to bring to identify the business, and the route for anything further. No ledger is needed to book it.
- Photos of the doorway, a waiting area and a room with an empty table, and of staff who have said yes. Never a visitor, a folder or a monitor.
How the monthly upkeep runs at an accounting firm
The manager works from what the firm confirms and never sees a client's books. Should a task appear to depend on a client's figures, it is the task that is wrong, and it is returned to the firm.
- The kinds of business listed are read against what the firm is taking this month. When intake closes for one kind or opens for another, the services list changes once the firm reports it.
- The scope line is compared with the firm's own engagement wording. A service that moved from included to separate, or the other way round, is corrected in the monthly pass.
- Filing seasons go in as dated notes: the weeks the office works by appointment only and the days it is closed. Special hours cover a stop of up to six days, and a longer closure is set to temporarily closed, as Google's help pages describe.
- The way of working is read again every month: whether the office still has a desk for walk-ins, whether the firm has started visits, whether a remote client type has been added. A line that stopped being true comes down first.
- A message link, if there is one, is tested by sending a plain question and seeing who answers and when. A link nobody reads during office hours is proposed for removal.
- Every review is triaged first, and only then is a reply drafted, in the wording agreed at the start. None of them confirms the author as a client.
- Each photo is enlarged to check whether any text can be read at a desk, on a wall or on a screen. A frame showing a paper goes to the firm before it stays.
Habits for an accounting listing: who you take, what is included, how clients start
Six habits that keep an accounting firm's listing specific about its clients and silent about results; a Google help article, linked beside each, is the source.
- 1
Name the firm as it is on the door and keep the services out of the name
Google wants the business name to match the real-world name used on the sign, the website and the stationery, with the address, category and hours going in their own fields. A name that grows into the firm's name plus bookkeeping, tax and payroll is the kind of extra detail that can get a profile suspended. The kinds of work belong in the services list.
Google's help on this: Guidelines for representing your business on Google
- 2
Turn each kind of client into a service line with its own description
The services editor accepts custom services, each with a description. Write one line per kind of business the firm takes, such as a sole proprietor's bookkeeping or monthly accounting for a shop with daily sales, and use the description for who it is aimed at and what it leaves out. Google rejects custom services that break its policy and asks to keep personal information, prices and phone numbers out of the name, so no client and no fee is written into a line.
Google's help on this: Manage your services on your Business Profile
- 3
Give payroll its own category only if payroll is a separate engagement
Google asks for one specific primary category and a few additional ones, and says not to pick a category for every product or service. If the firm runs payroll as an engagement of its own, add the category for it and write its services as separate lines. If payroll is only an extra for bookkeeping clients, leave the category off, or employers who want a payroll provider will call a firm that is not one.
Google's help on this: Manage your business category
- 4
Point the booking link at the consultation request, not at a document upload
A profile can carry a link for booking an appointment, and when there are several, one can be marked as the preferred link. For an accounting firm that link should land on the page where a first consultation is requested, a page that asks what kind of business it is and nothing about the books. A link that opens an upload form invites the very thing the profile says is not needed to book.
Google's help on this: Manage your local business links
- 5
Enter a filing season of weeks as a notice, not as special hours
Special hours handle a change of hours, or a closure lasting up to six days, and a longer closure is marked temporarily closed. A season in which the office still receives, but only by appointment, is neither. The weeks go into the description as a dated sentence and into an update post with a take-down date, while special hours are kept for the single days when the door is shut.
Google's help on this: How to set Special hours
- 6
Keep audit and payroll on one profile as services, never as a second listing
Google counts several profiles for the same business as duplicates, and a duplicate does not show on Search or Maps. If a firm offers different services, the guidance is to list them on the one profile and not to create a profile for each service. A separate listing is only for a separate eligible business, with its own name and its own signage.
Google's help on this: Resolve duplicate profiles & ownership issues
Replies that do not reveal who is a client
A public reply is read by the author's colleagues, suppliers and competitors, and whether somebody uses an accounting firm is not the firm's to announce. The wording is therefore settled with you first. The manager prepares a draft, you approve it, and then the manager posts it; a template approved beforehand can cover brief answers to routine reviews.
- A reply says thank you and recognizes how the experience went for the author. It does not state that the person was a client, and it names no service, period, filing or amount.
- A review praising a tax outcome is answered without repeating it. Repeating it would turn a stranger's sentence into the firm's own promise of a result.
