The Proactive Onboarding bridge

The Proactive Onboarding bridge

The Proactive Onboarding bridge contains content for marketing and delivering a Proactive Accounting Meeting, as well as content to help you develop a better onboarding process for a greater client experience.

Follow our Proactive Accounting Meeting process to deliver a high value session with your prospective clients and set the tone for your new relationship and value-add services. In the meeting, you'll identify their compliance needs, business and personal goals, the challenges they're currently facing, and how you can work together to address those challenges.

A Proactive Accounting Meeting is very similar to a Complimentary Client Review, however, as it's for prospective clients, you'll focus on gathering information and determining their goals to gain an overall understanding of their business, rather than drilling down into specific areas. The PAM also helps you establish whether the client is the right fit for your firm.

To access the Proactive Onboarding bridge, go to Navigation panel > Bridges > Proactive Onboarding bridge.

Important info
A Proactive Accounting Meeting is very similar to a Complimentary Client Review, however, it's for prospective clients.

Understanding the Proactive Onboarding process

Proactive Onboarding is about establishing a systemised process for meeting new clients, forming a positive relationship from the outset and efficiently onboarding them as a client. 
  1. The Process Guide outlines best practice use of the content in the Proactive Onboarding bridge; click the Download Process Guide button in the top right-hand corner to view this guide

Note
Ensure you review the Process Guide prior to using the content in the bridge.

Marketing the Proactive Accounting Meeting

There are many ways to actively market the complimentary Proactive Accounting Meeting, including: 
  1. Discussing the complimentary Proactive Accounting Meeting when a prospective client enquires about your compliance services.
  2. Promoting your PAM offering on your website with a clear call to action to contact your firm.
  3. Sending out relevant educational marketing content to your database to subtly position the value of working with you.
    1. Navigate to Navigation panel > Marketing  > The Gap + BOMA >  The Gap + BOMA Content Library Catalogue to check out our education marketing content ready for you to send via BOMA.
  4. Hosting one of our Gap Webinars or Seminars available in Navigation panel > Bridges to generate interest in your advisory services and offering a Proactive Accounting Meeting as a complimentary service offering.

Tip
Your initial proposal with a prospective client is a huge opportunity to differentiate your firm. Carefully outline the services you offer in plain English (avoid accounting jargon) and use our content to beautifully brand your proposals for your clients to seamlessly accept online.

Delivering the Proactive Accounting Meeting


Note
The content to deliver the Proactive Accounting Meeting is located in the Marketing folder as a sale is the outcome of delivering this service.

Client Outcomes

By attending the Proactive Accounting Meeting, prospective clients will:
  1. Get a clear understanding of their issues, opportunities and potential tax efficiencies
  2. Start to establish their goals and strategies to achieve them
  3. Understand how they can work with you to achieve progress
  4. Anticipate a services proposal that suits their needs

Meeting duration

The meeting should take 45-60 minutes but may take 90 minutes for larger prospective clients.  
  1. Prior to the session, you'll provide all attendees with pre-work to complete; ensuring that any issues that need to be discussed are identified (and you can prepare accordingly)
  2. You'll deliver the complimentary meeting to review the potential client's unique situation and discuss how you can support them in the most appropriate way

Important info
We recommend enforcing a 'no pre-work, no meeting' policy.  Politely discuss the benefit of pre-work and reschedule the meeting so it does not become one of discovery.

Following the meeting, if the prospect is a good client fit, you will prepare the Services Proposal.
  1. The Services Proposal pulls through your services and service plans from your Services & Pricing area and automatically appends your Terms of Engagement
  2. See our Using proposals article for more information

Note
Using the Services Proposal is an efficient way to create a comprehensive proposal. Ensure your portal administrator has set up your Services and Pricing  area to ensure your services and pricing automatically populate.

Click here for more information about common content found in the Gap bridges and how they relate to each step in the Proactive Onboarding process. See the Proactive Onboarding Process Guide for detailed information about the PO content.

Defining your onboarding process

Delivering  a great onboarding experience is a big differentiator and will lead to referrals for your firm. Once the client has accepted your proposal, your team should understand the process and critical timelines to complete the steps defined in your firm's onboarding process. These should cover:
  1. Completing necessary administrivia
  2. Officially welcoming your client onboard 
  3. Introducing key team members they'll be working with
  4. Getting billing and payments sorted
  5. Thanking the referrer (if applicable)
  6. Setting jobs up in your practice management system or workflow software
  7. Scheduling any time-critical jobs
  8. Following up in due time to see how their experience has been so far
Important info
Use simple task management software such as Trello to manage your onboarding process workflow so your team understands their role in the onboarding process, can easily see where new clients are in the pipeline, and ensure no steps get missed. 

The Onboarding folder

  1. Guide to Effective Onboarding: this helps you define your onboarding process to ensure you start the relationship with your new client off on a productive, positive and engaging footing
  2. Client Onboarding Experience PowerPoint Slide: a visual representation of your onboarding experience which you can update with your branding and service offering then convert to an image to use on your website and in your marketing
  3. Client Onboarding Checklist: a best practice client onboarding process.
  4. Authority to Disclose Information: an email or letter to send to your new client to get their permission to contact their previous accountant to obtain the necessary information
  5. Professional Clearance Letter: an email or letter to send to the client's previous accountant to obtain the necessary information
  6. Client Welcome Email: an important touchpoint to introduce your new client to your firm and the team members they'll be dealing with
  7. Referrer Thank You Email: an email to send to clients to show appreciation for them referring the new client; consider also sending a gift, gift voucher or cashback
  8. Client Support Call Script: a script to use to follow up with the new client after one month to make sure they're happy with their experience so far
  9. New Client Feedback: a form to get feedback from new clients which you can turn into a testimonial

Tip:
Start by reading the Guide to Effective Onboarding and work as a team to define your firm's onboarding process. Use the Versions feature to update the Client Onboarding Checklist to reflect your defined process.

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