How to handover your clients

I’m often asked how to hand over your precious clients to the new bookkeeper on your team. Imagine your business is a dam and you are full to the brim. To release the pressure you have to open the spillway carefully. If you send too much water down into the valley too quickly you risk flooding.

You gently open the spillway and hand over a few of your precious clients to the new bookkeeper who is waiting in the valley below and who is tested and trained. You hand over the easy clients first. Just a few at a time so she doesn’t drown. You supervise her in your office so she can ask as many questions as she needs. You make sure the Client’s Bookkeeping Manual is completed during the handover which includes detailed instructions about the bookkeeping process and you don’t let go until you see that she is coping and the client is happy. Once she proves herself, you can send her to onsite clients and give her more complex work.

The water recedes as you share the workload. You’re no longer drowning. You close the spillway, continue your marketing and start to fill up again, only this time you don’t fill up to the brim. As soon as the bookkeeper is ready for more work, you open the spillway and hand over more clients. The new bookkeeper takes care of existing clients because you’re familiar with the work and you know how long the job should take. You’re responsible for rescues and new client start-ups. You continue with that process until the bookkeeper says they are almost full. Then you start recruiting again.

As your turnover increases, the amount of bookkeeping hours you do reduces, leaving you more time to work ON your business.