- A grumble about an unreturned call before a deadline is treated as a matter of how the office runs: the reply says the firm will check and gives the number to call.
- A review saying a filing was late, wrong or fined goes to the firm ahead of any draft, because it may be a dispute about facts or a liability matter.
- A review that violates a named Google policy, such as spam, a review about a different business or an author who never dealt with the firm, is reported under that policy. A complaint about a fee is not a violation.
- Themes that keep coming back are summarized in the report, with no names, amounts or account details.
Where a human has to step in
- No public text may state that a person is or was a client, what work was carried out for them or what it cost, whether the aim is to fix an unfair account or because the author already posted the same facts.
- Whether to answer a review that alleges an error or a penalty is the firm's decision. Where professional rules rule out a public answer, the review is logged and nothing is posted.
Reviews answered without naming a single client
Replies follow the wording the firm signed off at the start, so no answer hints at who uses you. The manager drafts and posts; you approve anything beyond the routine thank-yous.
What the firm can post when its clients must stay unnamed
Posts that help are the practical ones: what reception tells callers each week, set down once. Each word is supplied or approved by the firm, and no post tells a reader what a rule means for their own affairs.
- How a first consultation is booked and what to bring: the papers that identify the business, never the ledgers themselves.
- How documents reach the firm once an engagement has begun: the office folder, the scans, the firm's own system. The post describes the route and attaches no sample statement.
- The weeks before a filing date, written as office arrangements: walk-ins stop, appointments continue, and the last day an appointment can be booked.
- A client type added or dropped, presented as an arrangement of the firm's work and never as a benefit to the client.
- A new accountant joins, introduced with consent: name, role as the firm styles it, and no record of outcomes.
- A holiday or closure, with the date the office reopens and where a message will be read in between.
A firm with one reception, and a firm with offices that each receive clients
One location
A one-office firm keeps four statements accurate: the client types it accepts, the scope of the service, the ways clients reach it, and how a first consultation opens. Upkeep means adjusting them when intake changes and entering busy-season changes ahead of time.
A network
A firm with several offices has separate hours and reception at each address, and may take different client types at each: one may see walk-ins while another works with businesses it visits. Reply wording and the qualification rule are set once for all of them. Every address counts as its own serviced location and its own bill.
What the manager words and what the firm signs off
What the manager does
- Writes the kinds of business, the scope line and the way of working from what the firm confirms, and takes a line down as soon as you say it is no longer true.
- Drafts replies in the wording you approved and makes no attempt to find out who the author is.
- Checks the address and the way of working against the rules Google sets for a business that receives clients, visits them or works remotely, and says where the listing may not qualify.
- Asks for no client's paper in any channel: the profile is built from descriptions of the service, never from a client's documents.
What you confirm
- Which kinds of business and sizes the firm takes this month, which it turns away, and the accounting methods it works with, as the firm itself would put it.
- What the monthly service includes, what is a separate engagement, and which of the three ways of working (office, visit, remote) the firm really offers.
- Titles, memberships and qualifications, each with its supporting document and the sentence the firm is prepared to sign.
- The safe route for documents: where a client sends them, who opens them, and what the first consultation asks for.
Four weeks, from the client types to the first consultation
an example of the process, not a client result-
Week 1
The way of working. The manager reads the profile as an owner would, including any entry opened long ago under Google My Business, the earlier name of Business Profile. The first question is which of the three ways of working the firm really offers and whether the address receives visitors.
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Week 2
Clients and scope. The service entries are recast as the kinds of business and sizes the firm confirms, with what it declines beside them, and a short scope line says what the service covers and what is a separate engagement. Every sentence that promises a tax result is removed.
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Week 3
The manager walks from the profile to the first consultation as an owner would, down to the last screen, sets the hours or the appointment rule as the office really works, and writes the route for documents as a description only.
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Week 4
Replies, then the report. Reviews get the agreed wording, any that alleges a filing error waits on the firm, and the report lists the edits made, the items still unconfirmed and any further profile bearing the firm's name.
An example only: the order the work might take, with no result implied and no real firm described. How a real month goes depends on the listings under your name, the way the firm works and the limits of your professional rules.
Six looks at an accounting firm's listing, from the owner's search to the desk photo
- Search for your firm the way an owner would, for example bookkeeping for a small online shop, and read what a stranger sees. If the listing never names that kind of business, the owner has no way to know you take it.
