A client onboarding checklist works when every item has an owner and an artifact: the person who does it and the thing that exists when it is done. The checklist below runs in four phases: before kickoff, week one, the first 30 days and the first 90 days. The sales handoff, an introduction email and a kickoff email are included. A copy you can download is at /tools/client-onboarding-checklist.
Four phases. Before kickoff: take the handoff from sales, send the introduction email, book the kickoff, request access. Week one: run the kickoff, agree the plan and the measures, confirm who owns what. First 30 days: deliver something visible, hold the first check-in, confirm every access works. First 90 days: the first result against a measure, the first review, a written account summary. Each item below has an owner and an artifact.
What should a client onboarding checklist include?
The items that, if skipped, surface as a problem later. Access that was never granted shows up as a missed deadline in week three. A kickoff without agreed measures shows up as a review in month three where nobody can say whether it is going well.
A handoff from sales that lost the promise about the discount shows up as an invoice dispute. The checklist is the list of those later problems, moved to the point where they are cheap to prevent.
Owner means a named person on your side, even for items the client has to do, because someone has to chase. Artifact means a document, a message, a calendar entry or a record that exists when the item is done. An item with no artifact gets marked complete from memory, and memory is generous.
The handoff from sales
Onboarding starts before the client meets the account team, in the handoff. The person who sold the work knows things that were never written down. What the client is nervous about, who pushed back, what was promised on a call to get the signature. Account handoffs fail because that knowledge stays in the salesperson's head, so the handoff note is the first artifact on the list.
- The commercial terms as the client understands them, including anything agreed verbally, with the date and the thread or call where it was agreed.
- Who the decision maker is, who the day-to-day contact will be, and who on the client's side was against the purchase.
- What the client is trying to achieve in their own words, copied from the proposal or a discovery call.
- Every promise made during the sale that the delivery team now owns: a start date, a named person on the account, a report format, a response time.
- The threads. Forward or share the full sales correspondence so the account team reads what the client read.
Before kickoff
| Item | Owner | Artifact |
|---|---|---|
| Receive the handoff note and read the sales threads | Account owner | Handoff note filed with the account |
| Send the introduction email within one working day of signature | Account owner | The sent email, with the kickoff invitation attached or linked |
| Book the kickoff within the first week, with the decision maker invited | Account owner | Calendar invite accepted by the client |
| Request access: systems, accounts, brand assets, data, billing contact | Project lead | Access request list with each item marked granted or pending |
| Set the client up in your own systems: shared inbox, project tool, billing | Operations | Client record exists; mail from the client's domain reaches the right people |
| Draft the plan for the first 30 days with named deliverables | Project lead | Draft plan ready to walk through at kickoff |
| Confirm the internal team and tell each person what they own | Account owner | Internal kickoff held, roles written in the account record |
Week one
| Item | Owner | Artifact |
|---|---|---|
| Run the kickoff: goals in the client's words, the plan, the measures, who owns what | Account owner | Kickoff notes sent the same day, with decisions and owners |
| Agree how you will work together: channels, meeting cadence, who approves what, response time expectations both ways | Account owner | A one-page working agreement, inside the kickoff notes |
| Agree two or three measures and what good looks like at 90 days | Account owner and client | Measures with targets written in the kickoff notes |
| Send the kickoff email with the notes, the plan and the first asks of the client | Account owner | The sent email; every ask of the client has a date |
| Chase every pending access item | Project lead | Access list with nothing pending by day five |
| Introduce every teammate who will write to the client | Account owner | Each teammate copied on one thread with a one-line introduction |
The first 30 days
| Item | Owner | Artifact |
|---|---|---|
| Deliver one visible thing the client can react to, however small | Project lead | The deliverable, and the client's reply to it |
| Hold the first check-in: progress against the plan, blockers, anything the client asked that is still open | Account owner | Check-in notes with open items and owners |
| Confirm the first invoice went out as the client expected | Operations | Invoice sent; no query from the client, or the query resolved |
| Review every question the client asked in month one and confirm each got a full answer | Account owner | A list of open client questions, ideally empty |
| Write down every commitment made to the client so far and its status | Account owner | Commitment list in the account record |
| Ask the client how the first month felt, in one direct question | Account owner | The client's answer, filed, with anything it raised added to the plan |
The first 90 days
| Item | Owner | Artifact |
|---|---|---|
| Report the first result against a measure agreed at kickoff | Project lead | A one-page result, sent before the review |
| Hold the first review using a QBR structure: commitments both ways, open questions, what changed on their side, next quarter | Account owner | Review notes and next quarter's commitments, agreed in the room |
| Reconfirm the people: who has joined or left on the client side since kickoff | Account owner | Updated contact list in the account record |
| Write the account summary: goals, measures, people, commitments, risks, how they like to work | Account owner | A summary any teammate could cover the account from |
| Set the regular cadence from here: check-ins, reports, reviews | Account owner | Recurring calendar entries accepted by the client |
| Close onboarding explicitly and tell the client who their day-to-day contact is from now on | Account owner | The closing email |
The introduction email to a new client
The introduction email goes out within a working day of the signature, from the person who will own the account. It names the owner, books the kickoff, and asks for the first thing you need. The bracketed parts change.
