# Who Google's AI Recommends for Accountants in Vancouver

Source: https://enginely.ai/reports/vancouver/accounting-ai-visibility/

> A citation study of Google AI Overviews across 7 Metro Vancouver sub-markets, measuring which firms AI-generated answers name and cite. 32 firms, 259 citations, 21 queries, captured August 2, 2026.

A citation study of Google AI Overviews across seven Metro Vancouver sub-markets and three services — small-business tax, personal tax preparation and monthly bookkeeping — measuring which firms AI-generated answers name and cite.

21 client-intent fee queries. 259 citations captured. Only 26% of them reach a firm with a verified Metro Vancouver office — the weakest local position of any market in this series — and not one came from a Google Business Profile.

## Headline finding

**The most-cited firm in Vancouver's accounting answers is in Calgary.** maxprofinancials.ca takes 16 citations across all seven sub-markets — three times more than any firm with a Metro Vancouver office.

| Figure | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Metro Vancouver firms cited | 32 |
| Citations to Metro Vancouver firms | 26% |
| Citations to non-firms | 33% |
| Citations to Google listings | 0% |

## What did this study measure?

We ran 21 client-intent fee queries through Google across seven Metro Vancouver sub-markets — what an accountant charges for small-business taxes, what personal tax preparation costs, and what a bookkeeper costs per month — and recorded every source cited by the AI Overview each one returned.

- **21 of 21 queries** returned an AI Overview — every fee question we asked
- **259 citations captured**, de-duplicated so a firm cited twice in one answer counts once
- **26% pointed at Metro Vancouver firm websites**, 33% at non-firms, 31% at firms elsewhere and 11% at firms publishing no address
- **Zero listing citations** — the same result as Calgary accounting
- **Every provider domain opened by hand** and its published head-office address read from the firm's own contact page
- **Single point in time** — captured August 2, 2026, and generated answers vary between runs

_This measures Google AI Overviews only. It does not measure ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Copilot, which use different retrieval systems and require separate tracking._

## Findings

### Three quarters of the market belongs to somebody else

Only 67 of 259 citations (26%) reach a firm with a verified Metro Vancouver office. 79 (31%) go to firms elsewhere, 28 (11%) to firms publishing no address at all, and 85 (33%) to sources that are not accounting firms. This is the weakest local position of any accounting market we have measured — Calgary was 37%, Ottawa 35%.

### A Calgary firm out-cites every Vancouver firm

maxprofinancials.ca, at 7500 Macleod Trail SE in Calgary, is cited 16 times across all seven Metro Vancouver sub-markets. The most-cited firm with an actual Vancouver-area office has 5. Two Victoria firms take another 13 citations between them.

### Personal tax has left the profession entirely

Metro Vancouver firms take 34% of small-business tax citations and 26% of bookkeeping, but only 19% of “how much does it cost to get your taxes done”. 48% of that question goes to non-firms: H&R Block across three country domains, the CRA, Reddit, Facebook, and a striking number of BC community organisations running free tax clinics.

### The Google Business Profile is worth nothing here

Across all 21 queries, zero citations came from a listing panel — the same result as Calgary accounting. There is no map pack to win and no reviews to chase. Every citation went to a published page.

## Three Services, Three Different Fights

Each question loses ground to a different competitor: firms in other provinces on small-business tax, national chains and charities on personal tax, salary aggregators on bookkeeping.

_Share of citations going to a Metro Vancouver firm's own website_

| Topic | Citations | Local share | Most cited | Note |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Small-business tax | 77 | 34% | davidson-co.com (3), genesacpa.com (3), dalefancpa.ca (2) | The strongest service, and still only a third. 44% goes to firms headquartered outside Metro Vancouver. |
| Bookkeeping | 87 | 26% | plyobookkeeping.com (5), sansarsolutions.com (3), enkel.ca (3) | 48% goes to firms elsewhere. Indeed, Workopolis, Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter and the federal Job Bank take 11 citations between them, because “how much does a bookkeeper cost” reads to Google as a question about wages. |
| Personal tax | 95 | 19% | hrsbs.ca (3), genesacpa.com (2), accountants-bc.ca (1) | The weakest question in the weakest market. 48% goes to non-firms — H&R Block across three country domains, the CRA, Reddit, Facebook, and thirteen citations to BC community organisations, charities, libraries and municipalities running free tax clinics. |

