A new client onboarding checklist for an accounting firm has eight steps, and they run in this order: answer the inquiry, hold the intro call, send the proposal, get the engagement letter signed, take the first payment, send the organizer, collect the documents, then hold the kickoff. Each step waits for the one before it. Most onboarding trouble comes from skipping ahead.
Why the order matters
It's February 20. A new client calls at 4:50, emails a phone photo of a W-2 after dinner and asks whether the return can be done by Friday. Nothing is signed, no fee has been agreed, and the 1099s are “coming.”
Opening that W-2 feels like good service. It's also how a firm ends up preparing a return it was never hired for, at a fee nobody wrote down, for a client who might not pay. The checklist below keeps the paperwork in the order that protects the firm, and at every point the client knows what comes next.
1. The inquiry: reply before the day ends
Inquiries come in by phone, through the website form, by text and from referrals. Reply before the day ends, and within minutes where possible. Someone shopping for a preparer in February is calling three firms, and the first to answer usually books the meeting.
Write down four things on the first contact: the name, the best number, the service they want (an individual return, a business return, monthly bookkeeping, an IRS notice) and what sent them your way. Then offer a time for the intro call in the same reply.
Where it stalls: the prospect never picks a time. Follow up once the next morning, and once more later that week. If they say they're not interested, stop. Circular 230 bars anyone it covers from repeatedly contacting a prospective client who has declined.
2. The intro call: decide if it's a fit
Keep it to 15 or 20 minutes. Ask what returns they need and for which years, who prepared last year's, whether there's a business or rental, which states they lived or worked in, and whether any IRS letters are sitting in a drawer.
Then decide. A client with four unfiled years and a shoebox can still be worth taking on, at the right fee. A client who wants it done by Friday for last year's price may not be. Saying no on the call costs less than saying it in April.
Where it stalls: a no-show. Text them two other times that week. A second no-show is usually your answer.
3. The proposal: the fee in writing
Send the proposal by the next business day, while the conversation is fresh. Name each service, its fee and what it includes. If your firm offers packages, such as the return alone or the return plus quarterly planning, lay them side by side with their prices.
Where it stalls: the proposal sits unopened. A reminder on day two and another on day five is plenty. After that, a short note asking whether the timing is wrong closes the loop politely.
4. Get the letter signed by everyone
The engagement letter turns the proposal into an agreement: the services, the fee, what isn't included, the client's part and who signs. Our engagement letter checklist walks through each section. The short version: nobody opens a document until the letter is back, signed by everyone it covers, which means both spouses on a joint return.
Treat this as a working order of steps rather than legal advice. The letter's wording belongs to your firm and its counsel.
If your firm uses a separate consent form for anything beyond preparing the return, such as review requests or bookkeeping offers, keep it a separate document. It can go out alongside the letter, but the engagement can't depend on the client signing it.
Where it stalls: the letter goes unsigned. Remind on day two, day five and then weekly. Documents that arrive before the signature wait in the file, unopened, and the reply to the client is a link to the letter.
5. The first payment: a deposit or autopay
Take money at the start. For a tax client, that's a deposit when the letter is signed, with the balance due before filing. For a monthly bookkeeping client, it's a card saved for autopay before the first month begins.
Card details go through a payment page only: never a form field, never an email, never a text. The same goes for bank account numbers.
Where it stalls: the letter is signed but the payment page was closed. A text with the payment link that same afternoon usually finishes it.
6. The organizer: questions before documents
Once the letter is signed and the deposit is in, send the tax organizer. For a new client it does two jobs: it gathers the answers your preparer needs, and it builds the list of documents to ask for.
A good new-client organizer branches. A client who had a baby, sold a home, started a side business or moved states sees the questions that follow from it. A client who did none of those sees a short form. It should open on a phone from a link, without a sign-in.
Keep the organizer free of SSNs and bank details. They come in on the client's own documents, or your staff type them into the tax software.
Where it stalls: a half-finished organizer. The reminder should say which section is left, not just “please finish.”
7. The documents: one list, and reminders
The organizer's answers become the document list for that client: W-2s, 1099s, K-1s, brokerage and bank statements, and for a new client, last year's return and any IRS letters. Give each document its own named upload slot, so a phone photo of a 1099 arrives labeled as a 1099.
Then send reminders on a schedule until every item is in: day three, day seven, then weekly. Each reminder names what's still missing, with the link to send it. When a client writes “you should have everything now,” the reply lists the two items that aren't.
Where it stalls: one last item, usually a K-1 or a corrected 1099. Name it, give the date it's needed by, and say what happens if it misses the cutoff, which is an extension.
8. The kickoff: preparer, timing, updates
The file is complete. Now tell the client three things: who is preparing their return, roughly when to expect it, and how they'll hear about each stage. A short kickoff call works for business clients. A text or email is enough for most individuals.
Set the stages your staff will move the return through, such as documents received, in prep, in review, ready to sign and filed, and send the client a short text at each one. When the return is ready, the client signs the e-file form in the email from your tax software, as today.
When a client stalls between steps
Every step above can wait on the client, and the fix is nearly always the same: a reminder that names the one thing needed, with a link to do it, sent on a schedule and stopped the moment it's done. Staff only step in when the schedule runs out.
Most small firms send these reminders by hand, which works until February. If you'd rather not, AccrueNest sends each step's text and email on a schedule and stops them when that step is done.
Bookkeeping and monthly clients
The order is the same, with two changes. The organizer becomes a short intake about the business: its accounts, its cards, its payroll provider and its software. And the document list repeats every month: bank statements, card statements and receipts, requested on a set date and reminded until they arrive.
The first month often includes cleanup. Quote it separately in the proposal, so the monthly fee starts clean.
The checklist on one page
- Inquiry answered the same day, with an intro call offered.
- Intro call held, and a fit decided.
- Proposal sent within a day, with each fee named.
- Engagement letter signed by everyone it covers.
- Deposit paid, or autopay set for monthly clients.
- Organizer sent and answered.
- All the listed documents received.
- Kickoff: preparer named, timing given, stage texts explained.
AccrueNest
AccrueNest makes the software and runs the marketing behind the front desk of small US accounting firms. Our posts cover the parts of the year that happen before a return is opened: inquiries, letters, organizers and payments.
