Episode #092 4 Bookkeeping Onboarding Templates to Make Your Life Easier

Email Templates:

• New Client On-boarding (Company)
• New Client On-boarding (Sole Trader)
• Accountant Introduction Reminder
• Receipt Bank Login
• Monthly Client Reminders
• Review Request Email Template Series

Proposal Templates:

• Bookkeeping Proposal for New Clients v1.0
• Bookkeeping Proposal v2.0 with Engagement Letter + Terms & Conditions

Onboarding Templates:

• New Client Bookkeeping Getting Started Guide
• Onboarding Workflow Infographic
• New Client Form

Authority Templates:

• SuperStream Authority
• BAS Provider (BASP) Authority
• STP 12 Month Enduring Authority

Other things mentioned:

• Episode #89 From Traditional to Extraordinary with Sharon Crombie from MicroChilli
• PandaDoc

Keywords: onboarding, bookkeeping template, bookkeeping workflow, bookkeepers, bookkeeping onboarding process, onboarding checklist template

Everything you need to create a successful bookkeeping onboarding process

 

Angie Martin  0:01 

Good morning, everyone. Hope you're having a wonderful Friday. Today, team savvy is here. And my name is Angie. And I'm the client manager, client relationship manager at the savvy bookkeeper. And I'm here with Maia.

 

Maia Coghlan  0:18 

Hey

 

Angie Martin  0:20 

Maia now to do a recap, because I know we have a lot of new listeners that are coming in. What is your role at the savvy bookkeeper? So my official title is practice manager. Um, I mean, yeah, that's a good question. So I do. Well, I started out doing web development. I'm savvy. And so I still do that. And now I also I do like, just everything. They do a bit of everything. You're basically the we created a hashtag for you where it's hashtag ask Maia, because you're just the one that we always just kind of turn to, to ask questions for savvy for all of our clients. And you're just kind of the amazing minded individual that can just bigger, complex things out the way no one else can. I'm great with tech. So I sort of set up any new platforms that we get, or I check out different options when we want to change. And then I learned how to do it myself. And then I train everybody else. Yes. It's pretty amazing. I love it when you learn a new like application or a different tool, and you're like, Oh, my gosh, look.

 

Maia Coghlan  1:48 

Yeah, I'm always Oh, look, I found this new button or thing that we use has a new feature. Hey, everyone, check this out.

 

Angie Martin  1:55 

Yeah, it's great. I love it. I love we get little savvy looms for me all the time. And I always sit there and I'll watch and I'll be like, I'll pause it. And then I'll do it. As I'm watching the loom. Oh, my gosh, my life has changed. Yeah. It's great. I love it when I find a new, a new feature a new button. Yeah, it's great. So I just thought, you know, we've got a lot of new listeners, it would be great to kind of actually introduce you again, because everyone's super used to hearing my voice all the time.

 

Maia Coghlan  2:27 

But I've been on the podcast quite a lot lately.

 

Angie Martin  2:29 

Yeah It's been wonderful. I've been really enjoying it. And so as everyone else. I know, you don't like to listen to the podcasts that you're on, but other people do not listen to podcasts in general. Actually. That's true. That's true. Now, I wanted to do something a little bit different at the start of this episode today. Because the episode that was aired a couple weeks ago with our friend Sharon crumby, from micro Chile, we had amazing guests episode with her. And it was one of those episodes that we just delve in so deep into her story and how amazing she's doing with everything and turned out to be really inspirational. So if you guys haven't listened to that one, make sure you do. But she was actually talking in her network of women like female bookkeepers, and just bookkeepers in general. And she actually discovered that one of her acquaintances was a listener of the savvy bookkeeper, the bookkeepers voice, which is pretty amazing, simply because she's all the way in the US. So I thought I'd do a little shout out for her today. I hope I'm saying your name right. Natalie ogen was Weiss. I think Sorry, I'm a horrible pronouncing names. But Natalie, by Sharon sent the chat that you guys were having on Facebook, that you're from California, you're a bookkeeper and that you've been listening to us regularly. So I just wanted to say hi, from the other side of the world. And thank you for being a listener. And I'm thrilled that you loved the episode that Sharon was on. I think a lot of people love that episode that Sharon was on a few people mentioned it to me as well. Yeah, it was a great episode. And I actually Sharon was telling me on Monday, that on LinkedIn, one of our clients actually listened to the podcast. This is a conversation over on LinkedIn. listen to the podcast started following Sharon on all over social medias, and it has made her want to put her bookkeeping prices on her website. Oh, how amazing is that? Yeah, if you guys haven't listened to that episode, it was Just a fantastic episode. And I think, you know, Sharon has a lot to give to the bookkeeping community. And it was wonderful to have her on. So, Natalie, thank you for listening. And I hope you enjoy today's episode. Thanks to everybody else who's listening around the world as well. I know we do have quite a few non Australian listeners. Yes, it actually I forget that people listen to us. Like, I know this is a podcast. And I know that people listen to us. But I actually tend to forget the amount of people who listen to us every week. And then, yeah, the other day, when Sharon told us that I had a moment where I was like, Oh, my gosh, so many people listen to me. This is kind of intimidating.