- Subject: Your [Company] team, and a time for kickoff
- Hi Priya,
- Welcome aboard. I'm Jordan, and I'll be running your account from here, so anything you need lands with me first. Sam, who you worked with on the proposal, has walked me through everything, including the reporting format you asked for and the April start.
- Two things to get us moving. Could you hold 45 minutes next week for kickoff? I've proposed Tuesday at 10 and Thursday at 2 in the invite attached; pick either or suggest another. And could you send over the access list I've attached, or tell me who on your side I should ask?
- I'll send the plan for the first month before we meet, so we can spend the kickoff talking about your priorities.
- Jordan
If the account owner also sold the work, cut the second sentence. If the client has several people, send one email to the decision maker and the day-to-day contact together.
The kickoff email
The kickoff email goes out the same day as the meeting. It records what was agreed and carries the first asks of the client with dates, so someone who missed the meeting could pick up from it.
- Subject: Kickoff notes and next steps, [Company] and [Your company]
- Hi Priya, Marcus,
- Thanks for this morning. Here's what we agreed, so we're working from the same page.
- Goals, in your words: [the two or three sentences the client used]. Measures at 90 days: [measure and target], [measure and target].
- How we'll work: weekly check-in Thursdays at 11, approvals through Marcus within two working days, anything urgent to me by phone. We'll reply to anything from you within one working day.
- What we owe you: the first-month plan by Friday (me), the onboarding questionnaire by Monday (Lena). What we need from you: access to the analytics account by Wednesday, and brand assets by the end of next week.
- Tell me if I've got any of this wrong. Otherwise, see you Thursday.
- Jordan
Mistakes that show up in month three
- Marking items done with no artifact. If the kickoff notes were never sent, the kickoff decisions exist in three people's memories, each different.
- Letting the client own the chasing. Items the client has to do still need an owner on your side, because the client has a day job.
- Agreeing goals without measures. A goal with no number attached cannot be reviewed, and the 90-day review becomes a conversation about feelings.
- Skipping the handoff because the salesperson is busy. The promises made in the sale are the ones the client remembers longest.
- Introducing teammates by surprise. A new name on a thread with no introduction reads as turnover, and turnover worries clients.
- Running onboarding from one person's inbox. If the account owner is out in week two, nobody can see what was promised or what is pending.
Running the checklist from a shared inbox
The hardest items on the checklist depend on reading the threads. The promises in the sales correspondence, the client questions in month one that got a partial answer, the commitments made in passing on a Tuesday. In a personal Gmail or Outlook mailbox those live with one person, which is why onboarding breaks when that person is away.
We build Sektra, a shared inbox that syncs with Gmail, Outlook, IMAP and WhatsApp Business, and it is built for this stretch of an account. Mail stays where it is. From signature onward every thread with the client is visible to the account team, with assignment and internal notes on the thread. The handoff from sales becomes a shared view of the correspondence rather than a forwarded bundle.
The memory layer, Sektra's record per client, pulls commitments and open questions out of the threads as they arrive. The month-one list of unanswered client questions and the running commitment list exist without anyone compiling them. Reminders cancel themselves when the client replies, so the access request you are chasing stops nagging the moment the login arrives.
The morning digest lists what you owe and who owes you, including every thread where the client has been quiet for three or more days. Agencies run several onboardings at once from the same view. Account management teams carry the record forward past day 90. That is how a teammate inheriting the account later gets the history. The product page covers the rest.
Download the checklist
The downloadable version at /tools/client-onboarding-checklist has the four phases with owner and artifact columns, the handoff note outline, and both email templates. Copy it into a sheet or your project tool. Add your own items under each phase, and keep the owner and artifact columns for every one of them.
Onboarding is the only phase of an account where the client is paying full attention, so it is the cheapest time to get the record right.