- Read your services list and ask whether it shows where bookkeeping ends and tax advice, audit or payroll begin. If it is one word, callers decide for themselves.
- Look at the address as an owner carrying a bag of documents would. If the pin is a mailing address or a shared desk where nobody receives callers, the listing is promising a door that does not open.
- Look over the hours and ask whether they show walk-ins or booked visits, then check that the weeks before a filing date are entered.
- Reread the last few replies you posted. One that mentions a service, a period or a filing has told the author's contacts that this person uses an accounting firm.
- Open each image enlarged and read whatever lies on the desk, the wall or the monitor behind the counter.
Your listing, read the way a business owner reads it
Run these checks yourself if you like. Or send the profile link and the manager makes them, corrects the services and scope lines, and asks you only about what the firm alone can confirm.
Where tax advice, professional rules and eligibility draw the line
- No line on the profile gives tax, legal or financial advice or promises a saving, a refund or a result. If someone asks about their own figures, the answer describes only the firm's working method and the booking steps.
- How a firm may describe itself, titles and comparisons included, is governed by the professional rules of its country, not by us or by Google. Qualifications and memberships go up only as the firm names them, and we never claim them as our own.
- A firm with no place that receives clients and no visits to clients is an online-only business, and Google lists such businesses as not eligible. The manager checks eligibility with Google separately, and no office is shown that does not exist.
Google's own help for this kind of business
Each link opens an article of Google Business Profile Help, in this page's language where Google offers one. The line under it says why it matters here.
- Guidelines for representing your business on Google
How the firm's name is written, and what Google says about co-working desks and rented mailing addresses.
- Business eligibility and ownership guidelines
Which businesses are eligible, including why an online-only firm and a mailbox address are not.
- Manage your services on your Business Profile
Where each kind of client becomes a service line with its own description.
- Manage your business category
How one specific primary category and a few additional ones are chosen, payroll included.
- Manage your local business links
How the booking link is added and which link is marked as preferred.
- How to set Special hours
What special hours can and cannot cover in a filing season, and where temporarily closed starts.
- Resolve duplicate profiles & ownership issues
Why audit or payroll must stay on one profile as services and not become a second listing.
What is the same for every industry
The industry page above is about what changes from one business to the next. The part below is the same for a restaurant and a dental practice alike: the packages, the split of duties and the rules Google sets. It applies to the Google Business Profile, the listing many still call Google My Business.
How the packages work here
Each location we service is on one of three packages. The package sets how many posts and review replies a month are included, how the profile details are updated, and whether the monthly optimization, the catalog of goods and services and the advertising are included. Prices are on the pricing page. See the prices Everything the team handles
Start
Profile upkeep
€75 per Google location per month · without VAT
- 4 posts or offers a month
- Up to 50 review replies a month
- 3 requests to update the profile details
- Photo updates
- Review QR code
- Basic monthly report
- Manager's first reply: up to 2 business days
Business
Profile development
€149 per Google location per month · without VAT
- 24 posts or offers a month
- Up to 200 review replies a month
- Regular updates to the profile details
- Monthly optimization and SEO of the profile
- Goods and services added gradually
- Content plan and competitor analysis
- Extended monthly report
- Quarterly consultation
- Manager's first reply: up to 1 business day
Pro
Profile development and advertising
€249 per Google location per month · without VAT
- Everything in Business
- 24 posts or offers and up to 200 review replies a month
- Initial setup and launch of Google Ads
- Ad copy and images prepared
- Advertising in one language
- Campaigns run and optimized every month
- Extended report with the advertising work and plan
- Manager's first reply: up to 1 business day
The manager proposes, you approve
The manager drafts every change, post and reply from your materials. Nothing is published, restored or billed without your yes; a flagged edit or a package switch waits for you.
Who does what, in every industry
What the manager does
- Checks the profile regularly and keeps a written record of the agreed data.
- Prepares the updates to the profile details, the posts and the offers from your materials and the agreed plan.
- Replies to reviews within the monthly limit, in the tone you set once at the start, and hands anything sensitive back to you the same day.
- Writes the monthly report and puts recommendations into the dashboard chat instead of acting on them alone.
What you confirm
- The facts only you know: current hours, prices, services, photos, who is on the team this month.
- The tone of replies, set once at the start, and the wording of anything escalated to you.
