Your accounting firm’s website is like a virtual salesperson. 

It presents prospective clients with their first impression of your firm and lets them get to know you before ever speaking with you. That makes your website a highly valuable asset for winning more clients. 

If building or updating your site has been on the back burner until now, it may be time to see it with fresh eyes and upgrade its design. 

To kickstart your website overhaul, we compiled some examples of the best accounting website designs we’ve come across to help inspire you. 

1. JD Scott + Co

What stands out about this site design:

• A clean, modern design makes it easy for prospective clients to navigate. 
• The site helps visitors find fast solutions to their accounting problems by offering a “Need Accounting Assistance?” search field in the first section of the home page. A convenient drop-down with pre-filled statements, such as “Am I paying too much tax?” and “My numbers are a mess,” redirects users to the proper accounting service page. 
• The home page prominently displays the team’s experience, helping showcase the firm’s expertise and fostering trust with site visitors. 

2. Heyward CPA

What stands out about this site design:

• Their use of high-quality images gives the site a sleek and sophisticated feel.
• A free consultation button and phone number are at the top of the page, making it easy for prospects to contact the team. This section also has links for sending files and making payments, a very convenient feature for their clients.  
• Overall, Heyward CPA provides site visitors with the essential information they need without overcrowding the page with long text blocks.

3. CBIZ

What stands out about this site design:

• With a big, bold hero section, CBIZ showcases the firm’s values, while a handy search bar above it helps visitors quickly find what they need. 
• This site’s distinct color palette of yellow, blue, and green pairs well with its sleek typography and balanced use of white space, making the site visually appealing. 
• Along with the attention to detail in the design, the firm doesn’t skimp on content. The large navigation flyouts help direct users to CBIZ’s thorough library of editorial content organized by industries and services to educate and inform visitors. 

4. UHY

What stands out about this site design:

• UHY has an easy-to-navigate website, which is also highly informative about its services and areas of experience. The slider at the top of the home page is a nice touch, allowing the firm to showcase the latest news and developments relevant to clients. 
• From the drop-down menu in the header, visitors can quickly access industry-specific accounting information, insights, and best practices, helping highlight UHY’s credibility and expertise to prospective clients. 

5. Heyer Accounting & Tax

What stands out about this site design:

• Heyer’s website has a simple yet powerful design. The drop-down menus in the header show what services they offer, the industries they serve, and other helpful information prospective clients might want to know. 
• They display their contact information, client portal, bill pay, and file-sharing links above the fold on the home page for easy client access. 
• A library of tax form templates is available for purchase and can be filled out directly from the website, offering great value to current and prospective clients. 

6. Wiss

What stands out about this site design:

• Wiss takes a thoughtful approach to its website design, emphasizing its team members and overall mission rather than the specific accounting services they offer, playing to site visitors’ emotions. 
• The home page includes videos of client testimonials, which helps build their credibility with prospective clients. 
• Further down the home page, Wiss includes links to their latest blog posts, a valuable content marketing tool that provides free value to anyone who visits the site. 

7. Haynie & Company

What stands out about this site design:

• Haynie & Company’s website features a hero section with a warm, appealing message about being a family firm. 
• The rest of the home page gets down to business, listing each of the services the firm provides so site visitors can browse their offerings and see which fits their needs. 
• We also like that no matter what page you visit or how far down you scroll, there’s always a prominently displayed call-to-action button inviting readers to learn more about their services or contact their team. 

8. TL;DR Accounting

What stands out about this site design:

• TL;DR’s website design is akin to a SaaS company. This nontraditional layout speaks to the firm’s modern ethos while still looking professional and being easy to navigate. 
• In the hero section, they clearly spell out the industry they serve (therapists with private practices), helping them reach the right clients within their niche. They also include a playful illustration to familiarize site visitors with the actual team members. 
• A standout feature of their website is the pricing page. It includes specific service plans at fixed prices, so site visitors can see what they get for each price point. 

