How to Create an Effective Client Onboarding Process
Feb 13, 2023If you've been following my posts, we will assume that your potential client has become your actual client. And, unfortunately, you've inherited a bit of a mess.
In your new client’s books, the trust account is balanced at the end of every month, but it's only reconciled in QuickBooks. The outside software doesn't reflect the balances on the balance sheet, which also doesn't reflect the amount of money in the bank or the trust account.
So, how are we going to fix this?
Let's take on the project work first
Client onboarding is an organization's most important step to ensure a successful customer relationship. Effective client onboarding processes can help organizations gain new and retain existing clients by ensuring that clients feel comfortable, secure, and well taken care of from the first interaction. Since your most important task may be cleaning up the trust account, let's tackle that first.
Trust Accounting
When it comes to legal bookkeeping, the most common thing you'll see is an unbalanced IOLTA. It's rare to find books that are balanced correctly. How do you begin this work?
Remember, if the client has filed a tax return for the prior fiscal year, any adjustments you make will be made in the current year. Unless the mistakes are really serious and the income is overstated, you should consider filing an amended tax return. We usually make the changes in the current fiscal year.
To find where to start, look at the beginning of when the trust went awry. You can do this by running a balance sheet of all dates and grouping them by year. This will give you a clear picture of what went wrong and where.
Once you've pinpointed the year in question, your next step is determining which month the errors occurred. To do this, look at the trust account (or accounts, as there may be more than one) and find transactions that are not trust transactions. These include wire fees that come out of the trust bank account. This is a common issue, and often these amounts have yet to be reimbursed, violating the compliance of the bank account and the bar association rules.
When reviewing a client's bank account, I will also look to see if any other transactions are booked to an account that is not a trust account. This will help me better understand the client's financial situation.
Next, I check the operating account to see if any transactions are booked to trust accounts that don't belong there. This can happen if a bookkeeper who needs to become more familiar with trust accounting tries to enter a retainer return from the operating account. Remember, any return should be booked into the same account paid out of.
If you're cleaning up multiple years that date back to the mid-2000s or further, you'll likely want to produce your reconciliations in Excel or a Google Sheet. You can create individual matters on their own tab, giving you the ledgers, you typically get inside QuickBooks. Then, make a sheet for each year you're rebuilding. Not only is this method easier to create, but it also allows you to rebalance the trust without disturbing prior fiscal years.
As this post makes clear, being a law firm bookkeeper is challenging. It requires a great deal of experience and expertise to be done well. That is why attorneys value us highly; they need our help to keep their firms running smoothly.
Define Client Needs and Goals
The next step in onboarding is getting to know your client and understanding their needs and goals. This is essential to create a customized onboarding experience that builds trust and loyalty. When asking questions, make sure they are open-ended so you can get a better sense of what your client is looking for from you. Use a whiteboard and then Lucid chart, to diagram all of this for your client.
Create a Plan for Onboarding Your New Client Quickly
Creating an efficient onboarding plan is crucial for working with new clients. You'll want to ensure that you have a system that can take clients through each step of the process quickly and easily. One way to do this is by automating parts of the process with software or online services. This will ensure that new clients receive what they need promptly without waiting for manual communication. We also recommend you consider using Slack for quick messaging, Google Sheets for collaboration, and Liscio, for secure and safe communication and document storage.
Establish Processes and Expectations for Communication with Clients
Good communication is key when engaging with clients. Here are some things to keep in mind to make sure that communication is smooth sailing:
- Clients should understand the best way to communicate their needs and questions and how quickly you will respond.
- Outlining your expectations for communication will help build trust and understanding.
- Provide helpful resources to your clients, such as FAQs or video tutorials, to improve their understanding of the onboarding process and give them solutions to potential problems without needing to contact you directly. By doing this, you're providing a valuable service and saving yourself time in the long run!
Develop an Effective Follow-up Strategy to Measure Client Satisfaction
You may be wondering if it's really necessary to check in with your new client after onboarding is complete. The answer is yes! An effective follow-up strategy is key to monitoring and measuring your clients' satisfaction. Ask questions along the way and be open to their feedback regarding any suggestions they may have that could improve the process moving forward. This can also help you determine areas to change or update to ensure a positive experience every time your clients go through the onboarding process.
As a business owner, you want to ensure that your clients are happy, loyal, and profitable. One way to do that is to create an effective client onboarding process. This blog post discussed how to create an effective client onboarding process. By taking some time upfront to create an onboarding process, you can ensure all your clients get the same great service and track your success in meeting their needs over time.
Onboarding is just one topic we discuss in the Accountant’s Law Lab, our mastermind group where we collaborate, learn, and grow our accounting practices. Join us to learn more!
Do you want to join our private group? We have a large collection of videos that you can learn from, and we hold weekly meetings every Friday at 9 am PT/12 pm ET.
We would love to have you join our group.
Stay connected with news and updates!
Join our mailing list to receive the latest blog post and updates on what is happening at the Accountant's Law Lab.
Don't worry. Your information will not be shared.
We hate SPAM. We will never sell your information, for any reason.