- The yes before a value someone else changed is restored and before a location moves between packages; nothing is charged without it.
What works the same way in every industry
- Ownership and access: the profile stays the property of the business. The manager works from the business's own account with manager rights, and the first step of the first month is confirming who owns the profile and who else still has access.
- Suspension: if Google suspends a profile, the manager looks for the likely cause, corrects the data to match the paperwork the business holds and files the request to reinstate. This is part of every package. Timing and the decision stay with Google.
- Duplicates: a second profile at the same address, or an old one left after a move, is reported to Google with the evidence. What stays and what merges is agreed with you before anything is sent.
- Measuring: when you agree to it, the website link in the profile gets tagging, so visits that start on the profile show up separately in your analytics. Calls and direction requests are counted in Google's own profile statistics, and only you know which of them became a customer.
- Recurring customer questions: the answers are written into the profile's own fields and updates, worded as you confirmed. Google turned off the questions and answers API for Business Profiles on 3 November 2025 while it reworks the feature, so this part of the work does not rely on that section.
Google's rules that apply to every profile
- Local ranking is Google's own weighing of relevance, distance and prominence. No service can buy a position or promise a place in the results.
- Verification, eligibility and which categories exist are Google's rules and differ by country.
- Photos and reviews left by other people cannot be deleted by us. Where they break Google's rules they can be reported, and Google decides.
- Booking, ordering or delivery features are connected only when you already run them with a provider Google supports in your country.
- The number of posts and review replies per month is fixed by the package, and what is unused in a month does not carry over. On Start the profile details are updated on agreed requests, on Business and Pro regularly, as the business changes.
Reviews: the same policy everywhere
- We do not ask only happy customers for reviews, do not offer anything in exchange for one and do not remove reviews: Google takes down a review that breaks its rules, and the author can delete their own.
- We do not promise a rating, a position in the results or more customers. We promise the agreed process, every month.
Sources for Google's rules
- Tips to improve your local ranking on Google
- Guidelines for representing your business on Google
- Manage your business category
- Report inappropriate reviews on your Business Profile
- Manage your local business links
- Prohibited & restricted content (Maps User Generated Content Policy)
We last checked the Google rules on this page against Google's Help pages in September 2026.
What the team handles for this industry
The rest of the local SEO work
This page is about the profile: what a manager keeps correct on the map every month. Local search also depends on the website itself, on citations and on the pages a customer lands on after the map. Those we handle separately, and the express review points to which of them is actually holding you back.
Hand over the listing and keep the ledgers private
The manager sets up the client types, the scope of the monthly service and the ways clients reach you, then keeps them current. You confirm which businesses you take and any title you want shown.
Payroll and HR administration, one service kept apart
Payroll is a service of its own, and the listing has to separate it from the firm's ordinary accounting. The reader changes, and so does what a first message must keep out.
Payroll and HR administration providers
The reader is an employer, not a job seeker and not an employee. The profile says plainly that the firm administers staff records and payroll for employers, and states, as the firm confirms, whether it also recruits and whether it acts in employment disputes, so that searches for those go elsewhere. The firm confirms the size of employer it takes and the operations it runs: keeping records, calculating pay, preparing the reports it handles for the employer. A first meeting is described as an introduction between employer and firm, and a switch from a previous provider begins with how the firm works. No employee's name, wage or record goes into the profile, a post, a reply or a first message, and the route for those papers is offered only after an engagement has been agreed.
Discuss this kind of business →Frequently asked questions
How do we show which types of companies an accounting firm takes? +
How do we tell in-person service apart from a fully remote one? +
Our accounting firm is entirely remote. Can it have a profile at all? +
May the profile claim that the firm lowers a client's tax bill? +
How are our qualifications and memberships published? +
We offer audit and payroll as well. Do they go on the same listing? +
Can prospective clients send documents through the message link? +
Should we send you a client's statement so the service looks real? +
The firm works from a shared office or a co-working desk. Can it list that address? +
A neighboring industry, and what is different there
A listing that shows who you serve and keeps their papers private
Share the profile link and one sentence on what your monthly service includes. In one business day a manager comes back with the lines to take down, the kinds of business your listing does not yet name, and the package that fits each address.
Discuss my profileWe work on Business Profiles under Google's rules for agencies. What to expect from an agency, Google explains in Tips for working with third parties to manage your Business Profile.