 

Maia Coghlan  5:55 

But I don't think about that.

Onboarding checklist template for bookkeepers

 

Angie Martin  5:56 

Yeah, I kind of went down that little rabbit hole was just like, Oh, yeah, it's not just like our savvy community that we have on Facebook that listens to us. It's a whole lot of other people around the world, which is really cool. It's very cool. It's very exciting. And I love the fact that we can actually help support you guys and growing your businesses, no matter where you are in the world. I think it's really exciting. Because, you know, we always talk about how bookkeepers here in Australia really help small businesses and our whole communities grow. But it's the same for bookkeepers in every country. So it's very exciting to know that we're actually you know, making a bit of a difference in giving you guys some entertainment as well. Because, you know, I know sometimes we're a bit weird, and that gives entertainment. Hilarious, we definitely can be. Eespecially the two of us together. So today, we are going to be talking again about onboarding. But I thought after having the podcasts that we did last week, I thought it would be good to delve a bit deeper into the different templates that you can use to streamline and optimise your bookkeeping business. Again, onboarding is this beautiful, shiny thing that all of us bookkeepers love. It's something that you are continually always trying to perfect. And off the hook, Amy hooks business has a stream of templates that we use to basically let the business almost run itself to make it as easy as possible for them to, for our clients to get exactly the information they need without us basically having to hound them. And it really makes it so that we can do off the hook and the savvy bookkeeper at the same time without working 80 hours a day. That's not right. 80 hours a week.

 

Maia Coghlan  8:08 

Yeah, I'm really glad we don't have to work 80 hours a day. Oh, that would be a good thing.

 

Angie Martin  8:14 

Yeah, that was interesting. So what I thought we'd do is because you actually know more about these templates more than I do, because I just handled like the sales creation process. And then as soon as the sale happens, I don't really know what happens. So.

 

Maia Coghlan  8:36 

So that's Yeah, that's another, which I mean, it's super relevant to this episode. So I don't know why I didn't think to mention that at the start when you asked me what I do. But another thing that I do, sadly, is I create a lot of our templates that we then have in our shop, so or I set up the ones that are already created for our clients. So for example, if you buy a custom template for panda Doc, then I'm the one that will put your logo and your business details and your colours and everything on it and then transfer it to your panel.

 

Angie Martin  9:15 

Yes, you're the woman behind the computer, basically.

 

Maia Coghlan  9:18 

Yeah. Anything techy, that's all me.

 

Templates for bookkeepers for the onboarding process

 

