How to Get Accounting Clients When You Are Starting Out
How to get accounting clients in a new firm comes down to reaching people who already trust you. Referrals and your existing network produce the first clients; SEO, LinkedIn and paid search build the pipeline behind them. Run all three, but expect the first ten from relationships.
How to get accounting clients in a new firm comes down to reaching people who already trust you. Referrals and your existing network produce the first clients; SEO, LinkedIn and paid search build the pipeline behind them. Run all three, but expect the first ten from relationships.
Last updated: September 2026
Where first clients actually come from
Almost every new firm's first clients arrive through a relationship: a former colleague, a client of your old employer who is free to move, a friend's business, a bookkeeper who needs a tax partner. This is not a failure of marketing ambition. Accounting is a trust purchase, and trust transfers through people faster than through content.
That has an uncomfortable implication: your first month should be mostly conversations, not website work. A firm with a beautiful site and no outreach in month one is a firm with no revenue in month three.
Check any non-solicitation obligations from a previous employer before you contact former clients. Announcing that you have started a firm is different from soliciting a specific client, and the distinction matters legally.
A 30-day client acquisition plan
Designed for a founder with no team. Roughly two focused hours a day.
Days 1–3: define who you serve
One sentence naming the client type, their situation and what you fix. Everything else — site copy, outreach, ad targeting — is downstream of this sentence.
Days 4–7: list and announce
Build a list of everyone who knows your work: former colleagues, professional contacts, local business owners, existing bookkeepers. Send a short personal announcement, not a broadcast. No pitch beyond saying what you now do and who you help.
Days 8–12: build referral partners
Approach attorneys, bankers, insurance brokers, financial advisors and bookkeepers serving your niche. Offer something concrete: covering the work they do not want, or reciprocal referral. Aim for five real conversations, not fifty emails.
Days 13–18: ship the essential pages
Homepage, a page per service, a page per niche you serve, pricing approach, and an easy way to book a call. Claim and complete your Google Business Profile — local intent searches convert well for accounting.
Days 19–23: publish and post
Two or three pages answering questions your prospects actually ask, and a short LinkedIn post two or three times a week from your personal profile. Specific and useful beats polished and generic.
Days 24–27: test paid search carefully
If you use Google Ads, start with high-intent local terms, a small daily budget, exact and phrase match, and a landing page that matches the search. Track calls and form fills, not clicks.
Days 28–30: follow up on everything
Go back through every conversation from the month. Most of your first clients are in this list and simply have not been asked twice.
Referrals for CPAs: making them repeatable
Referrals stop being luck when three things are true: the referrer knows precisely who you want, they have seen you handle something well, and you make referring easy. Most accountants fail the first test. 'Any small business' gives a referrer nothing to match against; 'dental practices with two or more locations' produces names.
Close the loop every time. Tell the referrer what happened, thank them specifically, and refer back where you honestly can. A referral network that only flows one way quietly stops flowing.
SEO for accounting firms: what works early
Search compounds slowly and then carries the firm. Do the small number of things that matter in year one.
- One page per service and one per niche, each targeting how a client would actually phrase the search.
- A location page if you serve a local market, plus a complete and active Google Business Profile.
- Answer real client questions in writing — the ones you retype in emails every week are the ones people search.
- Make sure your pages render as full HTML for crawlers rather than relying on scripts to build the content, or search engines may see an empty page.
- Titles under about 60 characters, descriptions under about 155, one H1 per page, and internal links between related pages.
- Consistent name, address and phone number everywhere you are listed.
- Reviews on your Google profile, requested as part of finishing a piece of work.
LinkedIn and Google Ads for CPAs
LinkedIn works for accountants when posts come from a person rather than a company page, and when they are specific. A short note on a mistake you keep seeing in ecommerce sales tax will outperform a generic post about tax season being busy. Comment on prospects' posts as often as you publish; visibility in someone's feed beats a cold message.
Google Ads can work but punishes vagueness. Broad terms attract price shoppers and other accountants' research. High-intent local phrases, tight match types, negative keywords for jobs and study terms, and a landing page written for that exact search will decide whether the budget produces calls or clicks. Set a small budget, measure booked calls, and stop quickly if the intent is wrong.
How Remindoo helps
Leads die in inboxes. In Remindoo every inquiry goes into the client CRM and pipeline with a stage and an owner, follow-ups are tasks with deadlines and automated reminders, and the same record carries through to onboarding — so the prospect who asked a question in March is not rediscovered in July.
When they say yes, the white-label engagement letter goes out from the same system as part of the onboarding workflow, and the first payment can be collected online through Stripe. Inquiry, proposal, signed letter and onboarding sit on one record rather than across email, a spreadsheet and a folder.
Remindoo is built by a practicing chartered accountant who runs a 40-person accounting firm, so the workflows come from running a practice rather than from a product roadmap.
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Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to get the first accounting client?
For founders who start with outreach rather than website building, the first client usually comes from an existing relationship within weeks. Search-driven inquiries typically take months to build, which is why both should run at the same time.
Can I contact clients from my previous firm?
Check your employment agreement first. Non-solicitation clauses vary, and announcing that you have started a firm is legally different from soliciting a specific client. Take advice before contacting anyone you served in your old role.
Does SEO work for small accounting firms?
Yes, but slowly. Service pages, niche pages, a complete Google Business Profile and genuinely useful answers to client questions compound over months. Treat it as a pipeline you build while referrals pay the bills.
Are Google Ads worth it for a new CPA firm?
They can be, with high-intent local keywords, tight match types, negative keywords and a landing page matching the search. Measure booked calls rather than clicks, start small, and stop quickly if the traffic is price shopping.
Should I post on LinkedIn as the firm or as myself?
As yourself. Personal profiles reach far more people than company pages, and accounting is bought from a person. Be specific about problems you see in your niche rather than posting general seasonal commentary.
How do I stop leads going cold?
Give every inquiry an owner, a next action and a date. In Remindoo that is a pipeline stage plus a follow-up task with automated reminders, so nothing depends on someone remembering to check an inbox thread.
Should I take any client at the start?
Take the ones you can serve well at a fee that works. Clients accepted out of anxiety tend to be the underpriced, high-maintenance relationships you spend year two trying to exit.
Stop losing leads between the inquiry and the engagement
Capture every prospect in the CRM pipeline and move them to a signed letter without anything going cold.