CPA Licenses, the Firm Permit and Your Website

A CPA firm website should connect three separate records: each person's individual license, the firm's permit, and the legal name the permit was issued under. The license belongs to the individual CPA and the permit belongs to the firm, and the name on the door may not name anyone who works there today. A site that ties the three together in plain sentences gives any reader, including an AI system, one practice instead of a pile of names.

Two legal objects, not one

Section 7 of the Uniform Accountancy Act requires a permit for any firm with an office in the state that performs attest services or "uses the title 'CPA' or 'CPA firm'." Section 7(c)(1) requires that "a simple majority of the ownership" belong to holders of a certificate. The individual license comes from the certificate each CPA holds. So a partner can move to another firm and keep her license, and the firm keeps its permit when she leaves, as long as it still meets the ownership rule.

The Act's commentary to Section 7 adds a distinction that matters for naming: CPAs may offer non-attest services through any entity they choose, with no ownership percentage required, "as long as they do not call themselves a 'CPA firm' or use the term 'CPA' in association with the entity's name." A consulting company run by CPAs is therefore not a CPA firm, and its site should not read like one.

Why the firm name can point to the past

The AICPA Code of Professional Conduct, at 1.800.001, says "names of one or more past owners may be included in the firm name of a successor organization," and interpretation 1.820.010 covers retired partners' names. Section 14(i) of the Act says the same, so long as the name is not misleading about who the owners are. That is sound tradition. It also means "Bennett & Cole CPAs" can have no Bennett and no Cole, and a reader has only the website to learn who the partners are now.

A worked example

Take a hypothetical Boise practice, Bennett & Cole CPAs, PLLC, with two partners, Aisha Grant and Tom Reyes, and a permit from the Idaho board. A clear about page states:

The firm sentence

"Bennett & Cole CPAs, PLLC is a CPA firm in Boise, Idaho, holding a firm permit from the Idaho State Board of Accountancy. The firm was founded by Ruth Bennett and Harold Cole, both now retired."

The people sentences

"Aisha Grant, CPA, licensed in Idaho and Oregon, is managing partner." "Tom Reyes, CPA, licensed in Idaho, leads the audit practice." Each on the team page, and again on that person's own bio page.

The link between them

Each bio links to the about page, and the about page links to each bio. The founders' names are explained once, so nobody takes a name on the letterhead for a current partner.

What structured data can add, and what it cannot

Schema.org has a type for this business, AccountingService, a kind of LocalBusiness and FinancialService. A firm can describe itself with it, list its people as employees, and link each person's page. That repeats the plain sentences above in a machine vocabulary, which helps systems that read it. Google is explicit that it is not an entry ticket: its AI features guidance says there is "no special schema.org structured data that you need to add." Our page on structured data covers the basics. Markup that claims a partner the page does not show is worse than none.

Setting up the firm, the people and the permit on your site

Use the permit's exact legal name once on the about page and in the footer, including the entity suffix.
Give every credentialed person a bio page with credential and licensing state or states in the first sentence.
Explain names on the door that belong to founders or retired partners.
If some of your work runs through a non-CPA entity, name that entity and say which services it provides.
When a partner leaves, update the site the same week, and redirect the old bio to the team page.

For the records these sentences should match, see the public registries for CPA firms. The wider picture is on AI visibility for accounting firms.

Not legal or tax advice. This describes how AI systems read an accounting practice in public; your state board of accountancy, Circular 230 and your own counsel govern what you may publish.

Questions

Who holds the license at a CPA firm, the firm or the partners?

At a CPA firm the license belongs to each individual CPA and the permit belongs to the firm. Under the Uniform Accountancy Act, a firm with an office in a state needs a permit if it performs attest services or uses the title CPA or CPA firm, and a simple majority of its ownership must belong to certificate holders. State laws based on the Act set the exact rules.

Can a CPA firm's name include partners who no longer work there?

Yes. The AICPA Code of Professional Conduct allows the names of past owners in a successor firm's name, and the Uniform Accountancy Act permits former partners' names as long as the name is not misleading about the firm's legal form or its current owners. That is why a firm's website should list the people who practice there now.

Your license is personal and your permit is the firm's: how should a firm site connect them?