A client bookkeeping procedures document is a short written guide to one client's books: every account and where its statement comes from, the categorization rules and why they exist, the quirks that catch newcomers, who to contact, and the steps of the monthly close. Its test is simple: could someone else close the month from it alone?
What goes in a client bookkeeping procedures document?
The document needs six sections: a client overview, the accounts and their statement sources, the categorization rules, the quirks, the contacts, and the close steps with their timing. Each section answers a question a stand-in would otherwise have to ask you. Keep it to two or three pages; longer documents stop being read.
The overview is a few lines: what the business does, its entity type, its fiscal year, which accounting system holds the books, and the start date of your engagement. The close steps can often point to your practice's standard checklist and list only where this client differs from it.
A template, filled in
The example below is for a fictional client, and every detail is made up. It shows the level of detail that works: specific enough to act on, short enough to read in five minutes.
| Section | Example content |
|---|---|
| Overview | Example Plumbing LLC, two-member LLC, calendar year, QuickBooks Online, engaged since March |
| Accounts | Checking 4417 (operating), Savings 8821 (tax reserve), Card 9032 (fuel and parts) |
| Statement sources | Checking and savings: bank portal, client forwards PDFs on the 3rd. Card: emailed on the 14th |
| Rules | Supply house payments to Job Materials. Fuel cards to Vehicle Fuel. Transfers to savings are transfers, never expense |
| Quirks | Owner pays two personal phone lines from checking: owner draw. Card cycle ends on the 12th |
| Contacts | Owner: statements and coding questions, replies within a day by text. Office manager: invoices only |
| Close | Standard checklist. Card statement waits until the 14th. Report to owner by the 10th of the next month |
The accounts and statement sources section of a procedures document
This section lists every account the client has, its purpose, where its statement comes from, and when it usually arrives. It is the part a stand-in reaches for first, because nothing else can start until the statements are in. An account missing from this list is an account missing from the close.
Write each account as one line with the same fields every time: name and last four digits, type, purpose, statement source, usual arrival date, and the person who sends it. If the client gives you portal access, note where the login is stored, never the login itself. If the statement is a paper statement the client scans, say so, because scans need a closer look.
Include accounts that are easy to forget: a dormant savings account, a loan statement that arrives quarterly, a card used only twice a year. Closed accounts belong in a short history list at the bottom, with their closing month, so nobody goes looking for a statement that no longer exists.
Card accounts deserve a note on their cycle date and on how payments from checking are recorded. The guide to credit card statement bookkeeping covers why payments are transfers and how mid-month cycles affect the close.
Writing categorization rules into a procedures document
Write down the rules that need a reason, not every rule in the system. A rule that sends the phone company to Telephone needs no explanation. A rule that sends one supplier to Cost of Goods Sold and a similar supplier to Repairs does, because someone fixing a line in a hurry will otherwise "correct" it the wrong way.
A useful format is one line per rule: vendor or description pattern, the account it goes to, and the reason. Put the exceptions next to the rule. "Hardware store: Job Materials, except purchases under 50.00, which are Shop Supplies" is the kind of detail that lives only in a bookkeeper's head until it is written down.
When the client's statements are converted with AutoBankConvert, the rules you write and each client's past coding assign accounts automatically, and uncertain lines go to a review queue. The rules themselves live in the client's workspace. The procedures document should hold the reasoning behind them, which a stand-in needs when a line lands in review.
Income needs its own note
Explain how the client's income arrives and how it is recorded. A client paid by checks, card processors and a marketplace has three different paths into the bank, and each one may need a different entry. If the year's processor forms will not match the deposits, say so and say why; Form 1099-K compared with bank deposits explains the usual reasons for the gap.
Recording client quirks in a procedures document
A quirk is anything about this client that would surprise a competent bookkeeper meeting the books for the first time. Personal bills paid from the business account, a deposit that looks like income but is a loan repayment, a vendor who invoices quarterly: each belongs in the quirks list, with what to do about it.
Write quirks as instructions, not stories. "Owner's spouse sometimes deposits personal checks into business checking; ask the owner before coding any deposit under 500.00 that has no invoice" is usable. "The owner's family is involved in the business" is not. Each quirk should tell the reader what to look for and what to do when they find it.
Typical quirks worth recording:
- Personal expenses that recur on business accounts, and how they are coded.
- Transfers that look like payments, such as a loan to a related company.
- Seasonal patterns, such as a large annual insurance payment in one month.
- Deposits that need the client's confirmation before they are coded.
- Statements that regularly arrive late or incomplete.
Who should a procedures document list as contacts?
List each person a stand-in may need, with their role, what to ask them about, how they prefer to be reached and how quickly they usually reply. Include the client's tax preparer if you hand work to one. A name with no role or channel is not much help on the day the regular bookkeeper is away.
Response habits matter as much as names. An owner who answers texts in an hour but ignores email for a week should be described exactly that way. If the client has asked that certain people not be contacted about money, write that down too.
Add the practice side as well: who normally works the client, who reviews the close, and who to escalate to. The client should never notice a change of person, and clear internal contacts are how that happens.
Keeping a client procedures document current
The document stays useful only if it changes when the client does. Update it during the close, at the moment something new is learned, not in a quarterly tidy-up that never comes. A one-line change made the same day takes a minute. A change remembered three months later usually does not get made.
Build the update into the routine. A short weekly pass over each client file is a good place to catch changes; a weekly bookkeeping routine for client books can carry one extra step: did anything this week change an account, a rule, a quirk or a contact? If yes, update the document before moving on.
Date every change at the bottom of the document, with one line saying what changed. That small log tells a reader how fresh each part is. It also helps when a client asks why something was coded differently last year.
The document is also part of the client's records. The IRS page on how long to keep records gives three years as the default period, with longer periods in some situations. Keeping older versions of the procedures document alongside the books helps explain past coding if a question comes up later.
Procedures documents a stand-in cannot follow
A procedures document fails when it is written for its author rather than for a stranger. Abbreviations nobody else knows, references to "the usual fix," steps that assume access the reader does not have, and rules with no reasons all make the document useless on the day it is needed, which is usually a day nobody can ask the author.
Test the document the hard way. Ask a colleague who has never worked the client to close one month from it, and to write down every question they have to ask. Each question is a gap. A clean test month with no questions is the only reliable proof that the document works.
Common failures and their fixes:
- Too long. A twenty-page document is skimmed. Move anything general to the practice's standard checklist and keep only what is specific to this client.
- Too vague. "Check the card" says nothing. "Card statement arrives on the 14th; match the checking payment of the 20th to it" does.
- Out of date. Rules mentioned in the document no longer exist in the system. Date the sections and review any part older than a year.
- Missing access. The stand-in cannot reach the portal or the shared folder. List where each piece of access lives and who can grant it.
The same document becomes essential when the client changes hands for good. A bookkeeper inheriting a client with a procedures document starts on day one; one without starts with weeks of reconstruction, as the guide to taking over books from another bookkeeper shows.