Onboard a bookkeeping client

Who does this: Senior Accountant · Platform Admin When: A new client is signing up for bookkeeping, or you're enabling bookkeeping on an existing payroll-only client Result: A client record with the BOOKKEEPING product enabled, a base currency and materiality threshold, a chart of accounts, a vendor master, at least one ingestion channel, and at least one contact who can respond to unreconciled items.

Bookkeeping is configuration-heavy at the start. The platform won't draft journal entries or run reconciliations until the client's chart of accounts and vendor master are in place — those are what the classification engine matches against. Aim to land all six steps below in one sitting per client; missing pieces show up as red on the Setup health panel and block the first batch from being generated.

If the client already exists for payroll, skip step 1 and start at step 2 — toggle BOOKKEEPING on the existing record.

Before you start

• [ ] You know the client's legal name and a client code (your firm's internal short code, e.g. MASON, WALKER).
• [ ] You know which accounting platform the client uses — Xero, QuickBooks, Zoho Books, or Tally.
• [ ] You know the base currency the client books in (typically SGD for Singapore-incorporated entities).
• [ ] You have agreed a materiality threshold with the client — the SGD amount above which an entry is auto-flagged for human review (typical range: SGD 50–200).
• [ ] You have the client's chart of accounts (CSV export from their existing system, or a starter list).
• [ ] You have a list of the client's regular vendors (the top 20–50 they pay every month — landlord, utilities, recurring SaaS, key suppliers).
• [ ] You know which ingestion channel the client will use to send documents — WhatsApp, Google Drive, SharePoint, or Dropbox.

TIP

If the client doesn't yet have a clean chart of accounts, ask them to export it from their accounting platform first. Walking in without it forces a guess at the keyword triggers, and the first batch will come back UNCLASSIFIED on most lines.

Steps

1. Create the client

1. Open Clients in the staff dashboard sidebar.
2. Click New client in the top right.
3. Fill in:
   • Client code — the short code your firm uses internally.
   • Legal name — e.g. Mason Industries Pte Ltd.
   • Timezone — typically Asia/Singapore.
   • Default schedule day — only used by payroll; leave at the default if this client is bookkeeping-only.
4. Click Create client. You'll land on the client detail page.

2. Enable the BOOKKEEPING product

1. On the client detail page, open the Settings tab.
2. Under Profile, click Edit, tick Bookkeeping under Enabled products, and click Save. A new Bookkeeping section appears further down the Settings tab.

3. Configure base currency, materiality, and platform

1. Scroll to the Bookkeeping section in Settings.
2. Set:
   • Accounting platform — Xero / QuickBooks / Zoho Books / Tally.
   • Base currency — typically SGD.
   • Materiality threshold — the SGD amount that triggers REVIEWER_ATTENTION_REQUIRED on entries above it.
3. Click Save.

4. Add the chart of accounts

The chart of accounts powers the keyword-match arm of classification (Priority 2 in the SOP). Without it the platform falls back to category inference and most entries land as UNCLASSIFIED.

See Configure chart of accounts — bulk CSV upload is the fastest path; manual add for one-off corrections later.

5. Seed the vendor master

The vendor master powers the highest-confidence classification arm (Priority 1) — exact vendor match returns a HIGH confidence entry with no human review required. The first 20–50 known vendors give you the biggest gain.

See Add vendors to vendor master.

6. Set up at least one ingestion channel

A bookkeeping client is useless to the platform until documents can flow in. Configure at least one of: WhatsApp Business number, Google Drive folder, SharePoint folder, or Dropbox folder.

See Set up an ingestion channel.

7. Add at least one contact who can submit

For reconciliation: when there are unreconciled items, the platform emails one or more contacts to ask for supporting documents. That contact must have Can submit intake ticked on their profile.

1. On the client detail page, open the Contacts tab.
2. Click Add contact, fill in name and email, tick Can submit intake, click Save.
3. Verify they receive any test communication you want to send.

How to know it worked

Open the client detail page. Three signals say onboarding is complete:

1. Setup health panel on the Overview tab is green across the board — accounting platform, base currency, chart of accounts, vendor master, ingestion channel.
2. The Bookkeeping tab appears next to Overview (it only surfaces when the BOOKKEEPING product is enabled).
3. The Contacts tab shows at least one active contact with Can submit = yes.

The activity log (sidebar → Activity log) will show: client.created, client.updated (for the product toggle), and entries for chart-of-accounts upload, vendor-master upload, and ingestion-channel creation.

What the client sees

Onboarding is a behind-the-scenes activity — the client doesn't receive an email automatically. If you want to introduce the platform, send them a welcome message yourself. They will only start receiving automated emails when the first reconciliation run produces unreconciled items needing their input — see the reconciliation magic-link template for what that email looks like.

Common situations

If you see…	It means…	What to do
Bookkeeping section is missing from Settings	The BOOKKEEPING product hasn't been toggled on	Step 2 above — tick Bookkeeping under Enabled products and save
Setup health stays red on Chart of accounts after upload	The CSV import had row errors and only partial rows landed	Reopen Configure chart of accounts, check the import error report, fix and re-upload
Setup health stays red on Ingestion channel	No active channel — the one you added may have been left in a draft state	Open the channel, confirm it's set to Active
The first document goes in but no batch appears	Usually means the chart of accounts or vendor master is too thin and everything sits as UNCLASSIFIED	See A document didn't appear in any batch

Related runbooks

• Configure chart of accounts
• Add vendors to vendor master
• Set up an ingestion channel
• Upload a document manually — for a controlled first end-to-end test
• Review a journal batch
• RBAC matrix — which roles can do what
• Bookkeeping SOP — the full source-of-truth process