Everything you need to know about our simple onboarding process

We’ve been around long enough to watch loads of businesses lose time and money because of bad accountants. Why? Well, most business owners can’t be bothered with the stress and hassle that comes with changing accountants – but we’re here to tell you that switching and onboarding to Project Alfred couldn’t be easier.

Why should I bother changing accountants?

Believe it or not, accountants are interested in more than just excel spreadsheets, numbers, and copious amounts of paperwork (shock horror!). A great accountant should do more than just pop up at tax time. They should provide expert and strategic advice, make sure your business is compliant, save you money, and help grow your business.

You can chat to us about a lot more than what might typically come to mind when you think of an accountant. For example, we can give you a whole heap of advice on how you can make the most of your technology. We would love to tell you about some of our favourite tools and how to best use those apps, helping you save a bunch of time in the process and allowing you to focus on other areas of your business.

You might not know this, but you can also speak to your accountant about your business and personal goals. If you’ve never considered your accountant as someone you can speak to and trust with this level of support and advice, then maybe it's time to think about making a change.

Our onboarding process

1. Book a discovery call

This call helps us know if we’re a good fit for each other (and avoids the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ chat later on). If we’re both on the same page, then we’ll organise a time to meet in person or speak on a video chat. (You can book your discovery call here)

2. Answer a couple of questions

After the discovery call, we’ll send you a fact-finding form that gives us info about how your business’ finances are currently set up.

Some of the questions we ask include:

• How many timesheet employees do you have?
• How many salaried employees do you have?
• How often are your employees paid?
• What day of the week are your employees paid?
• What software do you use?
• Who has bank authorisation?
• Who holds the work cover and payroll tax logins?
• What parts do you want us to manage?

3. Meet with us in person (or over Zoom)

The next major step of our onboarding process is your first meeting with us. Much like going on a first date or changing hairdressers, meeting with a new accountant can be nerve-wracking. Sharing your businesses finances might leave you feeling exposed but we want this process to be empowering.

We generally ask a bunch of questions about your personal and business ambitions. You’ll also find out what it’s like to work with us, what you want from us and how we can help you achieve your goals.

You don’t need to bring anything physical but you should be ready to have a chat about your situation. We don’t want this to feel like an interrogation, but we do want to talk about how much money you want from your business, how you hope to achieve that goal and what you’ll use those funds for. This chat also allows us to provide the most accurate quote and scope.

4. Come armed with your own questions

It’s pretty normal to have questions when onboarding with an accountant. There’s no such thing as a dumb question, but to save you time, we’ve listed answers to some of the most common questions we get asked.

• How much do you charge?

We want to be as transparent as possible and show all our fees in our proposal. Our prices will grow as your business hopefully grows (but can also be reduced if needed). You can get an idea of costs with our pricing calculator.

• What’s your response time ?

We try to get back to you within the day. If we can’t reply properly at that time, we’ll give you an idea of when we’ll be able to respond in full (usually no more than 24 hours).

• How will you communicate with me?

This depends on your needs – we’re flexible. We speak to a range of clients in a variety of ways. This communication can include email, phone calls, video calls or face-to-face meetings and all depends on your own situation.

What happens next?

We’ll send a proposal ASAP after our first meeting together (no longer than one business day). We’ll also follow up if we haven’t heard anything from you regarding the proposal.
Once you’ve agreed to work with us, we do a lot of work behind the scenes like talking with your previous accountant (if you had one), sorting past financials, and transferring any of your subscriptions or documents over to us. This makes it a simple process for you – leave the heavy lifting to us.

Unhappy with your current accountant or need a new one? We’re here to help.

You might think that switching accountants or outsourcing your bookkeeping is a drawn-out and tiring process. But now that you know for yourself how easy our onboarding process actually is, what’s stopping you from working with an accountant that you actually like spending time with?

We’re more than happy to make room for any unique needs you might have, all you need to do is ask. We hope that taking you through our simple process step-by-step helps you feel confident that we deliver on what we promise and that we can help your business right away.

We don’t just want to be your accountants – we want to be your trusted business partners and we want to see your business succeed just as much as we do our own.

Book a discovery call