How Accountants Can Reach Newly Incorporated Companies

A complete workflow to find, filter, contact and follow up using public Companies House data.

Every week, thousands of new limited companies are incorporated across the UK. Each one represents a director who will probably need help with their first accounts filing, VAT registration, or payroll setup — but most won't go looking for an accountant straight away.

That gap between incorporation and appointment is your window. If you can identify the right new companies, filter them to your area and sector, and make contact while the director is still deciding, you're far more likely to be the accountant they choose.

This guide covers the full workflow: where the data comes from, how to filter it, when to make contact, what to say, and how to turn this into a repeatable weekly process.

What you'll learn:

• why newly incorporated companies are a distinct, recurring source of potential clients
• where the data comes from and what it includes
• how to filter thousands of incorporations down to a relevant, manageable list
• when to make contact (and when you've left it too late)
• what to say and what not to say in your first communication
• how to build a repeatable weekly process that takes minutes

Why Newly Incorporated Companies Are Worth Your Attention

Most accountancy practices rely on referrals, networking, and their website to attract new clients. Those channels work, but they're reactive — you wait for someone to ask around, search online, or walk through the door. You can't control the timing and you can't control the volume.

Newly incorporated companies are different. They represent a defined, publicly visible pool of businesses that didn't exist last week. The data is published by Companies House as a matter of public record. You don't need to buy a mailing list or subscribe to a database of questionable provenance. The information is there, updated daily, for anyone to use.

What makes this valuable for accountants specifically is the nature of the moment. A new director has just formed a company. Within weeks, they'll face decisions about accounting software, VAT registration, payroll, and their first filing obligations. Many of them don't yet have professional advice.

This isn't a one-off marketing idea. New companies incorporate every working day of the year. That makes it a repeatable channel — one you can systemise and run alongside everything else your practice already does.

Where the Data Comes From

Companies House, the official registrar of UK companies, records every new incorporation in a public register. When a limited company is formed, its details become part of the public record within days.

The data available for each new company includes the company name, company number, incorporation date, SIC code(s), registered office address, and director name(s). That's enough to determine whether a company is relevant to your practice and to personalise your outreach if you decide to make contact.

You can search Companies House one company at a time through their website. But if you want to find all new incorporations matching specific criteria, you need access to the bulk data or a service that filters it for you. Our guide to Companies House data for accountants covers this in more detail.

Filtering: Turning Thousands of Incorporations into a Relevant List

Thousands of companies incorporate each week across the UK. Most of them won't be relevant to your practice. A sole practitioner in Newcastle specialising in construction doesn't need to know about a marketing agency formed in Brighton.

Filtering is what turns a bucket-load of data into something useful. Two criteria do most of the work:

SIC codes narrow by industry. Every new company registers with at least one SIC code, the standard industry classification that describes its stated business activity. If your practice focuses on professional services, construction, or technology, you can filter to just the codes that match.

Postcode areas narrow by geography. The registered office address tells you where the company is based (or at least where it's registered). If you serve a specific region, filtering by postcode area keeps your list local and relevant.

Combined, these two filters turn several thousand weekly incorporations into a manageable handful — perhaps ten or twenty companies that genuinely fit your practice's profile. For more on choosing them, see filtering new company alerts by SIC code and postcode area.

Timing Your Contact

Timing matters more than most accountants realise. Contact a director on the day of incorporation and you'll likely catch them in the middle of opening a bank account and ticking off setup tasks. Wait three months and they've probably already appointed someone or committed to doing it themselves.

The window you're aiming for is roughly one to four weeks after incorporation. By then, the initial rush has settled. The director is starting to think about compliance obligations, tax registration, and the administrative reality of running a limited company. A professional, helpful approach at this stage doesn't feel intrusive.

This is also why consistency matters. Companies incorporate every day. A single batch of outreach covers one week's incorporations. Miss a week, and those directors move past their window.

When to contact a new limited company explores this timing question in depth, including what happens at each stage of a new company's first three months.

Making Contact: What to Say and How to Say It

The outreach itself should be professional, brief, and focused on what the director needs — not on what you sell. A good first contact reads like a helpful introduction from a local professional, not a sales pitch.

For most accountancy practices, a posted letter is still the highest-trust first touch. It signals professionalism in a way that email often doesn't, and it avoids the compliance complications that come with electronic marketing to individuals who haven't opted in.

Whatever method you choose, the principle is the same: lead with something useful. Mention a filing deadline the director might not know about. Reference their sector. Keep it to one page or less. And make it easy to respond.

Writing an introduction letter to a new director provides a practical framework — structure, tone guidance, and example paragraphs you can adapt. And if you're unsure about the compliance side, particularly around GDPR and PECR, our GDPR and contacting new companies guide covers the principles you should be aware of.

Building a Repeatable Weekly Process

This works best as a routine, not a project. The time commitment is modest — most practices that do this well spend fifteen to twenty minutes a week on it. The weekly cycle looks something like this:

1. Receive filtered data — a list of newly incorporated companies matching your criteria, delivered by email.
2. Review the list — open the CSV, scan the companies, and identify the ones worth contacting.
3. Draft and send outreach — write personalised letters (or emails) to the most relevant matches.
4. Log what you've sent — a simple spreadsheet or CRM note is enough to track who you've contacted and when.
5. Follow up — if a director doesn't respond, one follow-up after two to three weeks is reasonable.

Over time this becomes a predictable rhythm. A sole practitioner who spends twenty minutes each Monday reviewing their weekly digest and drafting two or three letters builds a steady pipeline of introductions — well over a hundred relevant contacts over six months. A volume that no single networking event or referral can match.

Making It Easier with LaunchRegister

The workflow above works whether you do the filtering manually or use a tool. But the "find and filter" step is where most of the time goes, and where most practices stall.

LaunchRegister automates that step. You set your search profiles once — preferred SIC codes, postcode areas — and receive a filtered digest of newly incorporated companies by email, daily or weekly. Each digest includes a downloadable CSV with company name, number, incorporation date, SIC codes, registered address, and a direct link to the Companies House record.

All data comes from the official Companies House register. You control the outreach. LaunchRegister provides the data, not the contact.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I find newly incorporated companies?

Companies House publishes all new incorporations as public data. You can search the register one company at a time through the Companies House website, or use a filtering service like LaunchRegister to receive matched companies by email.

Is it legal to contact new company directors?

Contacting directors at their registered business address using publicly available data can be lawful under legitimate interest, but you should review ICO guidance on direct marketing and data protection before starting. See our guide on GDPR and contacting new companies.

When should I contact a new company?

The first one to four weeks after incorporation, before the director has made most professional appointments. Too early and they're still in setup mode; too late and they've likely already chosen an accountant.

What should I say in my first contact?

Keep it brief, professional, and focused on what the founder needs to know, rather than a list of your services. The goal is to be helpful, not to sell.

How many new companies incorporate each week?

Thousands across the UK. But filtering by sector and location narrows this to a manageable, relevant list — typically somewhere between a handful and a few dozen per week, depending on your criteria.