Bookkeeping Client Onboarding Checklist (What to Collect and When)

Practice Runbook · updated 2026-09-22

Nearly every painful bookkeeping client was mis-onboarded. Not badly served later — mis-onboarded at the start, when nobody wrote down what was included, what the deadlines were, or who was responsible for getting the receipts in.

Onboarding is the cheapest risk control a practice has. It takes about ninety minutes, once, and it prevents the two failure modes that actually cost money: scope creep and missing records.

Stage 1 — Before you agree to anything

The purpose of this stage is to be able to say no, or to price correctly. You cannot do either without seeing the actual state of the books.

• What entity type, what year end, what software?
• Roughly how many transactions a month, across how many accounts?
• Is there payroll? How many employees, what frequency?
• VAT or sales tax registered? Which scheme?
• Are the books up to date? Ask to see them.
• Why are they leaving their current bookkeeper?

That last question is not gossip. "We outgrew them" and "they kept chasing me for paperwork" are two very different clients.

Price cleanup separately. Always.

If the books are behind, that is a project with its own fee, delivered before the monthly service starts. Folding cleanup into the monthly fee is the single most common pricing mistake in a new practice — you absorb twenty hours of someone else's mess and then serve them at a rate set for tidy books.

Stage 2 — Agreement and scope

Written, signed, before any access is granted:

• What is included, listed as specific deliverables.
• What is not included — tax advice, cleanup, ad-hoc reporting, software the client does not yet own.
• Fee, billing date, payment method and late-payment terms.
• The records deadline each month, and what happens when it is missed.
• Notice period on both sides.
• Who owns the data and what happens to it if the engagement ends.

The records deadline deserves a sentence of its own, because it is the clause that saves your month-end. Something like: records to be provided by the 5th; work begins when records are complete; a client who supplies records after the 15th may have their close deferred to the following cycle. You will rarely enforce it. You will often point at it.

Stage 3 — Access and records request

Send one list, not six emails. Every item you forget here becomes a separate interruption later.

Access

• Accounting software — invite as accountant/bookkeeper user, not as the owner.
• Bank feeds — authorised and confirmed as flowing, not merely connected.
• Payment processors: Stripe, PayPal, Square, whatever they actually use.
• Payroll system, if you run it.
• Tax authority agent authorisation, if applicable.
• Document storage: one shared folder, one agreed structure.

Records

• Prior-year accounts and the trial balance you are opening from.
• Last filed VAT or sales-tax return.
• Bank statements covering the opening period.
• Loan and finance agreements with schedules.
• Asset register or a list of major purchases.
• Recurring supplier and subscription list.
• Payroll reports year to date.

Stage 4 — Opening balances

Do this properly once, or spend a year explaining variances.

1. Agree the opening trial balance to the last filed accounts.
2. Reconcile opening bank balances to statements — not to the software.
3. Agree opening receivables and payables line by line, not in total.
4. Confirm VAT position and which periods are already filed.
5. Document anything you could not agree, and tell the client in writing.

Stage 5 — The first month

Run the first close deliberately slowly. It is the only cheap opportunity to find out what the engagement actually involves.

• Log your hours honestly, even if the fee is fixed — this is your check on whether the price was right.
• Note every question you had to ask; each one is a gap in your onboarding list for next time.
• Deliver the first client pack early, with a short note on what you found and anything that needs their decision.
• Review at the end of the month: does the fee still match the work? Saying "this is heavier than we estimated" in month one is a conversation. Saying it in month eight is a complaint.

What good onboarding buys you

A client who knows what they are getting, a scope you can point at when someone asks for something outside it, opening balances you trust, and a fee that reflects the real work. None of it requires software — it requires a list you actually follow every time.

The kit below contains that list as a client-facing onboarding pack, a records request you can send as-is, and a practice policies document with the deadline and scope clauses written out in plain language, with brackets where your own numbers go.