Bookkeeping Client Intake Questionnaire Template (Free & Copy-Ready)
6 min read
Most bookkeepers create an intake questionnaire, then quietly stop sending it — because a long PDF fired off cold rarely comes back filled out. That instinct is right, but the fix isn't to abandon the questionnaire. It's to split it: send the factual, hard-data parts for the client to complete on their own time, and cover the qualitative context live on your kickoff call.
Below is a complete, copy-ready template organized so you can do exactly that. Take the whole thing, or lift the "send async" sections into a form and keep the rest as your call script.
What should a bookkeeping client intake questionnaire include?
A good intake questionnaire captures six things: business basics, entity and tax details, banking and access, the current state of the books, how documents will be handled, and the client's goals. Keep the factual sections tight and let the conversation cover the rest.
The template
Section 1 — Business basics (send async)
- Legal business name and any DBA
- Primary contact name, email, and phone
- Business address and website
- Industry / what the business does
- Number of employees or contractors
Section 2 — Entity and tax (send async)
- Entity type (sole prop, LLC, S-corp, C-corp, partnership)
- EIN
- Fiscal year-end
- Sales tax obligations and states
- Who prepares the tax return, and their contact info
Section 3 — Banking and access (send async)
- List every business account: checking, savings, credit cards
- Payroll provider (if any)
- Point-of-sale or invoicing tools in use
- Accounting software today (QuickBooks Online? Desktop? Something else?)
- Preferred method for granting you access
Section 4 — Current state of the books (ask live)
- Who's been doing the bookkeeping until now?
- How far behind or caught up are the books?
- Any known problem areas — unreconciled accounts, personal spending mixed in, backlog?
- Are there prior-year financials or a last filed return you can share?
Section 5 — Documents and receipts (ask live, then confirm the rule)
- How do you currently keep receipts, bills, and invoices?
- How would you prefer to send them going forward?
- Confirm the rule: all documents go through one channel — not text, personal email, or scattered folders.
This is the moment to set expectations for the whole relationship. If clients submit receipts to one place from the start, your monthly close stays clean and you stop chasing missing documents. A tool like ScribeosAI gives every client a single intake point with AI extraction, human review, and QuickBooks sync — but even a simple shared rule, set on day one, beats a scattered inbox.
Section 6 — Goals and expectations (ask live)
- What made you look for a bookkeeper now?
- What does "good" look like to you — clean books, tax-ready, better cash visibility?
- How often do you want reports, and which ones matter most?
- Any deadlines or events coming up we should plan around?
How to actually use this template
The reason the questionnaire usually dies is that firms send all six sections as one wall of questions. Instead:
- Send async: Sections 1–3 as a short form. These are factual, concrete, and faster for the client to type than to say — so they'll actually do them.
- Ask live: Sections 4–6 on your kickoff call. This is context and judgment, and it builds rapport far better than a text box.
- Confirm the document rule on that same call, then reinforce it in your welcome email.
This is step two of a clean onboarding — see the full bookkeeping client onboarding checklist for the rest of the sequence.
Frequently asked questions
Should I send the whole intake questionnaire to the client?
No. Send only the factual sections (business basics, entity/tax, banking) for the client to complete async, and cover the current state of the books, documents, and goals live on your call. Long questionnaires sent cold rarely get returned.
What's the difference between an intake questionnaire and an onboarding checklist?
The questionnaire captures information from the client. The onboarding checklist is your internal sequence of steps to get them set up. Use both — the questionnaire feeds the checklist.
How do I collect documents from a new bookkeeping client?
Set one submission channel during intake and hold to it. A single intake process — rather than texts, emails, and shared folders — keeps the monthly close clean and prevents duplicates.
Want new clients sending documents the right way from day one? ScribeosAI gives every client one place to submit receipts, bills, and invoices — with AI extraction, human review, duplicate detection, and native QuickBooks sync. Start free — no card needed →