About 20 minutes to set up · claude.ai only
Build the document request list for a new client
Today
A new client signs and someone writes the request list from memory. Two weeks in you are still asking for the things nobody thought of on day one, and the client is starting to wonder whether you have done this before.
With Claude
You paste the intake notes and the scope, and you get back a request list grouped by category with the owner named for every item. You send one complete ask instead of five partial ones.
The prompt
Paste this into claude.ai and replace anything in brackets.
You are helping a US accounting firm onboard a new client. My notes from the intake call: [paste your intake call notes here] Services we agreed to provide: [list the engagements, for example monthly bookkeeping, annual 1120S, quarterly payroll review] Entity details: [entity type, state, fiscal year end, whether there was a prior preparer] Do three things. 1. Write a document request list grouped by category: entity and formation, prior year filings and workpapers, bank and credit card access, payroll, receivables and payables, fixed assets, debt and leases, and anything else my notes imply. For each item, name who provides it (client, prior accountant, payroll provider, lender) and give one short line on why we need it. 2. Flag every place my notes are ambiguous or incomplete, and write the exact question I should ask the client to close the gap. 3. Draft a short kickoff email that introduces the list, sets a due date of [date], and names the one or two items that block everything else. Use language a business owner will follow. Do not assume any tax treatment; if a treatment would change what we need to request, say so and ask me instead of guessing.
What to skip in accounting and bookkeeping firms
- Client identifying data does not belong in a consumer Claude account. Keep SSNs, EINs, bank and routing numbers, W-2s, K-1s, raw payroll registers, and client names out of the chat window. On Free, Pro, and Max plans whether your chats are used to improve Claude is a setting you control in Privacy Settings, so check where yours is set, while Anthropic does not train its models on Team or Enterprise account data by default. Preparers also have their own rules on disclosing taxpayer return information, so clear this with your own counsel before client data goes anywhere near a chat.
- Claude is not a source of tax authority. Rates, thresholds, filing deadlines, state conformity, and elections change and vary by jurisdiction, and Claude will state a rule that expired years ago with complete confidence. Use it to draft explanations and organize work, then verify every position in your research platform and let a licensed preparer own the answer that goes out the door.
- Never let Claude produce or adjust a figure. Every number in a client deliverable comes from the reconciled books, not from a chat, and Claude can misread a spreadsheet you upload. Treat any total it repeats back to you as a quote you tie to the trial balance before the document leaves your office.
Want all 4 workflows for accounting and bookkeeping firms in your inbox?
Every prompt on this page plus the rest, so you still have them on Monday. One email, then four short ones on making it stick. Unsubscribe any time.
Or answer four questions and Claude writes three workflows for your specific business rather than the industry generally.
Before you try it
More for accounting and bookkeeping firms
- Explain the month's numbers in plain English
- Write down the close so it survives a vacation
- Chase missing documents without sounding like a robot