Angie Martin  9:21 

Yes, yes. And it's a turning out to be a very big part of your day now simply because of the shop and us realising that we could be sharing everything that we're doing with off to make life easier for people. Yeah, it took us a while everybody has, like some people already have their own processes set up, that make their lives easier, and that's great. And then some people don't. And that's, that's why we're doing and it's it's hard to know where to start. I think the biggest thing and I think that's why with the onboarding process, it's this thing that everyone thinks that they continually need to reinvent. Because they don't have that set process that is really streamlined really just saves them time in as automated as possible. So yeah, I basically was sitting after last week's episode and thinking, how can we help support bookkeepers to learning more about how to optimise it. So I thought we'd actually share a little bit what we do with off the hook in all of our templates. And I kind of broke it down into four base onboarding templates that needs to be used, and they are email templates, are we we're going to talk about this quite a bit. But if we think it's because it's really good for everyone to implement a new client, bookkeeping, getting started guide, which we meant to mentioned last episode, bookkeeping, proposal templates, and then authority templates. And in those four base categories, there's a heap of templates that go within that. So what I thought we could do today is kind of delve in in kind of explain the different templates that will be in each process, because you really need all of them to do a streamlined onboarding process, right? Well, um, you don't necessarily need to go home. Yeah, true. You can edit your process, we'll explain as we go. Some of them like you can choose to do it one way or the other way. But a lot of these things, like we have a few different options. But there's, there's a few set things and everyone does need to do. Yes, yes. So I thought the first thing that we could do, would be to chat through the email templates that we have available. They are simple email templates that I've created for you guys, that are just simple ways of organising your follow ups. Basically, this isn't your email follow ups, this is your actual onboarding, follow ups to make sure that things are actually done for you. So the ones that we use the most, off the hook bookkeeping is the and you can find all of this on the Safi shop, if you guys want to steal them as well, we have them available for you. They're all like, you have to put in your own business name and everything, but they give you again, a base idea of where to start. So we have two different new client onboarding emails. And one is for a company and one is for a sole trader, simply because there's some different bits that you need from a company versus sole trader. So we have two different ones. And that is basically an email series that we send out to make sure that we get all the information necessary, such as you know, the logins to everything, just just really that you know, base. Hey, welcome to so in, like, you know, off the hook bookkeeping. so thrilled to have you on board. This is the next step. Really just going through the process we were talking through last week. Then we also have an accountant introduction reminder, because quite often, it's one of those things that is forgotten. And it's super important. You want to become the best friend with the accountant for your new client simply to make it as stress free as possible for the new client. It's one of those things, they just want everything to work seamlessly. So the more that you can actually get that official introduction to the accountant they already use, the easier Your life will be and the easier their life will be. Then this is more four, oh no, wait, yes. Then we also have a receipt bank. Login just spent basic template as well. So this one is one that you create the receipt bank login for your client if they don't already have one. And then they go through and actually create, they actually go in and learn how to use the receipt bank for you. Then I've included these ones in here as an onboarding simply because you can actually start putting them into these automations that you have, as soon as you onboard them so that you don't forget to do it. These ones are the most Monthly client reminders. And this is a series that I created for you guys where it just goes in, I think there's like four or five emails, just reminding them about certain deadlines that you need information from them. These should be automated emails that you just have set to going out at the time that you need them. So all you need to do with this one is just putting them into that email series. So if you're using Active Campaign, for example, you would generally have a list that has all of your clients. So you would just create an automation sequence that sends out this monthly reminder every month, and make sure that it sends it out to your list of clients. And you just include that as part of your setup process whenever you're onboarding a new client. Yeah, that way you have that consistent reminding to your clients and having that communication as well. Also minimises the amount of follow up that you have to do and like chasing people up for info. Exactly. It's really handy. And we do it for off the hook. And it makes it so that Sharon off the hooks, bookkeeper, senior bookkeeper, she doesn't have to do a lot of follow ups and chasing clients because they get these emails and they're like, Oh, yeah, right, I need to send this to you. makes her life easier. Definitely does. And then I've also included one more email series template, which is actually a review request template. Now, this is a new template I've actually created because a lot of our savvy members have asked us to create these email series, simply because it I think bookkeepers cuz you're so passionate about supporting your business about your clients businesses, it's really hard for you to remember to ask for referrals or reviews, you feel very strange and weird about doing it. So what I've done is created an email series for you to ask them to give you a review, either on Facebook or on Google business listing, however you want it. And this is just a good way of asking to see how you're doing and getting any feedback that you can improve upon for your next client. Because you want to give the best, you know, first impression as possible within the first six months of having a new client. So what you should do, again, is do an automated email series, but you put the client's email in and then six months after they are a client, they start getting this email series just to get to find out how how you're going. So that you can continually improve, which would be the exact same as doing the other automation that might talk through with active campaigns or whatever email Yeah, application that you use. It would be Yeah, to the same client list, you would just set it so that instead of going out monthly, like the other one, there's a six month time delay and then start sending them. Yeah. And it just helps to know you know, no one's perfect. No business is perfect. There's always ways to improve. And I know bookkeepers are always wanting to improve their onboarding process. This is the best way to improve your process because you're getting feedback directly from your clients. It's so good.

Why automation is important during the onboarding process

 

Maia Coghlan  18:44 

And being able to automate it like you can just, there are some things in your business that like it, it's just not going to make sense to automate them. But if you can automate it, and you can automate it fairly easily automate it, because we're all human, we're not going to remember everything. And you don't need to keep these things in your head. You don't need to set a reminder to send an email asking for you six months after onboarding a new client set up the automation once and then yeah, you don't ever need to think about it again. Yeah, it's, it's great. And it's something that is really important. And I know a lot of business owners are thinking about it right now of getting reviews. So I pop that one in there. So those are like the email templates that off the hook uses to you know, provide as much customer service as possible. But again, it's all fairly automated. Not gonna lie, it's fairly automated, but it's does that so that we have more time to spend on the clients is the priority. Next is where I kind of just my involvement, basically the rest of the time Stage.

 

Angie Martin  20:01 

So this is going to be also my explaining me the process a little bit more because I actually don't really know it. So this is going to be an educational bit for all of all of us. Yeah. And it's interesting because I'm not a bookkeeping myself. I didn't know anything about bookkeeping, until I started working for savvy about a year and a half ago. But yeah, I know what all of these authority templates and everything. I know what they all do. I know that what they're for. So I learned you like your bookkeeping now, like you we've all been talking about. You may be getting, you're making it official.

 

Maia Coghlan  20:43 

We'll see. I have a lot to do already. I don't need to add more responsibilities to my plate. Um, but yeah, I have learnt a lot about bookkeeping for someone who's not a bookkeeper. Um, okay, so the first the first section templates, we talked about whether email templates, and then the next three are old, like there's a particular order to how you'll use them. So. So the second category of templates, the proposal templates, and we have two, and these are technically like that sort of the in between phase between turning your client from a lead into turning someone from a lead into a client?

 

Angie Martin  21:33 

Yes. So these are technically before the email templates slide just told.

 

Maia Coghlan  21:37 

Yeah. Yeah. The aim of those email templates would be after someone signs the proposal.

 

Angie Martin  21:42 

Yes. I'm really excited about this, because we have had savvy clients asked me what the difference between these two are. And I've only been able up until now to describe what is in the actual description in the savvy shop.

