Client Onboarding Process Template

Start from the first morning of work and think backward. List everything the job can't begin without: access, a decision that fixes the price, a signature, the deposit, a number only the client can find. Each service you sell gets its own list, built from the work your job estimate describes.

Take the waits from your own records, not a generic range. For your last 30 or so finished clients, count the working days from asking for each item to getting it. Use the median, the middle value, so one very slow client can't skew it. NIST's statistics handbook notes that extreme values distort the mean but not the median¹. Treat a figure from fewer than five jobs as a guess.

Look at the last row. The slowest item was asked for last, on day 9, because it was tied to the permit filing, so it came back around working day 20. Asked for at signing, it would be back around day 11, with everything else already in.

So send one intake questionnaire on signing day, slowest item first, and make it easy to answer. The Behavioural Insights Team, a research consultancy that began inside the UK government, notes that even small barriers can have outsized effects on behavior². In one US study it cites, completing students' college financial aid forms for them raised attendance from 28% to 36%.

• Say where to find each item and what it unblocks, so nothing reads as red tape
• Fill in forms yourself, so the client only has to sign
• Offer to go through it together on a phone call
• Ask only for what the work needs: the FTC tells businesses not to collect sensitive personal details without a legitimate business need³

Send a short welcome pack with the questionnaire. Set out the steps in order, and say which of the client's answers fixes the price and which can move a date. A good welcome pack covers:

• What happens next, in order, and the client's part in each step
• Who to call about the schedule, the work and the invoice
• Everything you still need from them, in one short list
• What the deposit covers, and when later payments are due
• How to move a date, and how much notice avoids a charge

Add a one-page expectation note on what moves a start date, most common cause first. Rank the causes from your own records: for the installer above, missing client items top the list, then third parties such as the permit office. Consultants and agencies often cover the same ground in a kickoff meeting, and a listing agent can do the same in the listing presentation.

Put the scope, price, payment schedule and cancellation terms in a written service agreement. In the US, the FTC's Cooling-Off Rule covers consumer sales of $25 or more made at the buyer's home⁴, with a few exceptions. The buyer may cancel until midnight of the third business day after the sale⁵, and you must refund every payment within 10 business days of their notice.

Count those days the way the rule does: Saturday is a business day, but Sundays and federal holidays are not⁴. So a contract signed at the client's home on a Friday can be cancelled until midnight on Tuesday, or Wednesday after a Monday holiday. Book the start after that.

States add rules of their own. In California, buyers aged 65 and older get 5 days to cancel⁶ a home improvement contract, instead of 3. The state's contractor board also says a home improvement down payment can't be more than $1,000 or 10% of the contract price⁷, whichever is less.

On an $18,400 job, that cap is 5.4% of the price, so don't count on the deposit to secure the booking. A cap that low also means you may buy equipment before the client has paid much, and a cash flow forecast shows whether you can carry that.

Keep one row for each item a client owes: when you asked, its typical wait, the booked start date and the hours of work it holds. The expected arrival is the ask date plus the typical wait. Compare it with the start date and write the gap in days, because "misses by 5 days" tells you what to do and "at risk" doesn't.

For example, one client of the made-up installer is booked for 24 crew-hours starting June 4. The utility account number was requested on May 27. With a typical wait of 11 working days, it should arrive on June 11, so that start misses by 5 working days.

1. 1

   Update the tracker

   Each Monday, mark what arrived and recompute every expected arrival.

2. 2

   Sort by hours held

   Chase the item holding the most booked hours first, not the oldest request.

3. 3

   Make a specific call

   Phone rather than email, and name the item and where to find it.

4. 4

   Move the start early

   If an item can't arrive in time, offer the client a new date now, not on the day.

Every two weeks, compare each expected arrival with the real one. Give every slipped start one cause: asked too late, asked on time but returned late, held up by a third party, or delayed on your side. Then track one number, the share of booked hours that started on their original date, and add each new arrival to your typical waits.

The template on this page has the checklist, tracker and client documents, filled in for the made-up installer. Open it with Edit with AI and River measures your own waits from past jobs, then flags the booked starts that can't hold.