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Network integrity · Honest about what we check

How we vet the accountants we match you with.

Every accountant in the network holds an ACCA or ICAEW practising certificate, carries current PI insurance, and sits under active AML supervision. Here's the full process — and what we deliberately don't check, so you know where the limits are.

Practising-certificate verification

Every accountant must hold a current practising certificate from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) or the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). We verify each certificate directly against the relevant institute's public register before the accountant is eligible to receive matches. If a certificate lapses, the accountant is paused until it's reinstated.

Professional indemnity insurance

We require current professional indemnity insurance at a level appropriate to the accountant's practice size. We check the certificate of insurance annually, and flag any accountant whose cover drops below the institute-mandated minimum. This protects the business being matched — if work goes wrong, there's cover to put it right.

Client history check

We look at the accountant's active client base before accepting them into the network — size, sectors served, and tenure of the oldest clients. This isn't a credit check; it's a practical filter to make sure the accountant genuinely has experience with small businesses, not just a certificate and a website.

Anti-money laundering (AML) supervision

All UK accountants in practice must be supervised for AML purposes by either their institute (ACCA or ICAEW) or HMRC directly. We confirm the accountant is under active supervision before matching — it's a legal requirement, not a nice-to-have, and a lapsed supervision is a red flag.

Match-quality feedback loop

After each match, we follow up with the business being matched to check whether the introduction was useful and whether the quote and communication met their expectations. Accountants who consistently produce poor feedback — unresponsive, over-priced, or a bad sector fit — get fewer matches or are removed from the network. This is the quietest part of the process but probably the most important.

What we don't check

The limits of vetting — honest about the gaps.

No vetting process can guarantee a perfect match, and pretending otherwise would be misleading. We don't audit the accountant's own work — that's what their institute does — and we don't independently verify every client they claim to have served. We don't check personal background beyond what's in the public professional registers.

What the vetting gets you is a meaningful quality floor: the accountant is qualified, insured, legally supervised, and has enough history to suggest they know what they're doing. What it doesn't get you is a guarantee that any specific engagement will run perfectly. That's why the feedback loop matters — it's how small problems surface before they become patterns.

If you ever have a concern about an accountant we've matched you with — pricing, responsiveness, quality of work — tell us directly. Feedback shapes the network faster than any check we run on the way in.

FAQs

Questions about the process.

Why only ACCA and ICAEW? Aren't there other qualifications?
There are — CIMA, AAT, ICAS, AIA — and many excellent accountants hold those qualifications. We've chosen ACCA and ICAEW because they're the two that most consistently require practising certificates with statutory audit, ongoing CPD, and compulsory PI insurance for members in practice. That gives us a tighter, more predictable quality floor. It's a deliberate narrowing, not a judgement on the other bodies.
Is the accountant paid to be in the network?
No. Accountants pay us nothing to join and nothing per match. Our revenue comes from a different commercial arrangement with accountants who convert matches into paying clients — which aligns incentives: we only benefit when a match actually works for both sides. The business being matched pays nothing either way.
What happens if the matched accountant does bad work?
Two things. First, their PI insurance is there to cover the financial consequences if the work itself was negligent. Second, the feedback loop flags the issue to us, and if it's a pattern rather than a one-off, the accountant leaves the network. If you've had a bad experience with a matched accountant, tell us — it's the most useful information you can give us.
Do you vet the accountant's pricing?
Not directly — accountants price their own engagements and we don't get involved. What we do is check whether quotes are coming back within a reasonable range for the work involved; repeated over-pricing gets picked up through the feedback loop and the accountant receives fewer matches as a result. The market self-corrects faster than we could.
How often are existing network members re-checked?
Practising certificates and PI insurance are re-verified annually, and AML supervision is checked whenever the accountant's institute publishes an updated register. We also re-confirm contact details and capacity every six months, so we're not matching businesses to accountants who've quietly stopped taking new work.

Vetted, qualified, insured. Ready to match you.

Tell us your situation and a qualified Harrow accountant from the network will be in touch within 48 hours.

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