 

Maia Coghlan  21:57 

Between these two proposals, yeah. So I'm really Yeah. Okay. So there's, there's really only one difference, okay, I'm in the shop, as a lot of people have seen and asked questions about, there's two different bookkeeping proposal templates. One is called bookkeeping, bookkeeping proposal for new clients, version one. And then this bookkeeping proposal version two, with engagement letter in terms and conditions, yes, it's a big price difference between the two. And the reason is that the version two, which is the more expensive one has a set of terms and conditions that are written by an actual lawyer who Amy asked to create this specific set of terms and conditions that are there, they're just a lot more professional. And more than you know, they're written by an actual lawyer, and they're written specifically for bookkeeping, as well. So if you if you go online, and you get like a cheap of the conditions, or even a free one, it's not going to be specific. For bookkeeping. This one is specifically for bookkeeping. And yeah, so you get that in the version two, engagement letter? Okay. The one yes. Talk me through that. The rest of the document layout is basically the same. And I believe it says in the shop, like what the different sections are, I can quickly pull that up to read it to you. But um.

 

Angie Martin  23:43  

This is a handy one, like, I'm always a little bit shocked with how little the little amount of bookkeepers that have a formal engagement and proposal document. And I'm always just kind of thinking, geez, how much time are you spending on, you know, sending through proposals and engagement letters, like, we keep it all streamlined? Because it's all like a base template? Just to save us time.

 

Maia Coghlan  24:11 

So, okay, yeah, so the the sections are all exactly the same. The two different templates does the cover page, which is like a, you know,

 

Angie Martin  24:21 

pretty cover page.

 

Maia Coghlan  24:22 

Yeah, it, it says, you know, like the business is, this is like a little bit about how the bookkeeping will work. What they need to do to get started, I read through this proposal and sign it and how your billing works as well.

 

Angie Martin  24:41 

Oh that's an important bit.

 

Maia Coghlan  24:43 

You get billed on, you know, this date or your upfront fees are due at this time, and then ongoing fees at that time. So it has all of that in the cover page. Then it's got the fees section. And if you use panda dock, you can it does doesn't include the pricing catalogue that we have. But it includes like the tables already set up for you to put your catalogue items on to the proposal. And then if you get the word version, it's just got a table set up, and you just put it in.

 

Angie Martin  25:19 

That's handy. That's super handy.

 

Maia Coghlan  25:22 

Um, and so there's a section for like, upfront fees, and then ongoing fees, so you can separate the different types of things. So it describes, so they can see exactly what fees are what kind, basically, um, so then it's got a section called working relationship.

 

Angie Martin  25:43 

Yeah, I've always wondered what that was. Because everyone's always really interested in that.

 

Maia Coghlan  25:51 

yeah, um, I can read your out the first the first bit of it, so work. So it's, it's basically it says, there's a little blurb at the top, and then it says, to the bookkeeping company will, and then there's a bunch of points at that point, you know, the expectations that the client can have from them. And then this client company well, and of course, those are token souls and the actual game will and then act with integrity, honesty, and openness with our team and treat all our representatives with respect, for example, is the first point under client company will.

 

Angie Martin  26:32 

Oh, I like that, it makes it so that you really clearly put what you're expecting from the clients and what they can expect from you right at the beginning of the relationship. Yeah, and I definitely would recommend anybody who buys these templates to read for us makes their own.

 

Maia Coghlan  26:51 

Yeah, yeah. And if you're gonna make your own based on this, but if you do get these specific ones that it's already written for you read it and make sure that it describes the things that you want to be there. And if you don't want something to be there, you can delete it. If you want to add anything, add it. We're not saying that this is the exact set that you have to send out. This is just the one that we use. I think it would go hand in hand really well with the values section in the savvy business plan. Yeah, yep. Yeah. Yeah. It also says stuff about, like, the bookkeeping company will meet a two year deadline.

 

Angie Martin  27:35 

Yeah. So there's other you know, more technical legal things.

 

Maia Coghlan  27:41 

Yeah. And it says at the top, at bookkeeper company, we believe the key to every great working relationship is mutual respect and clear expectations, which is the number one thing that every bookkeeper wants? And they're really, exactly. So this, this section really sets up the expectations for the client about what the relationship is going to be like. That's what the working relationship section is.

 

Angie Martin  28:12 

So very important, basically.

 

Maia Coghlan  28:14 

Yeah. Yeah, very important. So then there's the terms and conditions. And so this is the difference between version one and version two. And the bookkeeping proposal, version one just says, insert your T's and C's here.

 

Angie Martin  28:29 

Ah, yep. Okay. There's a hate writing T's and C's, I would definitely go for the second one.

 

Maia Coghlan  28:36 

So and then the second one has the legal Yeah. Like the the proper one from a, from the lawyer. We did have an old version of the T's and C's. And if you buy the professional package level of the health check master class. Oh, yeah, actually includes that old one isn't safe version that we have. But that one was not written. That's like a template one of a free website. Yeah, we then edited ourselves. So we used to use that one. Now we use this proper one from from a lawyer.

