How to Create an Onboarding Process for New Team Members in Your Bookkeeping Firm

Feb 3

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In my experience, onboarding new team members is wayyy too overlooked when you’re running a bookkeeping or accounting firm.

It’s easy to put off hiring someone to support you because you think that no one can serve your clients like you can. You don’t even know how you would BEGIN to explain what you do every day. Or, you don’t think you have the time to look for the right candidate and you’re afraid it will be a disaster.

Trust me, I’ve had all the same thoughts fly through my mind too!

I told myself I didn’t NEED anyone to support me.

I hated the thought of admitting that I couldn’t “do it all”.

I thought that if I did hire, I’d spend too much time double-checking someone else’s work because I couldn’t trust them.

FINALLY, I was able to go all Myth Busters on my own brain and hire a team that I could fully trust AND supported me while I scaled my bookkeeping and tax firm to a six-figure income.

It turns out, you don’t have to have the perfect plan when you hire, onboard, and train a new team member.

BUT, in order to onboard successfully, you do need some kind of process in place.

In this blog, we’re going to cover my formula for a successful onboarding process for new team members.

You’ll learn:

Why an onboarding process is SUPER important
The phases of an effective onboarding process
Our top tips on successfully training new team members

Why is an Onboarding Process So Important?

When I ran my first bookkeeping and tax firm, I got so desperate to hire a supporting bookkeeper that I hired someone WAY too fast. I hired a bookkeeping contractor thinking, “She knows how to do the work, I don’t need to tell her what to do.”

Nope! I may not have needed to tell her how to DO the bookkeeping work, but I should have given her more direction on how to successfully work with me, my clients, and my firm.

Instead, I just threw her into the fire without taking the time to give her context and details upfront. I skipped this step because I didn’t want to spend the time easing her in, I just wanted her to help me with my client work!

The result? She wasn’t meeting my expectations, work was late, and tasks were slipping through the cracks. I felt like I had chosen the wrong candidate and I was going to have to let her go.

Finally, I realized that it wasn’t her fault she didn’t meet my expectations. It was MY responsibility to provide her with all the information she needed to efficiently do her job - aka taking the time to properly onboard my new team member.

Shift Your Mindset Around Onboarding Team Members

Have you already hired and fired a team member because they weren’t the right fit? Or did you fail to set them up with the information they needed to excel at their job?

Yes, you could give an employee everything they need and they still don’t work out.

But chances are, you could reduce your turnover by front loading the work to set up new employees to succeed right from the start.

Note: Making a good first impression is SUPER important if you want to retain your team! If their first few weeks working for you is chaotic and stressful, they might become less engaged and consider moving on.

I’m telling you from experience that it’s SO WORTH taking the time to properly onboard and train your team.

Ditch the thought that you’re better off doing it all yourself. Typically, the answer is that it’s your process that needs improvement, NOT your team member.

Let’s dive into the details of exactly how to create an onboarding process!

The 3 Phases of Effectively Onboarding a New Team Member

Phase 1: Make a Plan

The most important part of creating your onboarding process is making a plan. It doesn’t have to be fancy, but it has to be effective.

If you’re not sure where to start, consider this:

What do they need to know first?
What will they be responsible for?
How can I make this information as clear as possible?
How are they going to learn it?
Where is everything they need?
Who is their point of contact in the company?
How long will the onboarding process take?
What are some quick wins we can give them?

Jot down some answers to these questions to get an idea on how to map out your new team member onboarding process.

Phase 2: Document the Plan

Once you know what your new team member needs to learn, you’ll need to decide HOW they’ll learn it.

We’ve built out an onboarding program that contains video lessons, quizzes, and assignments. New team members will go through the program over the course of 4 weeks so they don’t feel overwhelmed with training AND actually doing the job. This gives them the opportunity to really absorb the information and ask questions without feeling rushed.

Keep in mind: We have a full-time team with a heavy emphasis on efficiency. If you don’t have the capacity to build out a full onboarding program for new team members - don’t do it! You can totally provide an awesome onboarding experience without going the internal course route.

But, if you DO want to build out an internal course for your firm, we’ll show you exactly how to do it (with templates) in our group coaching program: Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants! Plus, you’ll get our Team Member Onboarding Asana template!

