Accounting & Tax: find professionals

Accounting and tax covers accountants and accountancy firms, bookkeepers, tax advisers, payroll services and part-time finance directors, for individuals, the self-employed and businesses of every size.

The work ranges from routine to specialised: monthly bookkeeping and payroll, Self Assessment and corporation tax returns, catching up on returns that were never filed, VAT, statutory accounts, forensic accounting and part-time finance leadership.

Chartered status comes from a professional body rather than a state licence: the ACA is the ICAEW Chartered Accountant qualification, and ICAEW also licenses firms for reserved work such as audit, insolvency and probate. Separately, accountancy service providers, including accountants, tax advisers, auditors and insolvency practitioners, must be supervised for anti-money-laundering purposes, either by a professional body such as ICAEW, ACCA or CIOT, or by HMRC. Carrying on a business covered by those regulations without registering with a supervisory authority is against the law, so ask which body a firm belongs to and who supervises it.