_Based on 259 citations across 21 AI Overviews, captured August 2, 2026._

## 25 Firms, 79 Citations, 31% of the Market

Every domain below was opened and its published head-office address recorded. None publishes an office in Metro Vancouver. maxprofinancials.ca publishes one Canadian head office — 7500 Macleod Trail SE, Calgary — and is cited in every Metro Vancouver sub-market we tested. It is not a national brand with local offices. It is one Calgary practice that publishes fee content well.

| Firm domain | Verified head office | Citations | Sub-markets | Cited for |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| maxprofinancials.ca | Calgary, AB | 16 | 7 | Bookkeeping, Personal tax, Small-business tax |
| parallelcpa.ca | Victoria, BC — Vancouver Island | 8 | 5 | Personal tax, Small-business tax |
| customcpa.ca | Regina, SK | 6 | 6 | Bookkeeping |
| premiumbookkeeping.ca | New Liskeard, ON | 6 | 6 | Bookkeeping |
| aissolutions.ca | Burlington, ON | 5 | 5 | Bookkeeping |
| rtsreliabletaxes.com | Victoria, BC — Vancouver Island | 5 | 5 | Personal tax |
| everstonecpa.com | Abbotsford, BC — outside Metro Vancouver | 3 | 3 | Small-business tax |
| goraimpots.com | Saint-Hubert, QC | 3 | 3 | Personal tax |
| mybookly.co | Oakville, ON | 3 | 3 | Bookkeeping |
| theacctaxco.com | Kitchener, ON | 3 | 3 | Bookkeeping |
| taxprocanada.ca | London, ON | 3 | 2 | Personal tax, Small-business tax |
| achenhenderson.ca | Calgary, AB | 2 | 2 | Personal tax, Small-business tax |
| bbatax.ca | Ottawa, ON | 2 | 2 | Small-business tax |
| bestax.ca | Mississauga, ON | 2 | 2 | Personal tax, Small-business tax |
| plugcpa.com | Ottawa, ON | 2 | 2 | Bookkeeping |
| accountingimpots.ca | Ottawa, ON | 1 | 1 | Personal tax |
| accountingtoronto.ca | Toronto, ON | 1 | 1 | Small-business tax |
| frostysquirrel.ca | Calgary, AB | 1 | 1 | Small-business tax |
| gallollp.ca | Edmonton, AB | 1 | 1 | Small-business tax |
| gondaliyacpa.ca | Toronto, ON | 1 | 1 | Small-business tax |
| insightscpa.ca | Mississauga, ON | 1 | 1 | Small-business tax |
| intrepidium.com | Quesnel, BC | 1 | 1 | Bookkeeping |
| numinor.ca | Waterloo, ON | 1 | 1 | Bookkeeping |
| serbinski.com | Toronto (North York), ON | 1 | 1 | Personal tax |
| t2inc.ca | Montréal, QC | 1 | 1 | Small-business tax |

_Victoria, Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Quesnel and Nanaimo are in British Columbia but outside Metro Vancouver, and are named explicitly rather than folded into either group._

## Firms That Publish No Verifiable Location

A further 28 citations (11%) go to sites that publish no address, or that block retrieval so we could not read one. We report them rather than assume.

| Domain | What the site publishes | Citations |
| --- | --- | --- |
| accufile.ca | No city or address published | 9 |
| outsourcebookkeeping.ca | No address; 289 (Hamilton/Niagara) phone | 7 |
| bomcas.ca | No address; Alberta hub implied | 5 |
| fluentbook.ca | British Columbia stated; no city or address published | 3 |
| accountingvancouver.com | No address published; serves “the Lower Mainland” | 2 |
| transcounts.com | Site blocks automated retrieval | 2 |

