Guide · checked October 2026
Say yes to a first client in the wrong order and the job teaches you — at the client's expense and your reputation's. This checklist is the order made visible: the same nine items the readiness checker scores, expanded into the page you walk through before the first yes. Nothing on it costs money to start.
Reconcile a bank statement to zero, and read a profit-and-loss statement and a balance sheet out loud in plain words. Finish one full practice set with worked answers — a simulated year is the honest unit. Take the free QuickBooks ProAdvisor certification and keep the practice access warm. If any of these is a not-yet, it is the next thing you do, before any client conversation — the checker on this site scores exactly this list.
Decide the price before the call: cleanup from the published band, monthly work as three packages with the math showing. Then the engagement letter — the basics are always the same: what the work is, what it is not (no tax filing, no tax advice; paid tax preparation needs an IRS PTIN and is not this job), the fee and when it is paid, what the client must hand over and when, and how either side ends the arrangement. A letter is not mistrust; it is the scope, remembered.
A business name, a separate bank account — business money never in your personal account from day one — and five protected hours a week on the real calendar. Then, and only then, the outreach: warm circle first, visible messes second, one professional follow-up. The Playbook holds the scripts and the call sheet; this checklist is the gate you pass before you are allowed to need them.
Put it to work. The free First-Client Readiness Checker computes your case from the same facts this page explains. All 13 guides live on the guides hub.
The guides are the map. The Playbook is the paperwork: the scripts, the call sheet, the worksheets, and the letter template.
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