9. Blue & Co.

What stands out about this site design:

• Visitors immediately see the Blue & Co. unique selling proposition, which is concise and speaks directly to their audience’s pain points. The remaining copy follows suit with a personal feel, helping them stand apart from other accounting firm websites. 
• The simple and effective header gives potential clients a prominent call-to-action button for contacting the firm and a drop-down menu with easy navigation to other site pages. 

Get Started with Accounting Website Templates 

Revamping your site or building a new one from scratch doesn’t have to be expensive or require you to have any expert tech skills. 

Common site-building platforms like Webflow, Wix, and WordPress offer easy-to-use templates to help firms build sleek, professional-looking websites in a matter of clicks.

Here are some accounting website templates to help you get started: 

• Acounty 128 – Webflow Template
• Accting – Webflow Template
• TaxBase – Webflow Template
• Accountant & Co – Wix Template
• Tax.Experts – Wix Template 
• Accounting Company – Wix Template
• Accountant – Accounting – WordPress Theme
• Auditing – WordPress Theme
• Fint – WordPress Theme

Though tax time is accounting’s busy season, that doesn’t mean you have to forgo any semblance of sanity until the end of April. 

As firms prepare to put in 50+ hours of work each week from now until the tax deadline has passed, it is possible to maintain a delicate balance that will keep your team productive without causing exhaustion and burnout. 

On Jetpack Workflow’s Growing Your Firm podcast, we spoke with seasoned industry veterans who share their expert tips for navigating the busy season like pros, such as: 

• Expanding your team with non-CPA hires
• Letting employees be more flexible with their schedules
• Using incentives to keep morale high
• Creating an open feedback loop between yourself and your staff

Here are the top tips we compiled to help you successfully manage another accounting busy season without burning out.

1. Hire a Project Coordinator

Let your revenue-driving staff focus on billable work this busy season by hiring a project coordinator, a standard position in law firms, to handle the extra administrative tasks. 

Vincent Porter, president and CEO of Porter & Company, CPAs, recently divulged that employing a project coordinator is one of his secrets for staying sane as the tax deadline approaches. 

He explains that a project coordinator “…coordinates work coming into the office, makes sure all the documents our CPAs need are there, chases our clients down for more information if needed, and follows up with them for further work.”

A project coordinator also acts as an accessible point of contact for your clients since they aren’t as bogged down as the rest of your team members might be this time of year. 

Put it into practice: Consult with your accountants to see which non-billable tasks take up the most time, and establish the project coordinator’s workflows around their feedback to help ease the team’s increased workload. 

2. Implement More Flexible Time

Rather than making Saturdays mandatory until April 15th, as some public accounting firms do, give employees the option for more flexibility in their schedules. 

During the accounting busy season, tax accountants know it’s crunch time, so you don’t need to plan each of their days down to the minute. 

Trust your team to get their work done on time, and help them avoid burnout by not keeping them in the office from sunup to sun down, six days a week. 

Put it into practice: Help your team maintain a work-life balance even during the busy season by offering the option to work remotely on certain days and set their own work hours as long as they meet deadlines. 

3. Use Tax Workflow Templates

When you’re in the thick of the busy season and wishing there were more hours in the day to get tasks done, using tax workflow templates and checklists can be a lifesaver. 

These helpful resources allow you to streamline and standardize repetitive tasks. They eliminate the guesswork and add time to your team’s days so they can get through other billable work. 

Put it into practice: You can create your own checklists and spreadsheet templates or simply download our 32 free workflow templates, with many designed to help simplify your firm’s processes for tax-related workflows. 

4. Create “Catch-Up” Days

At certain points, the non stop flow of incoming emails, calls, meetings, and client requests may undermine your staff’s ability to complete billable work. Implementing “catch-up” days lets your team come up for air and work completely unbothered.  

On those days, accounting professionals can simply catch up on any work they need to complete with no obligation to respond to their managers, clients, or colleagues until the next day. 

Put it into practice: Give your team the option to schedule 1–2 days per month as their “catch-up” days. Send reminders to managers ahead of time so your staff can work distraction-free on those days. 

5. Keep Morale High with Fun Activities

Just because it’s the busy season doesn’t mean it has to be all work and no play from January through April. 

