Playbook, accounting firm
The onboarding steps that decide how fast a new client gets moving
New clients underestimate what stands between agreeing a fee and work beginning, and then attribute the delay to the practice. There are usually three things: an identity check the practice is required to perform, an authority that has to be in place before it can deal with an authority on their behalf, and a letter to the outgoing accountant that arrives when it arrives. All three are fixed procedures, none is confidential, and setting them out at the enquiry stage is worth real money in the weeks before a deadline.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for setup and onboarding holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- Two of the three steps depend on somebody other than the practice and the client, which turns the reply from a checklist into a timeline with a dependency in it.
- Anti money laundering supervision applies to accountancy practices in most markets, so the identity check is a legal requirement rather than an internal preference and must never be described as a formality.
- Professional clearance goes to the accountant the client is leaving, which clients find awkward and often try to skip, so the material has to explain why it happens as well as that it happens.
- Agent authority has a lead time set by an authority rather than by the practice, and that lead time causes more missed deadlines than any part of the work itself.
How it arrives
- what do i need to send you to get started
- how long does it take to take on a new client
- do you have to write to my old accountant
- what id do you need for the money laundering checks
- can you start before the authorisation comes through
- what happens if my previous accountant does not reply
What has to be indexed for this to work
| Your identity and address verification requirements | Which documents you accept, whether you verify electronically, what you require for a company as well as for its directors, and what happens when somebody cannot produce a standard document. Present it as a mandatory step, because that is what it is. |
|---|---|
| The agent authority process and its lead time | What has to be signed or confirmed, who starts it, roughly how long it takes in your experience, and which services it covers. This is the step that surprises people, and it is the one with a clock on it. |
| Professional clearance, and why it happens | What you send to the outgoing accountant, what you ask them for, how long they typically take, and what you do if they never reply. Clients think this is optional courtesy, and explaining that it is professional practice removes an awkward conversation. |
| The records you need from day one | Last filed accounts and returns, the bookkeeping file or bank statements, payroll records, and any correspondence with the authority. Clients who arrive with these are the ones whose first deadline is comfortable. |
The reply
There are three steps before we can start work. We have to verify your identity, which we are required to do before acting rather than afterwards, you need to authorise us to act as your agent, which is the step with the longest lead time, and we write to your previous accountant for clearance and your records. It is worth starting the authorisation early, because that is usually what decides whether a deadline is comfortable. Leave your name and email and I will get the onboarding pack sent over.
It names all three steps in order rather than answering only the one asked, because the client's real question is how long this takes. Saying which step is the bottleneck is the most useful sentence in the reply and it is one the practice rarely gets to say on a first call. Describing the identity check as required rather than as procedure removes any invitation to negotiate it.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor asks whether the practice can begin work, file something or deal with an authority before the checks and the agent authority are complete.
We cannot start until the identity check and the agent authority are in place, and that is not something I can make an exception to here. Leave your name and email and somebody will start the process today so it moves as fast as it can.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never suggest work can begin, or a filing be made, while identity checks or authority are pending.
- Never say a document the client offers will be acceptable in place of one you require.
- Never promise the previous accountant will respond within any particular period.
- Never guarantee a deadline will be met, since the authority lead time sits outside the practice's control.
Questions
- Why put onboarding on the website at all?
- Because the delay it explains is the one clients blame the practice for. A prospect told at the enquiry stage that authority has a lead time starts it early, and a prospect who discovers it three weeks in tells people you were slow.
- Can it collect the identity documents?
- No. It takes a name, an email and a message, and it cannot receive files or write into any system. The documents go through whatever process you already run, and the assistant's job is to make sure the right ones turn up.
- Is there a risk it makes the checks sound optional?
- Only if the material does. Word the source document as a requirement with a reason attached rather than as a step in a workflow, and the assistant reproduces that framing, because it answers from what you give it.
Keep reading
- Everything for a accounting firmDeadlines drive the volume. What an accountancy practice can automate, and why no answer may touch a caller's own numbers.
- Handling setup and onboarding in generalMost product material is written for somebody who already understands it. A first run guide has to be ordered, not merely complete.
- Handing over when the numbers arriveA general question stops being general the moment somebody supplies their own facts. The trigger, the wording, and the deadline to capture.
- A prospect wants a meeting. Which meeting, and can it happen this week?Which meeting is being asked for, why the answer changes near a filing date, and why nothing here can put anything in a partner's diary.
- Why a practice cannot agree to erase a client fileRetention duties, working papers and the identity records kept after a client leaves. What may be explained and why a person still decides.
Try it on your own material
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