Free client onboarding checklist
The gap between winning the work and starting it is where projects quietly go wrong. This closes it.
Client onboarding
Client: [ ]
Project: [ ]
Start date: [DD/MM/YYYY]
Owner
[Your name]
Before you start work
☐ Scope agreed in writing, with deliverables listed individually
☐ Contract signed by both sides
☐ Deposit invoiced ☐ Deposit received
☐ Start and delivery dates agreed
☐ What the client owes you, and by when (copy, assets, access, approvals)
☐ Named decision-maker confirmed, who gives final approval
☐ Revision rounds and the price of extra ones stated
Details to collect
☐ Full legal / trading name and billing address
☐ Billing contact and email, often not your day-to-day contact
☐ Purchase order number, if they use them
☐ VAT number, if applicable
☐ Their payment process and run dates, since "we pay on the 1st" changes your cash flow
☐ Invoicing portal details, if they insist on one
Access and tools
☐ Accounts, logins or permissions needed, requested and confirmed working
☐ Where files will live, and who owns that space
☐ Where conversation happens (email, Slack, their system)
☐ Brand assets, style guide, tone of voice
☐ Anything under NDA identified and handled
How you'll work together
☐ Check-in rhythm agreed (weekly note? call every fortnight?)
☐ Your working hours and response time stated
☐ Out-of-scope requests: how you'll raise and price them
☐ What "done" looks like, in one sentence both sides would sign
Your own records
☐ Client and project added to your system
☐ Rate, agreed total and payment terms recorded
☐ Deadlines diarised, including the date the client's inputs are due
☐ Invoice dates diarised
Why the boring lines are the important ones
Nothing here is clever. That's the point: projects rarely fail on the interesting parts. They fail because nobody asked who signs things off, or because the invoice went to your day-to-day contact instead of accounts payable and sat in an inbox for five weeks.
Three lines above are worth more than the rest combined:
- Named decision-maker. Work approved by someone who turns out not to have the authority gets reopened by someone who does. Ask early, ask plainly.
- Billing contact and payment run dates. Most late payment isn't refusal, it's process. A client who runs payments on the 1st and needs invoices by the 20th will pay you five weeks late every time until you learn their calendar.
- What the client owes you, and by when. The most common cause of a late project is a client input that arrived three weeks after it was promised. Agree those dates alongside yours, at the start, when it's a scheduling question rather than an accusation.
Send it, don't just use it
Working through this on a 20-minute kick-off call, or pasting the middle sections into an email, is one of the cheapest credibility signals available to a freelancer. It reads as organised, and it front-loads every awkward question to the point where asking is normal.
What it connects to
The checklist assumes two documents exist: a contract for the relationship and a statement of work for this specific project. If the scope line above is hard to tick, that's the statement of work telling you it isn't finished.
Once it's running, Sedonis holds the client, the agreed scope, the rate and what's been paid together, so the next project with the same client starts from what you already know. Free to start.
More: finding freelance clients and what to include in a freelance contract.
Next steps
Read the guide
fills this in for you, tracks who's paid, and keeps every client and number in one private app. Free to start.
A free checklist for general use, not legal advice. Adapt it to how you work and what your clients need.