What Documents to Request from a New Accounting Client

The fastest way to stall a new client's onboarding is to request documents one at a time. Every follow-up email adds days. The firms that onboard quickly do one thing differently: they ask for everything at once, in a single organised request. Here's the complete list to send.

Business and registration details

Start with the basics that define who you're working with:

• Legal business name and any trading name
• Entity type (sole trader, partnership, company, and so on)
• Registration and tax identification numbers
• Registered address and accounting year-end date
• Key people and their roles — who approves payments, who you contact for what

These details determine the path the rest of onboarding takes, so confirm them precisely. (A ready-to-send version is in our free onboarding checklist.)

Financial access and history

This is the heart of the request:

• Access to the client's accounting software, or agreement to migrate
• Prior-period financials or last filed accounts — your clean starting point
• Confirmation of opening balances
• Bank, credit card, and loan accounts to be reconciled
• Details of the previous accountant and any handover, if switching

Confirming opening balances early — while the prior accountant is still contactable — prevents reconciliation problems that otherwise surface months later.

Payroll, if in scope

If you're handling payroll, request the provider, the pay cycle, employee count, and access to the payroll system. Payroll has hard deadlines, so gaps here cause urgent problems fast.

Tax and authorisations

• Tax history and any open issues with the authority
• Authorisation to act on the client's behalf
• Any upcoming deadlines you need to be aware of immediately

Systems and communication

• Logins or invitations to required systems and banking feeds
• The document portal invitation
• Preferred communication channel and reporting cadence

How to request it well

Three habits make the request land:

Send it once, organised. A single message with a clear checklist beats ten scattered emails and signals a firm that has its act together.

Explain the why briefly. Clients respond faster when they understand a document is needed to set them up correctly, not just because you asked.

Set a follow-up reminder. Three working days is a good default. Chase politely but promptly — stalled documents stall everything downstream.

Make it adapt to each client

Not every client needs every document. A sole trader doesn't need director details; a company does. The most efficient onboarding only asks for what's relevant — which is hard with a static form and easy with a branching one. In PathPilot, the intake adapts to the client's entity type and services, so nobody fills in fields that don't apply and completion rates go up.

For the complete onboarding process — including the full intake form and the branches that decide what to request — see the Client Onboarding System. Or start free: download the checklist and send a clean request to your next client.