If you find yourself looking for a convenient way to list the services you offer, TaxDome can help you out. Outlining mutual expectations helps eliminate potential misunderstandings in the future. It prevents confusion down the line, especially if multiple clients are involved or the client is a company. Review the letter together and see if there’s room for negotiation on specific areas they find unfavorable. Be willing to adjust the document within reason so you can reach an agreement.
Offer clients the ability to e-sign your engagement letter
This section will vary depending on the type of accounting services that you provide. It could range from bookkeeping, tax filing, auditing, estate planning, etc. Knowing this engagement period helps your client plan and budget accordingly for your services, while it helps you schedule your workload and distribute effectively among team members of your firm.
Free accounting engagement letter template
Be as specific as possible such as how many bank and credit card accounts will be reconciled each month. If you perform one-time services, like a cleanup, specify what the completed job looks like. In this blog post, we’ll show you the ins and outs of writing an engagement letter along with our ready-made template that you can copy and edit as needed.
- After signing, each of you will keep one fully-executed copy of the letter.
- This will help mitigate scope creep, which is when the deliverables of a project expand from what was initially set – without allocating additional time or money.
- That might lead to disputes over what your accounting firm promised vs. what it eventually delivered.
- We’ve prepared sample engagement letter templates to help you get started.
- If you find yourself looking for a convenient way to list the services you offer, TaxDome can help you out.
Instantly download this blog article as a PDF
Define a step-by-step process and identify any arbiters if there is a dispute at any point. These stipulations reduce liability and inherent risk, helping avoid legal action by laying the foundations for peaceful mediation in the event of a misunderstanding. It tells them exactly what they’re paying for, giving them the right to question your services if there are needs not being met. Scope creep is a constant battle for every accountant but having a detailed written reference of what has been agreed to helps prevent it.
They also help protect both parties in case of any disputes or misunderstandings, especially involving the scope of work to be completed. With e-signatures, clients can electronically sign documents directly from their computers or mobile devices, eliminating the need for printing, scanning, and mailing. This not only eliminates time-consuming steps but also reduces paper waste, speeds up the onboarding process for new clients, and offers convenience. In this section of the engagement letter, define what constitutes confidential information and state how this information and the privacy of your client will be upheld.
Ensure your clients can read and understand the engagement letter in its entirety, and tweak the current ratio language if necessary. Instead, enable your clients to e-sign documents via the client portal right after onboarding — by making use of our e-signing feature. You can use go with either a simple e-signature, or rely on knowledge-based authentication (KBA). The latter is needed for IRS-compliant signatures and will require your client to pass an identification check. Physically signing a document is neither necessary nor user-friendly.
When you force clients to print and sign your letter, they’ll put it off until they have free time. And you can easily make the engagement letter part of the process with TaxDome. Once in your dashboard, all you need to do is navigate to a specific client task, request a signature, upload the relevant engagement letter, and select the name of the person that’ll be signing. With our e-signature features, you can easily send your engagement letter to your clients and get them signed electronically in a matter of minutes. Make sure to state in clear language what your duties are to the client, what you expect from them, the services you’ll provide, how you’ll charge them, and the start and end date for the engagement. All these instances should be adequately covered in the accounting engagement letter to protect yourself or your firm from being shorthanded.