## Every Metro Vancouver Firm Cited, Ranked

All 32 Metro Vancouver accounting firms cited across the 21 queries analysed, ranked by how many generated answers cited the firm's own website. Head-office addresses were read from each firm's own site, not inferred. Three firms that name a city without publishing a street address are counted as local on the strength of that statement.

| # | Firm | Location | Citations | Sub-markets | Services won | Missing services |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | plyobookkeeping.com | North Vancouver | 5 | 5 | Bookkeeping | Small-business tax, Personal tax |
| 2 | genesacpa.com | Vancouver | 5 | 4 | Personal tax, Small-business tax | Bookkeeping |
| 3 | sansarsolutions.com | Vancouver | 5 | 4 | Bookkeeping, Small-business tax | Personal tax |
| 4 | hrsbs.ca | Vancouver | 4 | 3 | Bookkeeping, Personal tax | Small-business tax |
| 5 | dalefancpa.ca | Vancouver | 4 | 2 | Bookkeeping, Personal tax, Small-business tax | — |
| 6 | davidson-co.com | Vancouver | 3 | 3 | Small-business tax | Personal tax, Bookkeeping |
| 7 | enkel.ca | Vancouver | 3 | 3 | Bookkeeping | Small-business tax, Personal tax |
| 8 | gopk.ca | New Westminster | 3 | 3 | Bookkeeping | Small-business tax, Personal tax |
| 9 | nelsonhuang.ca | Vancouver | 3 | 2 | Personal tax, Small-business tax | Bookkeeping |
| 10 | inbalanceaccounting.ca | Coquitlam | 3 | 1 | Bookkeeping, Personal tax, Small-business tax | — |
| 11 | khosh.ca | Vancouver | 2 | 2 | Small-business tax | Personal tax, Bookkeeping |
| 12 | proac.ca | North Vancouver | 2 | 2 | Bookkeeping | Small-business tax, Personal tax |
| 13 | cahillcpa.ca | North Vancouver | 2 | 1 | Personal tax, Small-business tax | Bookkeeping |
| 14 | cncpa.ca | Coquitlam | 2 | 1 | Personal tax, Small-business tax | Bookkeeping |
| 15 | leskunaccounting.com | Langley | 2 | 1 | Personal tax, Small-business tax | Bookkeeping |
| 16 | placcountant.ca | Burnaby | 2 | 1 | Bookkeeping, Small-business tax | Personal tax |
| 17 | westvancpa.com | West Vancouver | 2 | 1 | Personal tax, Small-business tax | Bookkeeping |
| 18 | accountants-bc.ca | Vancouver | 1 | 1 | Personal tax | Small-business tax, Bookkeeping |
| 19 | avisar.ca | Vancouver | 1 | 1 | Small-business tax | Personal tax, Bookkeeping |
| 20 | bouchardco.com | Surrey | 1 | 1 | Personal tax | Small-business tax, Bookkeeping |
| 21 | greenturtle.online | Port Coquitlam | 1 | 1 | Bookkeeping | Small-business tax, Personal tax |
| 22 | gsynergytaxcpa.ca | North Vancouver | 1 | 1 | Small-business tax | Personal tax, Bookkeeping |
| 23 | jdtax.net | Langley | 1 | 1 | Small-business tax | Personal tax, Bookkeeping |
| 24 | jkctax.com | North Vancouver | 1 | 1 | Personal tax | Small-business tax, Bookkeeping |
| 25 | jpsaccountingservices.com | Port Coquitlam | 1 | 1 | Personal tax | Small-business tax, Bookkeeping |
| 26 | kuyerandassociates.com | Langley | 1 | 1 | Small-business tax | Personal tax, Bookkeeping |
| 27 | mint-accounting.com | Vancouver | 1 | 1 | Bookkeeping | Small-business tax, Personal tax |
| 28 | proactiveaccountants.ca | Langley | 1 | 1 | Small-business tax | Personal tax, Bookkeeping |
| 29 | rocketaccounting.ca | Burnaby | 1 | 1 | Small-business tax | Personal tax, Bookkeeping |
| 30 | sumacpa.ca | Burnaby | 1 | 1 | Bookkeeping | Small-business tax, Personal tax |
| 31 | vantax.ca | Vancouver | 1 | 1 | Personal tax | Small-business tax, Bookkeeping |
| 32 | yaletownaccounting.com | Vancouver | 1 | 1 | Personal tax | Small-business tax, Bookkeeping |