This time of year can be a grind, so providing regular incentives gives your staff something to look forward to and breaks up the monotony of the tax filing season.

Each year, Porter creates a “tax season calendar,” scheduling one or two items weekly to help release the stress of working 12-hour days. Here are a few activities Porter includes on his calendar:

• A “survival day,” providing each staff member with their favorite snacks 
• A day when everyone has to tell a joke at staff huddles
• Letting staff wear their favorite sports team’s jersey on the Friday before the Super Bowl

Put it into practice: Create your own fun-filled calendar for the first few months of the year, specific to your staff’s interests. Keep it light and simple to help recharge your staff without distracting them from work. 

6. Send Personalized Feedback to Your Staff

Staff appreciation can go a long way when your team puts in long hours during each year’s first quarter. At a time when their inbox may be overflowing with stressful messages, a thoughtful and unexpected note could help them power through the rest of the week.

You don’t have to go overboard with praise. 

However, taking the time out of your week to send positive feedback helps your team know their hard work has not gone unnoticed. 

Put it into practice: Send a personalized email or Slack message to staff members each week recognizing their efforts. You can get creative and incorporate jokes, gifs, or memes to help keep morale up. 

7. Make Things More Convenient for Your Team

As your team potentially spends 11+ hour days in the office, go the extra mile to support them by doing things that might make their days a bit easier and free up some of their time. 

On a recent podcast episode, Jetpack Workflow founder and CEO David Cristello shares this suggestion as one of the tips and tactics he’s gleaned over the years from firm owners:

“During the busy season, invest in more conveniences in your life. Anything that can save you a couple of minutes a day or a couple of hours a week is a really great investment.”

(David details his ideas on this topic in the “Put it into practice” section below.)

Work can be hectic enough during the busy season, so sprinkling some added convenience into your team’s lives when possible can help minimize overall stress levels during this busy time of year. 

Put it into practice: Get feedback from your staff on the typical routines or responsibilities in their personal lives that get left by the wayside during the busy season. Based on their input, you can implement certain perks or freebies to help out, such as:

• Vouchers for meal prep or home services
• In-office/remote catered lunch
• On-site wellness/self-care activities like fitness or yoga classes once a week

8. Check In with Your Employees

Even if everything appears to be running smoothly and your staff is hitting all their deadlines, they could be working at an unsustainable pace that could end in burnout and other issues. 

Be sure your employees feel heard by scheduling check-ins as the busy season progresses. 

Use this meeting as a chance for your employees to share any issues or frustrations they may be dealing with. 

This way, you can adjust their workload or schedule as needed so they can deliver better work.  

Put it into practice: Schedule one or two informal meetings or formal one-on-one lunches with employees throughout the busy season where they can share their feedback. Doing so lets you offer proactive solutions instead of possibly having to react to staff issues when tax season ends. 

9. Join Some Accounting Facebook Groups

Remember, the entire accounting world is going through the busy season simultaneously, so you’re not in this alone. 

Other firm owners understand the struggle firsthand and have created online communities, sharing war stories and providing tips for getting through the busy season. 

Several Facebook groups are dedicated to CPAs and tax preparers during the busy season, including the Accounting Firm Influencers group, run by CPA Jackie Meyer. It has 7,000 members and multiple daily posts to help you navigate this hectic time of year. 

Put it into practice: Join online communities or Facebook groups where you can ask specific questions and get practical advice from firm owners who have been in your shoes. Return the favor by providing tips or suggestions to group members when you can. 

One Thing to Do Immediately After Busy Season

Once the rush of the busy season is over, regroup and recharge by taking a few days off, enjoying a week-long vacation, catching up on sleep, or reconnecting with friends and family. 

Then, make sure to contact your clients. On a recent episode of the Growing Your Firm podcast, Cristello clearly states, “Do not waste the opportunity to start client conversations right after this critical period ends.”

For clients that didn’t have their best tax year, you might want to suggest advisory services so their tax return is more favorable next year. 

On the other hand, clients who did have a good experience might be open to purchasing more services from your firm. 

Either way, connecting with your clients shortly after tax season ends allows you to continue offering them value throughout the year.  

