What happens after you sign the rate card.
Onboarding, turnaround, QC review, the tools we work in, the escalation path, and how offboarding actually runs — published so you can hold us to it before your first client file moves.
The same calendar every engagement runs on.
This is the delivery process, not the sales process — published so you can hold us to the dates before your rate card is signed. Everything below applies whether the client file comes from a firm or directly to us.
Day 1
Step 1 of 4
The day the scope is signed
Paperwork and people before access.
Nothing is opened, connected or downloaded until the contractual position is settled and you know the name of the person who will be in your ledger. This order is deliberate — it is the part most providers do last.
What we do
- Execute a multi-jurisdictional NDA covering every country in scope, before any access request is made.
- Confirm the written scope and fixed price you were quoted within 24 hours of the discovery call — the same document, unchanged.
- Assign and introduce your delivery lead by name, matched to your accounting software and workflow before they open a file.
- Name your single point of contact and the escalation path behind them, so cover never depends on one person being awake.
What we need from you
- Countersigned NDA and scope.
- The name of the person on your side who can answer coding questions — the one who knows what a transaction actually was.
- A list of every legal entity and jurisdiction in scope, including dormant ones.
You end up holding A signed NDA, a fixed written scope, and the name of the person doing the work.
Week 1
Step 2 of 4
First five working days
We read the whole file before we change anything.
The first week is diagnosis, not production. We would rather tell you in week one that the opening balances do not tie than discover it in month three, which is why every case study on this site has a “what we found” section.
What we do
- Take least-privilege access inside your own platform — QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite or Zoho — scoped to what the engagement requires and nothing more. Nothing is copied to a local drive.
- Review the current state: bank and card reconciliation status, chart of accounts, opening balances, control and suspense accounts, and anything sitting unreconciled.
- Map the filing calendar for the next twelve months across every jurisdiction in scope, owned by the compliance team rather than the bookkeeping team.
- Fix the close calendar — the specific date each month your reviewed statements land.
What we need from you
- Access granted by you, inside your platform, to the named individual — not a shared login handed over by email.
- Your last filed statutory accounts and returns for each entity.
- Payroll provider details where payroll is in scope.
You end up holding A written findings note: what is clean, what is not, what will need restating, and what we cannot answer without documents from you.
Month 1
Step 3 of 4
First full close under our calendar
The first close is the real test.
Month one is where a handover either holds or does not. It runs on the same fixed calendar every subsequent month will, so you are seeing the steady state rather than a launch effort.
What we do
- Run the first month-end close: reviewed P&L, balance sheet and reconciliation pack, delivered within 7–10 business days of month-end.
- Correct anything from the week-one findings that belongs in the current period. Historic restatement is quoted separately as a catch-up or cleanup project, in writing, before it starts.
- Prepare the first filings that fall due where compliance is in scope. Where your jurisdiction requires a registered agent to lodge, we tell you in writing who lodges and under whose registration — we do not hold the firm out as a registered agent.
- Hold a 30-day review with your delivery lead against the findings note, so the two documents can be compared line by line.
What we need from you
- Source documents for anything the week-one review flagged as unsupported.
- A decision on any historic restatement we have quoted.
- Half an hour for the 30-day review.
You end up holding Your first reviewed month-end pack, plus a closed-out findings note.
Ongoing
Step 4 of 4
Every month after
A fixed calendar, and no surprise invoices.
Steady state is deliberately boring. The value is that the dates do not move, the person does not change without notice, and the price does not change without a written re-quote first.
What we do
- Reconcile bank and card accounts weekly, so month-end is a review rather than a reconstruction.
- Deliver reviewed monthly statements within 7–10 business days of month-end, on the fixed calendar agreed in week one.
- Track filing deadlines in every jurisdiction in scope through a compliance team kept separate from bookkeeping, so liability and pricing stay clean.
- Re-quote in writing before scope changes are worked — not on the next invoice.
What we need from you
- Documents and coding answers within the agreed window each month.
- Notice of anything structural: a new entity, a new country, a new revenue model, an acquisition.
You end up holding A reviewed monthly pack on a date you can put in a calendar, indefinitely.
The onboarding checklist
Published in full, split by who owns each item. You can see the whole ask before the first call, and it is obvious which side is holding a delay.
What we bring
- Multi-jurisdictional NDADrafted and executed for every country in scope before any access is requested.
- Fixed written scope and priceWithin 24 hours of the discovery call. No open-ended hourly billing.
- Named delivery lead and coverA named person, plus the escalation path behind them, before onboarding starts.
- Twelve-month deadline mapEvery filing date across every jurisdiction in scope, produced in week one.
- Close calendarThe date each month your reviewed statements land, fixed and not moved.
- Written findings noteWhat is clean, what is not, and what we could not verify — end of week one.
What we need from you
- Scoped access to your platformGranted by you, inside QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite or Zoho, to the named individual. Never a shared login.
- Connected bank and card feedsLive feeds beat exported statements — they are what makes weekly reconciliation possible.
- Last filed accounts and returnsPer entity. This is what opening balances are tied back to.
- Entity and jurisdiction listIncluding dormant entities and any country you have registered in but stopped trading in.
- Payroll provider detailsWhere payroll is in scope, including the filing cadence you are currently on.
- One person who can answer coding questionsThe person who knows what an unlabelled transaction actually was. Nothing slows a close more.
A close date you can put in a calendar.
The dates below are what's written into the rate card and the scope for each SKU — see the full rate card.
Starter & Growth
Reviewed month-end pack delivered within 7–10 business days of month-end, on a fixed calendar agreed at kickoff — the same date every month.
Cleanup block
No monthly SLA — this is project work. You get a written timeline alongside the quote, before the 20-hour minimum starts.
Dedicated seat
Continuous capacity rather than a single monthly deliverable. Your named accountant works to your practice's own cadence, not a delivery date we set.
A second reviewer, on every file.
Every deliverable passes a reviewer who did not prepare it before it reaches your queue — the same second-reviewer standard described in the case studies on this site, applied to every file rather than only the ones worth writing up.
What the reviewer checks
- Reconciliation against source — bank feed, card feed and any manual entries tie out before the pack is assembled.
- Coding against your chart of accounts, not a generic one — the file has to match the conventions your firm already runs on.
- File naming and folder structure, so the deliverable drops into your queue looking like it was prepared in-house.
Your platform, not ours.
We work with access scoped inside your platform — QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, Zoho, or your own practice management system — under your file-naming conventions and your chart of accounts. Nothing is copied to a local drive or a second system, and access is granted by you, to the named individual, never a shared login.
Cover never depends on one person being awake.
Your delivery lead is named at kickoff and is the first point of contact for anything about the file. The escalation path behind them is named in the same onboarding pack — never a shared inbox you have to guess at when something is time-sensitive.
- 01Your named delivery lead — the person who actually worked the file.
- 02Your account owner, named in the onboarding pack, if the delivery lead is unavailable.
Ending the engagement doesn't mean rebuilding the file.
Notice runs to whatever your engagement letter sets — there is no separate lock-in period. When it ends, access is revoked and the file stays exactly as it was built: in your own software, under your own templates and file-naming conventions. Bringing it back in-house or moving it to another provider does not mean re-keying anything, because the file was never built in a format only we could read.
Now put a client through it.
Tell us where you trade and what shape the books are in. You get scope, price and a start date in writing within one business day — no obligation.