_Bar length is scaled to the highest citation count in the study. Repeat citations of the same domain within a single answer are counted once. 15 of 32 firms (47%) were cited exactly once, no firm reached more than 5 of the seven sub-markets, and only 2 appear across all three services. Captured August 2, 2026._

## 24 Domains Appear in Vancouver and at Least One Other Metro

We have now run this identical method across seven Greater Toronto Area sub-markets, seven Ottawa sub-markets, seven Calgary-region sub-markets and seven Metro Vancouver sub-markets. Only three of the domains below are British Columbia firms, and only two of those publish a Vancouver address. The rest are answering Vancouver's fee questions from Calgary, Toronto, Mississauga, Ottawa, Regina, Kitchener, Waterloo, London, Oakville, Burlington, New Liskeard, Edmonton, Montreal and Saint-Hubert.

| Firm domain | Vancouver | GTA | Ottawa | Calgary | Verified location |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| maxprofinancials.ca | 16 | 10 | 7 | 6 | Calgary, AB |
| outsourcebookkeeping.ca | 7 | 7 | 6 | 7 | No address; 289 (Hamilton/Niagara) phone |
| insightscpa.ca | 1 | 15 | 7 | 1 | Mississauga, ON |
| premiumbookkeeping.ca | 6 | 6 | 5 | 5 | New Liskeard, ON |
| gondaliyacpa.ca | 1 | 17 | 3 | 0 | Toronto, ON |
| customcpa.ca | 6 | 5 | 3 | 6 | Regina, SK |
| bbatax.ca | 2 | 6 | 11 | 1 | Ottawa, ON |
| bestax.ca | 2 | 11 | 6 | 1 | Mississauga, ON |
| bomcas.ca | 5 | 10 | 1 | 4 | No address; Alberta hub implied |
| accufile.ca | 9 | 4 | 0 | 4 | No city or address published |
| accountingtoronto.ca | 1 | 7 | 4 | 0 | Toronto, ON |
| goraimpots.com | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | Saint-Hubert, QC |
| theacctaxco.com | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Kitchener, ON |
| aissolutions.ca | 5 | 2 | 0 | 2 | Burlington, ON |
| taxprocanada.ca | 3 | 3 | 0 | 3 | London, ON |
| accountingimpots.ca | 1 | 0 | 7 | 0 | Ottawa, ON |
| fluentbook.ca | 3 | 3 | 2 | 0 | British Columbia stated; no city published |
| enkel.ca | 3 | 3 | 0 | 1 | Vancouver, BC |
| plugcpa.com | 2 | 0 | 5 | 0 | Ottawa, ON |
| genesacpa.com | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | Vancouver, BC |
| everstonecpa.com | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | Abbotsford, BC — outside Metro Vancouver |
| mybookly.co | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Oakville, ON |
| frostysquirrel.ca | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Calgary, AB |
| numinor.ca | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Waterloo, ON |

## Surrey Is the Weakest Sub-Market for Local Firms

Five local citations against thirteen from firms elsewhere and thirteen from non-firms. North Vancouver is the strongest, and it is the only sub-market where local firms lead both other categories.

| Sub-market | Metro Van firm citations | Firms elsewhere | Non-firm | Distinct Metro Vancouver firms |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Vancouver | 11 | 12 | 11 | 10 |
| Burnaby | 9 | 12 | 15 | 7 |
| Richmond | 7 | 12 | 13 | 6 |
| Surrey | 5 | 13 | 13 | 5 |
| North Vancouver | 14 | 9 | 6 | 10 |
| Coquitlam | 12 | 7 | 13 | 8 |
| Langley | 9 | 14 | 14 | 8 |

_Sub-market labels follow Google's own location targeting rather than municipal boundaries._

