15 questions people ask AI before hiring a CA or accountant, and what answers them
Founders and individuals now ask ChatGPT or Perplexity these questions before they ever call a CA firm. Whether a firm's site is built to answer them decides whether it gets named.
Before someone hires a chartered accountant, they increasingly ask an AI assistant first: which firm to use, what it costs, whether it handles GST or company registration. The answer the AI gives depends on what it can find and read on a firm's own site, not on how good the firm actually is.
I pulled together 15 of the real questions people type into an AI when they need accounting or compliance help, and checked what it takes for a firm's site to actually answer each one, using what I found scanning 16 Indian CA and accounting firm homepages.
The 15 questions, and the fix for each
Publish clear, specific service pages naming startup-focused offerings (incorporation, ESOP, compliance calendars) rather than one generic services page, so an AI has something concrete to match to the question.
Specific beats generic when AI is choosing who to name.
State actual pricing or a clear price range on the site instead of contact us for a quote. If pricing genuinely varies, publish the factors that change it.
No published price means no answer to give.
Name the specific service, private limited company registration, on a page of its own, not folded into a general incorporation paragraph.
Name the exact service, not the umbrella term.
List GST registration and GST return filing as their own labeled services with the process and timeline spelled out, so an AI has enough detail to answer directly.
Spell out GST as its own labeled service.
Publish a cost range or the factors that determine audit fees, since this is one of the most commonly asked and least commonly published numbers in the vertical.
Audit cost is asked often, published rarely.
If the firm offers it, give virtual CFO its own page with what's included, not a bullet point buried in a services list.
A buried bullet point doesn't get cited.
Add a plain-English page on handling tax notices: what triggers one, what the firm does, how fast they respond. This is exactly the kind of anxious, specific question AI engines get asked.
Anxious questions need calm, specific answers.
List bookkeeping and monthly compliance as a named recurring service with what's included each month, not lumped into general accounting services.
Recurring work deserves its own clear listing.
Publish a short comparison page or FAQ entry on LLP versus private limited, since this is a genuine decision question people ask before they've even picked a structure, let alone a firm.
Answer the decision before the pitch.
Name TDS compliance and payroll processing as distinct services with what's covered, since these get bundled into vague compliance language on most sites I scanned.
TDS and payroll need their own names.
If the firm serves foreign-owned entities, say so explicitly with FEMA and subsidiary compliance named, since this is a narrow, high-intent question with few sites that answer it directly.
Narrow questions reward the sites that name it.
State the filing cadence and process for GST returns directly, since we handle GST doesn't tell an AI engine, or a prospect, what the monthly service actually looks like.
Say the cadence, not just the service.
Publish credentials, team size, years operating and a way to reach a real person, since this is a trust question digital-first platforms need to answer explicitly to win it.
Trust questions need proof, not a claim.
List ROC and MCA filing services by name with what triggers each filing, since compliance calendars are exactly the factual content an AI engine can lift and use as an FAQ answer once it's marked up with structured data.
ROC filings are a natural fit for structured data.
Publish an annual compliance package with a price or price range, since fee questions are asked constantly and answered on almost none of the 16 sites I scanned.
Fee silence is the easiest gap to close.
What I found scanning 16 CA and accounting firm sites
When I checked whether the 16 CA and accounting firm sites in my sample could actually answer questions like these, the pattern from the wider study held. The median AI-readability score was 87, with network firms and digital-first platforms clustered near the top and regional, independent practices trailing at a median of 72.
Eleven of the 16 firms publish structured data that helps an AI engine identify what they do and where, which is a real advantage when a question like do they handle GST registration comes up. But only 1 of the 16 has FAQ schema, the format built specifically to answer question after question like the 15 above.
The pattern under all 15
The pattern under all 15 questions is the same one that shaped the whole study. The digital-first platforms answer most of these in structured, specific content, because their sites were built as products with a defined service, a price and a process, not as a brochure.
The traditional and regional practices usually have the same answers, buried in prose on a general services page instead of broken out where an AI engine, or a prospect, can find them fast. And almost none of the 16 use FAQ markup, so even the firms with good answers are leaving them harder to surface than they need to be.
Frequently asked questions
Do AI assistants actually recommend specific CA firms?
Increasingly, yes, especially for narrow questions like GST filing or company registration where a specific, well-structured answer stands out. Whether a firm gets named depends heavily on whether its site states the answer clearly enough for the AI to lift it.
What's the single fastest fix for a CA firm's website?
Add FAQ schema for the questions you already answer on client calls every day. It was the single most under-used signal in the 16 sites I scanned, present on only 1 of them.
Does having a good answer in prose count, if it's not marked up?
It counts for a human reader, but an AI engine has a much easier time with content that is explicitly structured, so a good answer buried in a paragraph is still more likely to get skipped over than one marked up clearly.
Is this list of 15 questions exhaustive?
No, it's a representative set drawn from what founders and individuals commonly ask before hiring a CA or accountant, not a complete list. The underlying point holds regardless of the exact question: if your site doesn't state the answer plainly, an AI can't cite it.