 

Angie Martin  29:19 

So if makes it a bit more legally binding, and more official and professional,

 

Maia Coghlan  29:26 

yeah, yeah. But I just wanted to throw that in there. Because if you did purchase the level of the health check master class, or you already have our old version of T's and C's, that you can stick into the version one template nice. That's handy at that level. Yeah. So and then at the bottom, let's see, I'm just scrolling down looking at it. So then it just says the engagement parties like this engagement is between all of your details and all of their details. And then it has the agreement. section down the bottom. that just says by signing this agreement, you declare any little one sentence, and then the signature block.

 

Angie Martin  30:08 

Awesome. I love it, that actually clears up a lot of questions that people always ask me and I just kind of copy and paste bits from the description. Sorry, guys, if I've ever done that to you, I can be more specific now. That's really handy. Like I love even the savvy proposals that we have, I love them, I find them so much easier. Comparatively, to like writing a new proposal for a client every single time, it would take me about like, three hours, I think minimum, like minimum, I think, and then just having these base templates, I find it like I can get one out in five minutes or less, like, depending on how detailed I'm going, Yeah, makes it some shirt.

 

Maia Coghlan  30:55 

For booking bookkeeping, like, if you're getting lots of new leads coming in, like if you can get a lead magnet or some lead magnet on your website or something. So you've got lots of people know, engaging, and you want to send out a bunch of proposals and hopefully bring on some new clients. If you're writing every single one from scratch, wasting a lot even worth it. Yeah, um, but if you have something like this, all you need to do, especially if you're using panda Doc, all you need to do is just put in the company details. And it will automatically populate the name everywhere in the document where it needs to go. And you just basically, all you have to do is pick and choose what services to add to the face section. And then you just set it so easy. You can pump them out so quickly.

 

Angie Martin  31:49 

Yeah, PandaDoc is amazing. It's so great. So now let's say that that's that. Yeah, let's say that they have signed a proposal. They're definitely a client now. And you need to start doing the continued process of now actually, informing them what the next step is to be official client.

 

Maia Coghlan  32:12 

Yeah. So they've signed the proposal, the next step is to welcome them and onboard them into the onboarding thing. So this is this is the part of the process where you would set up the email.

 

Angie Martin  32:26 

Yes.

 

Maia Coghlan  32:28 

Beginning.

 

Angie Martin  32:30 

And we've kind of brushed on this a little bit last week, but didn't go too much in detail as well. So this Yeah, started to talk about last week, guys.

 

How to streamline your bookkeeping workflow

 

Maia Coghlan  32:41 

And I did after we talked about the Getting Started Guide. Last week, I did have somebody asked me more detailed questions about it. So this is great to like, click Clear, and go over exactly what it is and what's included in it as well, like I did with the proposal templates. Yes. Before I talk about that, though, we did also add to the shop last week, and you free template, which is just a little, it's an onboarding infographic that I made. And it just sort of really simply points you down to the next step in the process of setting up your onboarding workflow, basically. So you can just follow that. And you don't have to follow it exactly. But at least it gives you some prompts of

 

Angie Martin  33:31 

the starting point idea.

 

Maia Coghlan  33:33 

Yeah, yeah. And you can set it up following that, that guide, and then you can make changes to suit your business later. But yeah, it just gives you a great little overview of, okay, where do I start? What do I do next? And then what happens? So that's what that's for. That's free, you can grab that from the shop. I love it. I think like anyone who loves onboarding as much as us and like streamlining your business, I think you should get this one. It's free. It's just a really handy infographic. I know when you showed it to me when you were first creating it. You were like, oh, does this make sense? I was just like, Oh, just suppose I get shows everything. Yeah, so that's cold. It's just called onboarding workflow, infographic. And it's free.

 

Angie Martin  34:25 

So definitely, we will put it in the podcast for you guys.

 

Maia Coghlan  34:31 

And the notes, we'll have links to all of these things. It's going to be a really long list.

 

Angie Martin  34:35 

Yeah it's going to be a hectic, but this one's awesome, because this one's free. And it gives you the starting point into creating your own, which is what this episode is supposed to be all about.

 

Maia Coghlan  34:45 

Yeah. So then the other thing we have an onboarding, sort of list, besides the email templates that we talked about, is the Getting Started Guide. Now I'll run you through what's in it first, and then I'll talk about the difference between the Getting Started Guide and email templates.

 

Angie Martin  35:05 

Because it's kind of you talk about one or the other, I do this.

 

Maia Coghlan  35:09 

Yeah. So the Getting Started Guide. It's got, let's see, it's also, but it's basically one long cover letter, I guess. So at the beginning, there's a little welcome section. So it says, Welcome to your business's name. And then a little blurb about like, what what your business is, maybe your values, this is a great section to again, look at the values, your business plan that plays an important section in your business plan everyone, and you and you can grab out like a no bit from a mission statement, basically just grab some stuff from your business plan and make a nice little welcome. Paragraph, paragraph or two. And you can also include a link, um, if you want to film a welcome video,

 

Angie Martin  35:59 

Yes, which we talked about last week, which is a great way of really personally kind of welcoming without seeing them in person.