Keep your team focused, reducing hours of manual work, and keep track of client work with strong accounting workflows. Learn why Jetpack Workflow is critical to your client work during your busy season and beyond. 

A growing number of job vacancies, difficulty reaching the younger generation of professionals, and only getting a few applicants for each job posting are all common problems for accounting firms recruiting talent.

In fact, 9 out of 10 accounting and audit firms currently struggle to fill open positions.

On our podcast, Growing Your Firm, we’ve heard from many industry experts and successful firm owners. In one recent conversation, we gathered some expert advice on hiring and recruiting qualified talent—even in today’s challenging labor market.

In this guide, we lay out some of the most common recruiting mistakes that we’ve seen accounting firms make. We also provide some helpful tips and suggestions for overcoming these failures so you can support your growing firm despite the shrinking talent pool.
 

Fail #1: Not Adapting to the Depleting Talent Pool

Ongoing trends in the accounting industry’s labor market provide unique challenges for firms seeking enough incoming talent to fill vacant positions.

On a recent episode of Growing Your Firm, we had the chance to sit down with Rob Brown, the co-founder of the Accounting Influencers Roundtable (AIR) mastermind group and the co-host of Accounting Influencers, the popular accounting and fintech podcast.

In the clip below, Brown points out that more people are leaving the accounting profession than entering it. This shift is primarily due to the many baby boomers retiring from their accounting careers, leaving a large vacancy in accounting positions.

According to current estimates, 75% of public accountants and CPAs working today will retire within the next 15 years. As this outward movement of talent from the industry continues, firms need to rethink how they view their workforce and adapt to the changing industry landscape.

Solutions:

Consider outsourcing to offshore teams where appropriate to navigate this depleting talent pool. Outsourcing can help you maintain efficiency levels even with a reduced internal headcount.

You may not be comfortable outsourcing billable work just yet.

However, there are fewer barriers to outsourcing administrative roles or non-billable tasks that don’t need to be completed by licensed CPAs. Your internal team can then focus solely on billable work within their expertise.

Plus, many tasks that previously needed to be done manually can now be automated using advanced tools.

As a result, leveraging modern tools, software, and AI to complete administrative tasks may be helpful, lessening your reliance on human workers to some degree.
 

Fail #2: Difficulties Recruiting Generation Z

Brown also points out that Gen Z thinks differently about jobs and employers than previous generations.

These differences mean firms need to approach recruiting Gen Z candidates differently than they have in the past.

In short, Gen Z wants to see quicker results and doesn’t necessarily want to put in the years before reaching their career goals, even more so than millennials.

While prior generations were more willing to put in the time and effort to earn their seniority, Gen Z has a more fast-track mentality regarding their career growth. They prioritize factors like a work-life balance and passion for their job, not just titles and salaries.

That mindset makes filling and fostering entry-level positions challenging for accounting firms.

Since the accounting field is already experiencing a shortage of incoming talent, layering on these cultural differences among different generations makes recruiting new talent even more difficult.

The World Economic Forum explains that by 2025, Gen Z will make up one-third of the workforce.

Therefore, firm owners need to strategize ways of reaching and connecting with younger accounting students and professionals to keep their employment pipeline healthy and full.

 Solutions:

You can be more receptive to the younger generation by learning to speak Gen Z’s language. Consider listening to and appearing on podcasts, staying active on social media, and paying attention to relevant surveys regarding Gen Z’s workplace communication preferences.

More than other age groups, Gen Z is responsive to how you describe the story and the mission behind your business.

Explaining how they make a difference at your accounting firm could encourage more buy-in from younger candidates and keep them invested once they’re on the job.

Brown explains in the following clip that it’s becoming increasingly popular for firms to start recruiting in high school or even younger. You may even weigh sponsoring potential hires’ degree programs to show your intent to employ them after graduation.
 

Fail #3: An Inability to Relate to Younger Business Owners

Across the United States and beyond, business models and the mechanisms of the overall economy are rapidly changing. 

With the rise of cryptocurrencies, AI, SaaS, and other emerging technologies, younger professionals want to work for firms evolving and expanding into innovative industries. 

