About Bookkeeping Index

We built Bookkeeping Index for one reader: a small-business owner who needs a bookkeeper and can't tell the firms apart.

It's a fair problem to have. Most local bookkeeping sites use the same few phrases, review counts mostly show how often a firm asks for reviews, and the directories that turn up in search tend to favor whoever filled in the most fields. Before launch we asked an AI search tool to name bookkeepers in each of our launch markets. Its answers leaned on a few directory reviews or a single service page, and it said itself that it couldn't find enough comparable evidence. You deserve something you can check.

What we do

We read each firm's own website, look the firm up on the state records and directories that will confirm it, and publish what we found with a link and a date beside every line. We score the firm on how much a buyer can verify, and we show how much we were able to check. We publish no ratings.

We started with four states. The index now covers every state and Washington, DC, plus a page for firms that work entirely remotely. A metro gets its own page once eight firms there meet the listing bar, and a ranked list only when eight of them reach 70% evidence coverage. Everywhere else the firms sit on their state's page, because a thin page helps nobody.

Who runs it

Bookkeeping Index is operated by Pleiades Consultancy, a marketing firm that works with service businesses, bookkeeping and accounting firms among them. That's a conflict of interest, and we'd rather state it than bury it. Our client firms get a labelled Featured slot and are scored by the same rules as everyone else, from the same sources, their own websites included. We build or maintain some of those websites, so the disclosures page names our clients and sets out the rule we hold ourselves to.

If you run a firm that's listed

You can claim your listing to confirm you run the firm, or send a correction with evidence. A person reviews every submission, and nothing on a listing changes until the evidence has been checked. Claiming doesn't change a score. Evidence does.

If you're choosing a bookkeeper, start with the state list.