 

Maia Coghlan  36:09 

Yeah, so there's, there's actually a section where you can put a link to a welcome video if you want to include that. Um, and then there's the new client forms section. So one of them is the new client form. Which, which is another thing, it's not actually available in the shop at the moment, it kind of got a little bit lost. Um, did it? Well, that's the the initial contact form slash Oh, that's right, we have the same thing. It's it's gone missing, but it will be back. Ah, do you want?

 

Angie Martin  36:53 

Maybe by the time this actually airs?

 

Maia Coghlan  36:55 

Yeah, it's asking Yeah, yes, it's possible, it's very possible that it'll be ready by the time you listen to this. But I'm not gonna make any promises. So there's, yes, there's complete new client forms. And then there's a list of different things. The first one is the new client form, which is, so you can just put the link into the form, if you're using ours, it's an air table, you can just grab the link from a table, stick the link in here, and then when I click, it'll go straight to the forum, and I can fill it out. And then it's got the, the authorities that you need, which is the next thing I'll talk about, it's the last category of templates. But so it lists each of the different authorities and you might have different ones that you offer, depending on what services services you're doing. But basically, like, best server, best best provider authority, your STP enduring, and superstream authority and the ones that we use. Um, so and then you put the links in there. We'll talk more about that after later. Um, then it's got the basic setup guide. So we use zero, and receipt bank, or Emily. So this section is really easy for us, there's a little section on zero that says, please add the following email address as zero advisor if they already have a zero account set up. And then it's got links to video instructions and written instructions, both from the zero website about how to actually and do zero advisors so they can just be like, okay, I'll click this, this is how I do it. And then they can do it themselves without you having to tell them how, thank you for providing

 

Angie Martin  38:56 

I was just thinking thank you Xero for making it easy.

 

Maia Coghlan  39:00 

Yeah, and then there's also a login link for Xero so they can literally just click the link in the document and go and add you to stripe there. And then it's got the same setup for receipt bank for us. So it's got please send all your receipts and tax invoices for the period all this time doing a catch up. And then it also has video and written instructions, links there already to instructions that are provided by receipt bank, I would assume Um, and then and then it's got a link for the receipt bank login. And then it's got a space to put their username and password if you're setting up everything bank account details, and a spot to put their email in address or their that's linked to their receipt bank account. So that's that section. And then we've got meet the team. So there's a little section for each of your team members, however many have the template has three sections by default. So you would put yourself probably horriblest. Four. And then you'd put any of your team members under that and a picture.

 

Angie Martin  40:17 

Yeah, guys – I suggest to do a picture, it just makes it more personal. And it's nice to put a face at the trust. Yeah.

 

Maia Coghlan  40:29 

So here, there's a little spot to put a little sort of introduction to each of your team members. And sort of about, like, what their role is in the business. And what that means for the client.

 

Angie Martin  40:43 

Yeah, relate it back to the client.

 

Maia Coghlan  40:44 

Not just like, Oh, this person does admin. I mean, like, client doesn't care about that. It's so it's sort of like if you, um, you know, if you have questions about your billing, contact this person, and if you have questions about your payroll, or your bookkeeping, contact this person, that kind of thing. So it just, yeah, it describes how each of the team members are relevant to the client. And I also like to put in something a little bit fun about them as well to make them real people. And not just work people. Yeah, my typical fun little fact is that I have a rabbit rabbit named Domino. That's like, my go to thing because a he's adorable. Babies named Domino and see who doesn't like rabbits. Yeah. Yeah, so you can get you can get fun, get creative, and make it a little bit fun. And then there's a section that like, not everyone is gonna need this section. But it's just says additional services. So like, if you also do business, mentoring, or I don't know, whatever extra thing that you offer, like HR services or something. Yeah, there's an apple clients that we have that do like HR. Yeah, so you can add this in attendance in there as well. Like some will just a short description about if you're also interested, like, we do this, if you weren't aware of, if you weren't aware already. Um, and then the last section is need to get in touch. And your questions. This is the best phone number, email address, blah, blah, blah. This is our website. These are our business hours. Very important. Yeah. And then just as our team, welcome, welcome. Yeah, I love but that's, that's the Getting Started Guide, but some intent in great detail. Now, this is where we get to the part where you don't necessarily need everything. So when we talked about the email templates at the beginning, a lot of so there's the two different new client onboarding templates, email templates. Are the contents of those are also basically included in your getting started guide. Yes. Also. The there should actually be a section in the there is not a nine. Yeah, there is. I know there is you just didn't mention it for the introduction to the accountant. Yeah, accountant introduction reminders is also in the Getting Started Guide. And then the receipt bank login, obviously, that's there. And then there's it clearly doesn't have the monthly reminders of that. And the request. Yeah, so go ahead. What we talked about last week is having the Getting Started Guide, and also having an onboarding email series. And the email series would be like taking sections out of the Getting Started Guide, and putting them into the email series. So you send the whole guide on the phone differently

 

Angie Martin  44:11 

to different people

 

Maia Coghlan  44:12 

Yeah, yeah, some people will get the guide on the first day and just take off everything on the list. Others will get it and be like, that's too much information. And then so they need it to be more drip fed over a few days. Yes. Yeah, and it also, if they don't have time to do it, when you first send it, it also gives them those reminders to go back and do it.

