The short answer
Collect the company details and the starting documents once, agree who does what and by when, and set up the recurring work before the first period closes. Do it in the same order for every new client.
Why a routine beats a good memory
Onboarding goes wrong in small ways: a document arrives in the second month, nobody knows who at the client approves things, a deadline is set up from memory. A fixed routine turns these into a checklist you tick, and it makes every new client feel the same, which is what you want.
What to collect
Starting checklists
Company details
- Legal name, registration number and registered address
- The contact person, and who may approve or sign
- VAT status and how often the client files
- Financial year end
- Bank accounts and cards used for the business
- Whether there are employees and a payroll to run
Access and authorisations
- The authorisations your firm needs with the tax authority and social insurance
- Access to the client's bank, invoicing or accounting system, if you will work in it
- Who at the client can answer questions, and how to reach them
Documents to start
- The last filed returns
- The last annual accounts
- Opening balances or a trial balance
- Lists of open invoices, owed to the client and by the client
- Contracts with regular payments: leases, loans, leasing
- The payroll register, if there is one
Identity and ownership checks, and exactly which authorisations you need, depend on your country and your own policy. This list does not replace them: do those checks before work starts, not after the first invoice.
Agree the working terms
- What is in scope and what is not. Write down the services and the frequency, and say what a change costs.
- One named person at the client. The person who sends documents and answers questions, and a back-up.
- One channel. Where requests go and where answers come back, as in how to request documents from clients.
- Fees and the invoicing day. Fixed, so nobody has to ask.
- What done looks like. How you confirm that a period is filed.
The first 30 days
Days from signing
- 0days
Welcome and collect
Send the starting checklists and the date you need them by. Add the client to your system with their contacts.
- 3days
Check the first answers
Go through what arrived. List what is missing and ask for it once, with a date.
- 7days
Set up the recurring work
Create each service as a repeating series with its deadlines and an owner. Give the client access to send documents.
- 14days
Send the first request
Ask for the first period's documents with a specific list and one date.
- 30days
Review the first period
What was late, what was unclear, what to change in the routine. Tell the client what you learned.
Set up the recurring work once
Each service becomes one series: monthly bookkeeping, VAT, payroll, annual accounts. Give each its deadline rule, an owner, and a check of how weekends and holidays move the date. If your client files in Lithuania, the Lithuania tax calendar shows the monthly dates with the rule behind each one.
- One series per service, not one task per month typed by hand.
- An owner on every series, so late work has a name next to it.
- A preview of the next periods, to catch a wrong rule before it makes ten wrong dates.
How this works in Claister
- Clients come in from a CSV or by hand. You map the columns, see a preview, and rejected rows are reported rather than lost.
- Each client has contacts and a responsible accountant, and a readable history of what happened.
- A series is described once as monthly, quarterly or yearly, with deadlines and weekend adjustments, applied to one client or many, with a preview of the next three periods.
- Clients get a portal to send documents, and the first request is saved there before anything is sent.
Questions
Plan the first 30 days as a routine, and let a simple client finish sooner. It is a suggested rhythm, not a rule: what matters is that the order is the same every time.
Start from the bank statements and the last filed return, agree a date by which the opening position is reconstructed, and write it down as a task with an owner.
Yes. Agree the scope and the fees before you receive files or start work, so the first request already rests on agreed terms.
About this article
Author: Claister
Published by Claister, the company building the accounting practice management software discussed on this website.
Design partner: Natalija Miadzelic
Editorial review: Natalija Miadzelic · Accountant · Approved
Editorial policyClient work: onboarding, documents and handovers
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