5 tips for better client onboarding at your accounting firm

5 tips for better client onboarding

December 1, 2022 9:00 AM

Your client onboarding process is likely one of the most important tools in your business. It's how you communicate with clients and help them understand what to expect from working with you. A good client onboarding process can increase retention rates, productivity, and satisfaction with your services. A bad client onboarding process can lead to client churn and unhappy clients.

Just as your clients are unique, so too should the onboarding process. There are many ways to add value for your clients and increase the chance you get repeat business from them, and a good client onboarding process is another way to demonstrate the value you can add to a client's business.

The onboarding process should represent your vision for their business and minimize the frustration and confusion that can lead to a poor experience. Your onboarding process may (and should) change over time as your vision for your clients evolves and becomes more refined. Either way, it's critical to have a good understanding of what's most important to them. And once you do, ensure you deliver on those promises by providing consistent value. All the rest will fall into place.

Here are five tips to help you improve your onboarding process today.

1. Ask the right questions at the start

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Improve your client onboarding process by asking questions to better understand their needs and goals. For example, if you're meeting with a business owner looking to reduce expenses, ask them how they currently handle those expenses and what their biggest challenges are. If you're meeting with a couple who wants to start investing in real estate, ask them what kind of properties they'd like to buy (residential or commercial), how much they're comfortable investing initially and how frequently they'd want to invest going forward.

Your first interaction with each new client should be friendly and welcoming — but it's also an opportunity for you to get a sense of who they are and what they need from your business. If they're unclear about their priorities or goals, work with your client to define them so that you can set them up for success from day one.

2. Create an onboarding packet

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Create a welcome packet for new clients that contains information about your company and services, as well as an overview of what you expect from clients and what they should expect from you. It should also include links to any contracts or documents that need to be signed by both parties before work can begin.

To make it easy, create a template that includes all the information you need from clients during their initial meeting. From there, you can create one-on-one checklists for each client that outline what they need to do next. This will help them feel more prepared before working with you and ensure they remember everything necessary during the initial process.

3. Set expectations for in-person meetings, email responses, etc.

When working with a new client, be transparent about what they should expect from you and what you expect from them. For example, if someone reaches out to you via email, let them know that it may take some time to respond because of the volume of messages you receive daily. Explain how long it will take to respond to an email query and what they can do to speed up the process (for example, sending an email with all pertinent information in one message). This will help both parties feel more comfortable moving forward.

4. Use technology to fill in the blanks

Accounting firms are uniquely suited to use technology to improve their client onboarding process. Accounting software and cloud-based applications have made it easier than ever for accountants to automate tedious tasks, such as document management and accounting software integration.

To make things easier, you can use accounting software that integrates with your client's business systems so that when they enter new purchase orders or invoices, those transactions automatically populate into your accounting system. This can save time on both ends of the equation — for your clients by making it easier for them to get started and for you by eliminating the need for manual data entry.

But if there are areas where automation isn't possible (or it doesn't make sense), you'll need to enlist help from an assistant or other staff member who can do those tasks instead of you. The goal here is to save time on repetitive tasks so that you can focus more on delivering valuable services to clients — especially during tax season!

5. Always be open to feedback

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The best way to improve any aspect of your business is by listening to customers who have used it. The most important part of this is being flexible enough to listen to clients who are unhappy with something so that you can fix it quickly. You may have a great system in place, but if it isn't working for everyone, it needs to be changed or improved.