## Chains, Forums, and a Remarkable Number of Charities

85 citations (33%) went to sources that are not accounting firms. Thirteen of those go to community organisations, charities, libraries and municipalities — MOSAIC, Burnaby Neighbourhood House, Richmond Multicultural Community Services, the Richmond Poverty Reduction Coalition, North Shore Community Resources, SHARE Family & Community Services, the Salvation Army's Langley Gateway of Hope, a Surrey church, the BCIT student accounting association and Vancouver Public Library.

| Source | What it is | Citations |
| --- | --- | --- |
| reddit.com | Community forum | 17 |
| facebook.com | Social platform | 9 |
| hrblock.ca | National tax-prep chain | 7 |
| ca.indeed.com | Salary/job aggregator | 6 |
| canada.ca | Government (CRA) | 4 |
| brcbc.ca | Business registration service (not an accounting firm) | 3 |
| hrblock.com | National tax-prep chain (US) | 3 |
| quora.com | Q&A forum | 3 |
| en.bankeo.ca | Lead-gen marketplace | 2 |
| bark.com | Lead-gen marketplace | 2 |
| hrblock.com.au | National tax-prep chain (Australia) | 2 |
| libertytax.ca | National tax-prep chain | 2 |
| workopolis.com | Salary/job aggregator | 2 |
| bdc-canada.com | Business registration service (not an accounting firm) | 1 |
| turbotax.intuit.ca | Tax software | 1 |
| mosaicbc.org | Settlement charity — free tax clinics | 1 |
| vpl.ca | Vancouver Public Library | 1 |
| burnaby.ca | Municipal government | 1 |
| burnabynh.ca | Burnaby Neighbourhood House — free tax clinics | 1 |
| bcitaa.ca | BCIT student association — runs a free tax clinic | 1 |
| rmcs.bc.ca | Richmond Multicultural Community Services | 1 |
| richmondprc.org | Richmond Poverty Reduction Coalition | 1 |
| surreyalliancechurch.org | Church — free tax clinic host | 1 |
| community.nscr.ca | North Shore Community Resources | 1 |
| coquitlam.ca | Municipal government | 1 |
| sharesociety.ca | SHARE Family & Community Services | 1 |
| cityofcoquitlam.perfectmind.com | Municipal programme registration | 1 |
| m.yelp.ca | Review platform | 1 |
| gatewayofhope.ca | Salvation Army Langley Gateway of Hope | 1 |
| chilliwack-fraserhealthrural.pathwaysbc.ca | Health-services directory (Fraser Health) | 1 |
| jobbank.gc.ca | Government job bank | 1 |
| ziprecruiter.com | Salary/job aggregator | 1 |
| glassdoor.ca | Salary aggregator | 1 |
| quickbooks.intuit.com | Accounting software | 1 |
| yellowpages.ca | Directory | 1 |
| glassdoor.sg | Salary aggregator (Singapore) | 1 |

_All of them run or host free tax clinics, and Google cites them when someone asks what tax preparation costs. That is a reasonable answer to the question — and it is the clearest possible signal that no firm has published a better one._

## Method

1. Ran 21 client-intent fee queries through Google with city-level location targeting across seven Metro Vancouver sub-markets: Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey, North Vancouver, Coquitlam and Langley.
2. Tested each sub-market with the same three questions — small-business tax, personal tax preparation and monthly bookkeeping, so every area was asked identical questions.
3. Captured the complete search result page for each query, including the AI Overview block, its generated text, and every source it cited.
4. De-duplicated citations per answer, so a firm cited twice within a single AI Overview counts once.
5. Opened every provider domain individually and read its published head-office address from the firm's own contact page. Victoria, Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Quesnel and Nanaimo are in British Columbia but outside Metro Vancouver and are named explicitly; three firms that name a city without publishing a street address are counted as local on the strength of that statement and flagged.
6. Counted government, forums, social platforms, national tax-prep chains, software vendors, salary aggregators, lead-generation marketplaces, business registration services, libraries, municipalities and charities as non-firm sources.
7. Crawled on August 2, 2026 without personalisation, and recorded the crawl window so any figure can be re-checked against the day it was captured.