That often means firms must start working with younger and more forward-thinking clients. Given the average staff accountant in the US is 41 years old, it can be harder to relate to business owners in their early 30s or younger, in addition to understanding their newer or unconventional business models.  

Firms uncomfortable expanding their clientele beyond the industries they’re most accustomed to may find it hard to attract younger talent who don’t see that as a path forward in the modern economy. 

Solutions:

Staying current with the changing times and being open to new clients in innovative fields is one of the best incentives you can offer to younger talent and existing employees. 

Plus, bringing on younger employees makes it easier for your firm to relate and be relevant to young business owners. 

Familiarize yourself with modern business models through podcasts and social media pages focused on these areas. For an even more in-depth look at these new business models, you can start a side hustle in one of the emerging sectors to gain a deeper understanding firsthand. 
 

Fail #4: They Can’t Cope with VUCA

As Brown explained in our conversation, among other issues, firms that can’t handle VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) will continue to struggle with staffing.

Uncertainty is the new norm in business, and new challenges constantly arise that impact how a CPA firm and its clients operate. The complexities of the post-COVID world make even 90-day plans tricky, let alone a one-year plan. 

A firm’s staff can be its biggest asset when navigating industry headwinds and uncertainty. Your hiring decisions either set you up for further growth or leave you in an endless cycle of recruiting, hiring, and training non resilient candidates. 

Solutions:

Strengthen your firm and make it more adaptable by hiring only the best talent for open roles. Recruit accountants with agile skills and adequate commercial knowledge who can easily speak with clients and are effective problem solvers. 

In other words, qualified candidates for today’s modern accounting jobs aren’t just technical experts regarding accounting matters; they are multifaceted with a wide range of skills that can benefit a growing firm. 

As a firm owner, you can’t always plan for tomorrow or forecast where the industry will be in a year. However, how you recruit for your firm can make your team better equipped to deal with any uncertainties that may arise.
 

Fail #5: Not Hiring for the Five Skills You Actually Need

Brown further shares that firms can remedy their staffing issues by investing in the top candidates adept in five essential skills: 

• Technical skills
• Technological skills
• People skills
• Business acumen
• Selling skills

While technical and technological skills are vital, accounting professionals today need to be able to tell stories around the numbers they present to clients. 

They need to offer more to your firm, such as an area of expertise on a specific business model or industry or the ability to bring in new clients.

Accounting recruiters with no clear idea about which types of candidates would improve their operations will find themselves unsatisfied with their hiring efforts. They’ll likely need to invest even further in recruiting to replace incompatible or unsuitable hires.  

Solutions:

Assess and identify these five skills within your current workforce, and make hiring decisions that compensate for any shortfalls among your existing team. 

Ask your employees for a self-assessment of their skills, then offer them a roadmap to develop any skills they lack. 

Approach your recruiting efforts with these missing skills in mind to make your team more well-rounded. Then, show potential candidates how you encourage skill development and that these personal growth options are available to them once they join your firm. 

Fail #6: Not Developing Their Existing Team

High turnover within your firm can exacerbate the labor shortage even further. 

Firms that don’t support and develop the skill sets of existing employees by investing in their education, tech stack, and mentorship may face a higher turnover rate, needing to recruit more to fill open positions. 

Not offering these perks makes attracting and retaining the right talent difficult. To explain this aspect further, Brown makes an analogy to dating: 

“If you want to attract the right mate, be the right mate. If you want the best talent, be worthy of attracting the right talent.”

Statistically, 61% of adults in the United States seek job opportunities that offer career development opportunities. 

Firms need to be aware of these preferences to attract top candidates and nurture them once hired. They can then promote from within their existing team rather than externally recruiting as positions open up. 

Solutions:

While you want to make your firm attractive to job seekers, you must also invest resources in your people and the technology that helps them do their jobs more efficiently. 

Demonstrate a clear path of progression to your employees so they can see their future within your firm. Become a great mentor and set up a program for experienced professionals to advise their junior colleagues. 

This way, you create a positive company culture dedicated to nurturing its talent.