 

Angie Martin  44:34 

Yeah. So that's on your process on how you do your own workflow, which is why I highly suggest everyone to get that free infographic that you created, because then you can pick and choose how you do the emails with the Guardian guide, or just the starting guide or just the emails, because it's basically Yeah, the same information with those main ones.

 

Maia Coghlan  44:58 

It's the same information. It's just a bit different. And maybe you already have some of these templates set up. Mm hmm. Your business and you just want one specific one.

 

Angie Martin  45:09 

Yeah. So it's just making sure you have it is the biggest thing is that, you know, we have multiple ways of doing it. And we do kind of a combination of both off the hook, because we want to make sure that we have this information because it's obviously necessary to do their bookkeeping. Yes. And we also want them to get the culture of off the hook as well, so that they are our deal. Our ideal clients, right at the beginning. So there's no issues there. Which is equally as important as getting all the information that we need to do there.

 

Maia Coghlan  45:48 

Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's basically it's up to you how you think it will work best for your business, but that's what we have. And that's sort of how how we do it.

 

Angie Martin  46:01 

And it works for us. Yeah, thanks. That's why we're…

 

Maia Coghlan  46:04 

The getting started guide and then drip feed reminders. Mm hmm. Yeah. And it seems to work it also like minimises the amount of chasing up that we have to do, filling out forms that we need.

 

Angie Martin  46:20 

Exactly, which is why I really love it in this next bit, which is the last part the authority templates, they'll be, like you said, actually linked into the Getting Started Guide. But I thought we could go through them separately, because I know a lot of bookkeepers either starting out or you've been in business for a while, you're never 100% sure which authority templates to always just have on hand for clients. So these are the ones that we always have on hand for off get clients.

 

Maia Coghlan  46:51 

So yeah, let's talk about that. Now, this is the last category of complaints is the authority templates. And I did already mentioned three that I'm going to talk about superstream best provider, and the SDP injury injuring authority, or STP single event, if they don't qualify for NGS authority. That's a thing. Yes. And we have both of those in the shop. So and we use one as well. Yes, we are created in the first place because we and we use all three of those superstream, the best provider and STP. So basically, there's a few ways that you can do it if you're going to use the Getting Started Guide. And I mean, obviously, you can send them all three documents individually. And some of them you won't need to if you're not doing payroll, you don't need to send STP if you're not doing. If you don't need a super stream of r&d, you don't need to send it to the stream of streaming, most people are going to need to send the best provider authority.

 

Angie Martin  47:58 

Well, it depends if you're not a Bass

 

Maia Coghlan  48:00 

Yes, but if you don't do best, then you don't need to do that. And you can probably just ignore this entire section. Yes. Um, or maybe there's something else that you do need that we haven't even thought of?

 

Angie Martin  48:10 

And if there is, let us know.

 

Maia Coghlan  48:11 

Yeah, if there is let us know.

 

Angie Martin  48:14 

I'm on a hunt right now. So let me know guys what you need.

 

Maia Coghlan  48:19 

Um, so you can send them individually, that's fine. But we find them it's like, did they get every single notification email about all the different documents that they have to sign?

 

Angie Martin  48:32 

It get's overwhelming for me

 

Maia Coghlan  48:34 

emails get a bit clogged up,

 

Angie Martin  48:36 

it gets overwhelming that oh my gosh, my purse, my new bookkeeper needs so much from me. I feel overwhelmed. I'm scared. I'm just gonna go. Yeah, that's basically how it goes. So the way that I would recommend doing it, the way that we do it is in your getting started guide. tell you how to do with panda doc first, and then get because we, we always mentioned panda doc. And we have all our templates and panda doc for those of you who don't know is that we use panda doc for sabi. And for off the hook. That's how we streamline our documents. So for those of you who use pap practice ignition or any other applications, you can still do the same kind of thing. We just use panda Doc, because we like the process with it. It works with our workflows.

 

Maia Coghlan  49:28 

Yeah. And you might find that our process doesn't work with your workflow or with the software that you use, and that's completely fine.

 

Angie Martin  49:35 

But at least you have an idea of what other people do.

 

Maia Coghlan  49:37 

Yeah. And it's never bad to like, see what other options and see what else is out there. So in panda doc when you create a document, there's an option so you can send it directly and they'll get an email to sign or or you can share it I love this app option. That means that it won't email them, it will give you a link, it will give you a different link for each person that's added to the document. So don't send them the link for you, because that's the wrong work, you have to send them the link for them. And it will tell you, this is for this person, this, this person, you copy the link for them. Once so for example, you set up the best provider or authority. And instead of clicking send, you click Share, you get the link. And then you go back to the Getting Started Guide, but you're in the process of setting up you haven't sent it to them yet. And you can paste the link into the Getting Started Guide. So you only have to then send the Getting Started Guide. They'll open it, they'll do the instructions for zero and receipt bank. And they'll also have the links right there to open up the best premier authority document from the Getting Started Guide and sign it that way. That way, you only have to send them one email. So one here, you're technically sending them like three documents in one.

