By the Templateez Team · Licensed Attorney (NJ & NY) · June 2026

Bookkeeper Client Intake: What to Capture Before You Touch Their Books

The first hour of a new bookkeeping engagement sets the trajectory for the entire relationship. If you start working without knowing the entity type, the fiscal year, the current software, or the state of prior filings, you are going to spend the next month untangling surprises instead of doing the work you were hired for.

The Non-Negotiable Fields

Every bookkeeper or accountant intake should capture these before any work begins:

• Entity type and structure — sole prop, LLC, S-Corp, C-Corp, partnership, non-profit. This determines everything from chart of accounts to tax treatment.
• Fiscal year — calendar year or fiscal? When does their tax year end? If they do not know, that is a red flag worth noting.
• Current accounting software — QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, Xero, FreshBooks, Wave, spreadsheets, or nothing. Migration costs differ wildly.
• State of prior filings — are they current on sales tax, payroll tax, income tax? Any unfiled returns? Any active audit or notice from the IRS or state?
• Number of transactions per month — this determines your pricing and workload. A 50-transaction-per-month sole prop is a different engagement than a 2,000-transaction-per-month e-commerce business.
• Bank accounts and credit cards — how many, which institutions, who has access? This is the foundation of reconciliation.

What the Client Should Tell You

The companion client questionnaire captures what only the client can provide: their business description in their own words, what they expect from the engagement, their communication preferences, their biggest pain points with their current bookkeeping, and their goals (tax reduction? investor-ready books? just staying compliant?). See our Bookkeeper & Accountant forms for the complete set.

Why This Matters for Scope Creep

The number one complaint from bookkeepers about clients is scope creep. The client hired you for monthly reconciliation, but now they want you to file their sales tax, prepare their 1099s, and advise on entity restructuring. A structured intake form that documents the engagement scope at day one gives you the written baseline to have the scope conversation when it comes up. And it will come up.

Tax Prep vs. Bookkeeping

If your practice does both, you need separate intake flows. The Tax & CPA Accounting intake captures prior-year returns, estimated payments, and filing status. The bookkeeping intake captures ongoing operational details. Running both through one generic form means you miss fields for each.