## Limitations

This is a single-point-in-time snapshot. AI Overviews are generated fresh per query and vary between runs, so exact citation lists will differ if re-run; trends require repeated sampling. Firm identification is by website domain, and where a group operates several sites each is counted separately unless the study states a merge.

Only fee-intent questions were tested; audit, advisory, incorporation and cross-border queries may behave differently. Six domains publish no verifiable location or block automated retrieval and are reported in their own group rather than assigned to a region. Sub-market labels follow Google's own location targeting rather than municipal boundaries.

AI Overviews reach the largest audience of any AI answer surface — no login, no app, shown to anyone searching Google — so this is the widest-reach measurement available. It is not the whole picture, and a business performing well here may perform differently elsewhere. Every figure comes from search results captured on the date stated and can be independently checked by running the same queries yourself.

## Where your firm sits

This report shows the market. It does not show your position in it — whether you are cited at all, on which services, and which competitor is being quoted in your place. That analysis is specific to your firm, and we produce it individually.

Vancouver accounting has the weakest local position of any market in this series and the simplest mechanism for fixing it. There is no listing to optimise: 21 queries returned zero listing citations. There is only the question of whether you have published a page that answers what you charge.

Today 74% of that answer belongs to somebody who is not a Metro Vancouver firm — a Calgary practice, two Victoria practices, H&R Block, Reddit, and a dozen charities running free tax clinics. The work that follows is a fixed-price engagement: [the AI Visibility Accelerator](https://enginely.ai/services/ai-visibility-accelerator/index.html.md). Thirteen weeks, a published price, and three separate measurements against these same queries after publication.

## Questions about this report

### Why does this report only cover Google AI Overviews?

Because an AI Overview is rendered inside a public search results page, it can be retrieved directly, for a specific city, at a specific moment — which is how every figure here was captured. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot do not publish their answers anywhere; those answers exist only when a user prompts the model, so measuring them requires running a fixed prompt set against each model repeatedly over time. That is a different instrument, and we report it separately rather than blending two methods into one number.

### Would you get the same numbers if you ran it again?

Not exactly. AI Overviews are generated fresh per query and vary between runs, so the exact citation list would differ. The structural findings — how concentrated the market is, which source types dominate, which services are being lost — are stable enough to act on. Any specific firm's citation count is a snapshot, not a ranking position.

### Our firm is not in the table. What does that mean?

It means the firm was not cited in any of the 21 answers measured, in any of the seven sub-markets. Only 32 firms in the whole region were, and 15 of those exactly once — so absence here is the normal case rather than the exception. It does mean that for these three fee questions, the answer a prospective client received named someone else, and a third of the time that someone was not an accounting firm at all.

### Why count charities and libraries as sources at all?

Because Google cited them. Thirteen citations go to community organisations that run or host free tax clinics, and when someone asks what tax preparation costs, “there is a free clinic near you” is a reasonable answer. We are not criticising it. We are pointing out that it is the answer Google reaches for when no firm has published a better one.

### How were firms identified?

By website domain, exactly as it appeared in the AI Overview source list. Where a group operates several sites, each is counted separately unless this study states otherwise, because the citation was earned by a specific page on a specific domain.

### Can we be removed from the report?

Write to us and we will discuss it. The domains here appear because they were cited in publicly generated search results on the date stated, and the study would be less useful and less checkable without them — but we would rather have the conversation than not.

### Does being cited more often mean more customers?

We did not measure that, and we will not claim it. This study measures citations in generated answers, not clicks, calls or bookings. What it establishes is which firms are present in the answer someone reads before choosing — presence is a precondition for being chosen, not a substitute for it.

## Full report as PDF

The same study, packaged: [download the PDF](https://enginely.ai/reports/enginely-vancouver-accounting-ai-visibility-august-2026.pdf). Everything in it is on this page already.

## Legal note

This report is provided for information. Firm and business names appear because they were cited in publicly generated search results on the date stated; inclusion or absence is not an assessment of professional competence, service quality or standing. Nothing here is tax, accounting, legal or financial advice. Head-office locations were read from each firm’s own published website on August 2, 2026 and may change. Figures describe what Google's systems returned on August 2, 2026 and may change.