Client Onboarding Checklist – Intake, Project Brief and Kickoff Meeting Pages

This client onboarding checklist covers the stretch between “yes, let’s work together” and the first real piece of work on a service project. Page 1 sums it up in four steps: agree on scope and the signed agreement, gather details and files, meet for the kickoff, and begin with a confirmed first milestone.

Two checklists, one on each side of the kickoff

The before kickoff page lists eight tasks with a checkbox, an owner, a due date and a reference column: agreement signed, initial payment confirmed, questionnaire sent, questionnaire received, project brief reviewed, kickoff booked, primary contact confirmed and scope recorded. The ready to begin page picks up after that with materials received, access requests, a shared workspace, welcome notes, a communication channel, a feedback route, the first milestone and a scheduled follow-up. Both have two blank rows for steps of your own, plus “waiting on” and “next check-in” boxes, which is where a stalled onboarding usually shows up first.

The intake and planning pages

• Contact and context. The client intake page: contact name, preferred channel, time zone, the main decision maker, an optional second contact, and a box for what you should know before kickoff.
• Project brief. Three goals, each with how you’ll recognize progress, a deliverables table, start and target finish dates, and how often the client wants feedback.
• Kickoff meeting notes. Attendees and facilitator, then goals and deliverables, ways of working, questions and decisions, and an actions table with owners and due dates.
• Materials and access. Seven rows to track each file or access request from requested to received. The page asks for request references only, never passwords or recovery codes.
• Welcome email key points. Prompts for the welcome, how you’ll work together, what you need from the client and the first milestone, with three things to confirm before you hit send.

Page 9 shows the before-kickoff list partly filled in for an invented design project, with three tasks ticked and the rest still open. Page 10 is a blank worksheet with three stages of four task rows each, for anything that doesn’t fit the set pages.

Which file to open

The color files use navy headings with copper step numbers, and the ink saver files are black on white. Each comes as a US Letter print file and an A4 print file. The fillable file is US Letter only, so if you print on A4, write on the A4 print file by hand. Open the fillable PDF in a reader that supports forms and keep your own saved copy for each client.