Here’s how you can easily, but effectively, document information for your new hire:

ONLY add them to their personal onboarding project in Asana. This project should contain any tasks, due dates, and information they may need to be successful. If you don’t use Asana, at least provide a checklist for them to follow!
Categorize the topics they’ll need to learn. Try to keep similar topics together so your new team member doesn’t get confused. You might organize it so that week one focuses only on getting to know the team, how the company operates, etc.
If you don’t have SOPs for everything yet, schedule Zoom calls with your new team member so you can walk them through the “how” so they can shadow you. Record these sessions and give them access for future reference. Bonus: You can use these calls again in the future for the next hire!
Give your new team member access to management in a private Slack channel. This is a great way to offer ongoing support throughout the day without your new hire feeling like they’re being watched. Slack is a super convenient way to open the line of communication just in case they have questions that need a quick response.

Phase 3: Execute the Plan

Whoop whoop! Now you’re ready to put this process into motion and actually onboard your new team member!

Increase engagement and excitement right off the bat! Design your onboarding process to include a few quick wins that are easy for your team member to achieve based on their new knowledge.

Remember to be patient with your new hire as they go through the process and learn to work in your firm. If this is the first time you’ve tested your new onboarding process, be patient with yourself as well!

Engaging with your team member and asking for feedback is a HUGE part of empowering your team. Let them know that they can come to you with any feedback or opportunities for improvement in the onboarding process (or any aspect of your firm). Just because something makes sense to you, the same might not be true to an outsider.

Record any questions you get asked and build out a Frequently Asked Questions list as an extra reference!

5 Quick Tips for Successfully Training New Team Members

1. Keep It Simple

Don’t give them access to anything outside of the training materials at first. Keep the scope of information limited only to what they need to know during each stage of the onboarding process. This helps eliminate distractions and help your team member stay on track.

2. Clarify Company Values

We always recommend this as one of the first things you do in your onboarding process. It’s super important that your team members understand, align with, and embody your company values to ensure consistency. Pro tip: create a cute presentation of your company culture and core values and record a Loom video explaining them. This helps to show your passion and your WHY behind your firm!

3. Be Accessible

Ensure your team has access to all the information and resources they need to be successful in their role. They don’t need access to everything right off the bat, but as they go through the onboarding process, you’ll need to add them to Asana projects, pages in Notion, and Slack channels in order to work efficiently.

Make sure that you (or whoever is going to manage your team) are also accessible to your team member. Let them know HOW to best communicate with you so there is no confusion. Maybe it’s a Slack channel, email, or text messages. We recommend you pick one and stay consistent!

4. Personalize the Experience

Take the time to introduce your new team member to everyone else on the team so they feel super welcome. Even if you’re all remote, there are still so many fun ways to connect with each other!

We LOVE giving gifts around here, and we highly recommend you consider it as well! We send each of our new hires a personalized gift box once they complete their onboarding program.

5. Nurture and Engage

Remember that even though you hired a team member to support your firm, it’s also crucial that they feel supported as well. By taking the time to check in with your team members, you’ll maintain a happier team over time.

We recommend a fun Slack channel where there’s no work-talk allowed! Charcuterie boards, dog photos, and memes are highly encouraged!

So there you have it! Were you surprised to learn that onboarding that new team member you’ve dreamt of hiring isn’t actually so complicated?

Sure, it’s going to take some work upfront to ensure you’re passing along all the important info, but the time you’ll SAVE in the long run is totally worth it!

Whether you decide to go with an internal training course or take a different approach, don’t expect it to be perfect! Like all your other processes and systems, it’ll need to adapt and grow alongside your firm.

If you want to learn our exact method for creating an internal onboarding program, how to use Asana to guide new hires through the process, and the easiest ways to create employee loyalty...

We’re handing over TONS of done-for-you resources that will make onboarding new team members an absolute breeze. Plus, you’ll have full access to our unique POWER framework as part The Bookkeeper Breakthrough Approach that we teach inside the program.

Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants is everything you need to start building those deep internal systems that will take your firm to the next level!

TELL ME MORE ABOUT BREAKTHROUGH!