Onboarding Bookkeeping Clients: The Checklist

Onboarding bookkeeping clients comes down to a short list of access requests, but get the order wrong and a few of those steps are expensive to redo. (Still filling the pipeline? How to get bookkeeping clients covers the channels that actually bring them in.) Set up the chart of accounts before you have reviewed the existing books, for instance, and you will be recoding transactions a month later. The checklist below is ordered to avoid that.

One step is more time sensitive than it looks. Bank feeds only reach back so far, and how far depends on the bank, so connecting them early can be the difference between a clean history and an afternoon of file imports.

1. Agree the scope in writing

Before anything technical, put the scope in an engagement letter: what you do, what you do not do, what you need from the client, when you need it, and what happens if it arrives late.

Be specific about the boundary. Bookkeeping, month end close and advisory are different pieces of work, and clients often assume one includes the others. Our guide to client accounting services covers how firms scope those pieces and price them.

Also agree the cleanup question here. If the books need work before you can run a normal cycle, that is separate work with its own fee and its own timeline.

2. Get access to the accounting system

Add your firm to the client’s QuickBooks or Xero as an accountant or advisor, rather than using the client’s own login.

Per Intuit’s usage limits documentation, a company includes two accountant firm users on Simple Start, Essentials and Plus, and three on Advanced, as of September 2026. Intuit lists these under non-billable users, separately from the client’s own billable allowance of one, three, five and twenty-five on those same plans. On Xero, you are added to the client’s organization as an advisor.

Use accountant or advisor access rather than shared client credentials. Shared logins blur the audit trail and make handover harder if your staffing changes.

3. Get the bank feeds connected early

On QuickBooks this step is not yours to do, which is exactly why you ask for it early. Intuit’s documentation states that accountants cannot connect a bank account for their clients, so the client has to sign in and do it themselves. On Xero it depends on the user role you have been given in their organization, so find out which of you is doing it before the week goes by.

Once an account is connected, you only get the history that bank is willing to hand over. The same Intuit page says “Download timespans vary by bank, ranging from 90 days up to 24 months,” with the start date picked from a dropdown during setup. Xero says the option to pull historical data depends on your bank too.

So check the window before you promise a timeline, because anything outside it has to come in by file import. Tell the client which start date to choose as well, since overlapping with transactions already in the books creates duplicates.

Get every account in scope connected, including credit cards, second bank accounts, and any payment processor that settles to them.

4. Review the books you have been handed

Before changing anything, find out what you are working with:

• Check the date of the last reconciliation, on every account
• Confirm the opening balance agrees to the last filed accounts or tax return
• Review any undeposited funds or suspense account with a balance sitting in it
• Look for duplicate customers, suppliers or items
• Check whether a closing date is set, and who knows the password

That last one matters. If the previous bookkeeper locked prior periods and nobody has the password, you need to know that now rather than during your first close.

If this review turns up real problems, go back to step 1 and quote the cleanup separately.

5. Sort out the chart of accounts

Do this before you code a single transaction, because recoding transactions later takes far longer.

Review unused accounts and merge obvious duplicates where appropriate, and check the accounts map to the reports the client actually looks at. If the client wants reporting by location, department or job, set up the grouping field now: Class in QuickBooks Online, or Tracking Categories in Xero. Intuit’s usage limits page puts Class on Plus and Advanced only, and caps Plus at “40 combined classes and locations” as of September 2026. Worth knowing before you design the scheme, because that 40 is shared between the two: a client grouping by both department and site spends the allowance twice over, and only Advanced is unlimited.

Agree the treatment for anything unusual in their business while you have their attention, rather than emailing about it every month.

6. Agree the schedule

Write down what happens and when. A simple version:

Frequency	What you do	What you need from them
Weekly	Code transactions, flag anything unclear	Receipts, answers to open queries
Monthly	Reconcile, close the period, send reports	Statements, approval on queries
Quarterly or annually	Filings and year end pack, if in scope	Anything the accountant asks for

The right-hand column is the part that tends to get left vague. Onboarding is the easiest time to agree a deadline with a client, so set it now.

7. Agree who you talk to, and how questions get answered

Name one person on the client side as your contact, and make sure they know they are it.

Then handle the other direction: how the client’s own team gets answers about their numbers without going through you. An owner, a salesperson or an operations lead will want to know whether an invoice was paid, and if the only route is messaging you, that becomes your afternoon. That is not a guess about what they ask: a log of 253 questions typed into a bookkeeping demo grouped into 18 recurring asks, and invoice status was among the most common. Options are a read-only login where the system allows one, a scheduled report, or a tool like Kipper for Firms that answers questions from the books without giving anyone a login.

Pick one at onboarding. If you do not, the default becomes one-off messages to you.

8. Run the first month deliberately

Treat the first cycle as part of onboarding rather than business as usual. Reconcile everything, produce the reports, and sit down with the client to go through them.

You are checking two things: that the numbers are right, and that the reports are the ones they actually want. It is much easier to change the reporting pack in month one than in month nine.

At the end of the month, confirm the schedule is working and adjust anything that is not.

Bookkeeping client onboarding checklist

The whole bookkeeping checklist for new clients, in one place:

1. Scope agreed. Engagement letter signed, with deadlines and the cleanup question settled
2. Access granted. Accountant or advisor access, never shared client credentials
3. Bank feeds connected. Asked for early, since on QuickBooks only the client can do it, with the history window checked
4. Existing books reviewed. Reconciliations, opening balances, suspense accounts, closing date
5. Chart of accounts reviewed. Unused accounts and duplicates dealt with, and the grouping field set up
6. Schedule agreed in writing. Including what you need from them, and by when
7. Contact and questions settled. One named contact, and a clear route for their team’s questions
8. First month run as onboarding. With a review at the end

FAQ

What do you need from a new bookkeeping client?

A signed engagement letter setting out scope, and accountant or advisor access to their accounting system. Ask them to connect the relevant bank and credit card feeds, plus any payroll or point of sale system you will touch. You also want last year’s filed accounts or tax return, and one named person to contact when something is unclear. Everything else can follow in the first month.

How far back do bank feeds import once they are connected?

It depends on the bank. Intuit says QuickBooks Online download timespans range from 90 days up to 24 months, and Xero says the option depends on your bank too. Anything outside the available history window may need to come in by file import.

Does adding an accountant use one of the client’s QuickBooks user seats?

No. A QuickBooks Online company includes two accountant firm users on Simple Start, Essentials and Plus, and three on Advanced, counted separately from the client’s own user allowance.

How long should onboarding a bookkeeping client take?

It varies by firm and by client. The access and setup steps are mostly calendar time waiting on the client. What sets the real timeline is the state of the existing books: clean books that just need connecting move quickly, while books needing a cleanup should be quoted and scheduled as separate work before you take on the ongoing bookkeeping.

What should you agree with a client before the first month ends?

The schedule, meaning what you do weekly, monthly and at year end, and what you need from them by when. Also agree who you contact for questions, and how their team gets answers about their own numbers without going through you every time.

---

Last verified: September 2026. Bank feed history windows and user limits change, so check the current QuickBooks and Xero documentation before relying on these details.