 

Angie Martin  51:12 

I love it.

 

Maia Coghlan  51:13 

It's so much less overwhelming.

 

Angie Martin  51:14 

Yeah, it's easy to click a button and open a new document and quickly sign it than it is to open new emails, go into there, click that do it, it's just flows a lot easier and makes it a lot easier, you can do it on your phone, just click three clicks, it's great. And if you aren't using the Getting Started Guide, you can still do it the same way. If you're using pandas, you can get the share link. And if you're using the client onboarding email templates, instead, grab the little panda doc for the best provider authority or for whatever document authorities you need. And to get an email. It's amazing. Um, yeah, so that's really great. And then if you're using like the word doc versions, you can take them to the email when you send them. And they can also hyperlink the words, the actual links in the actual Microsoft Word like the word templates as well. Because, yeah, hyperlink phrases and everything in Word documents to go directly to those as well. So I don't have panda dog, then you can't link it to another Oh, yeah. Right. Nevermind. Like Nora, that was? Um, yeah. So I would say just attach all the documents to one email and say, Please, sign all the attachments. So obviously, that's not as nice and process for the clients, but not everybody. Oh, very one.

 

Maia Coghlan  52:48 

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's, it's better than sending them separately.So that was all. Did you want me to tell you what the actual authorities are? Because I'm, like, everyone knows what they are. I feel like at least the Australian listeners will know what they are and the overseas listeners, probably. Because you'll have your own.

 

Angie Martin  53:12 

Yes. Yeah, I don't think you know, I think you know, I definitely know, they are just from my experience of doing my cert four. So I think most bookkeepers know what each authority document is, I would hope so if not, feel free to contact us. And we will help you with that. But I think that was like a really good overview. And again, you know, we're not saying that you guys need to buy all these templates from us. We just wanted to share with you what we do to help you really streamline your onboarding process so you can automate what you can and then create templates. So you don't have to redo everything every single time you have a new client. That way you don't miss anything. It's all easy, streamlined. And you can basically onboard a new client in like, what two to three clicks of a button. It makes it so easy, stress free for everyone. And it creates a really welcoming environment to getting new clients instead of that dread. Oh my gosh, I have a new client. I have to do all this work. I don't have time to do this.

 

Maia Coghlan  54:25 

What do I do now?

 

Angie Martin  54:26 

Yes, it just makes it a much easier process that is more effortless. Which is what savvy is all about. Yes. So I hope that's helped everyone. I know that was a lot of links that we just chat through today. So we will make sure to put them all on the links for you. And we will also write a just little blog of kind of breaking down all of this information because it was a very technical podcast today, which I really enjoyed because I got learn a little bit more about each of the templates. Because, you know, as soon as the sales done with off the hook, I don't really know what's happening, because I'm not that involved with off the hook. So it's nice to know what Maya does with off the hook points. And yeah, what I'd love to know is what do you guys do? What are your processes? So what you can do is to get a little involvement with these podcasts. If you're on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, comment your process. And let us know if we're missing any templates that you use and find really helpful. And we'll actually create them for you guys and have them on the shop so that it can just be as streamlined as possible for you. Which I think is kind of fun. Yeah, I love to know what everyone else is doing. I think it's really great to you know, everyone does it differently. Everyone does an onboarding process differently. And we all want to get that perfect onboarding experience for clients. And kind of the whole reason why savvy is here in the first place is to help you guys. streamline your businesses and run it as easily and in the most productive way as possible. So we love creating new templates for you. Like if there's something that you need, we would love to create it so we can help you do the stuff that you need to do that never have time. Yeah. And it actually helps us reinvent, like how we do it off the hook as well. So it's kind of like, Oh, that's a fantastic template. I don't know why I didn't think of doing that. I need to create this now. It's great to be able to share resources. Yeah, I think it's great. Like just alone. The email review request template was created because of a client's request. And the onboarding workflow infographic, which is the free one was created because of client requests. And it made us just make sure that our processes were more streamlined as well, which is just, yeah, I love sharing resources and having that community of bookkeepers that are here to support one another, which is really great. So hope everyone's enjoyed this podcast. And what I'm kind of looking for right now, guys, is we're nearing the end of the series, I would love to get your insight into the next series we should do, what do you want to hear from us talking about next? I've got a couple ideas, but I would love to have your input. So please feel free to email us at savvy at a savvy bookkeeper.com to a you what you would love to hear us talk about next. And we will give you a little bit of a shadow and that I can create the next series around that. Or you can comment on the Facebook page, Facebook group Instagram posts, anything wherever you want to get in touch with us. We're always on all of the different accounts, the entire savvy team so comment that there it'll get back to us and we will make sure that we actually do it for you. Awesome, thank you so much guys. And as always, Maia Do you want to do the sign off?

 

Maia Coghlan  58:19 

You ask me that every single time!  Alright everyone, stay safe, stay sane and stay Savvy!

 

Angie Martin  58:29 

Bye!