To bring a new bookkeeper up to speed, hand them a written pack rather than a conversation: the list of recurring tasks, a short directory of who to ask about what, a map of where the records and source documents live, a list of everything currently open and unresolved, and a set of scheduled check-ins through the first month. Build the pack once and it serves every future handover.
This article is general information about process and recordkeeping. It is not accounting, tax, legal or investment advice. How any transaction is recorded, classified or reported is a judgment for a qualified accountant who knows the business, and questions of that kind belong with them rather than in a handover document. Any cadence or limit mentioned here is for the organization to set with its qualified advisors and write into its own documents.
Why a written pack is the best way to bring a new bookkeeper up to speed
A verbal handover transfers whatever the outgoing person happens to remember on the day, in whatever order it occurs to them. A written pack transfers the same content every time, and it survives the outgoing person's last day.
It also changes what the new bookkeeper spends their attention on. Given a pack, they spend the first stretch confirming and correcting it. Given a walkthrough, they spend it reconstructing a process from fragments and asking the same question of several people until they get a consistent answer.
The return here is time and clarity. A pack shortens the period where nobody is quite sure what is being done, and it leaves a document the organization keeps.
How to bring a new bookkeeper up to speed, part by part
Assemble these in order. Each part is short on its own, and the pack is finished when a reader who has never seen the organization could describe what happens and who to ask.
- The routine list. Every recurring task, what triggers it, and what finishing it looks like. Triggers rather than dates where possible, because a task tied to an event survives a calendar change.
- The directory. Who to ask about what, by role, with the kinds of question that go to each one.
- The records map. Where each kind of record and source document lives, and who holds access to it.
- The open-items list. Everything currently unresolved, with whatever is known about each item.
- The standing documents. Pointers to the organization's own documents on approval authority, how duties are split, supplier record changes, and expenses, rather than copies of them.
- The check-in schedule. Named dates in the first month with a stated purpose for each one.
What to leave out
Leave out anything about how a transaction should be recorded, classified or reported. That is a judgment for the organization's qualified accountant, and a handover pack that answers it creates a document people follow instead of asking.
Leave out the outgoing person's shortcuts and workarounds unless they are the actual process. A pack full of undocumented habits teaches the next person to inherit them.
Leave out history nobody needs. The pack describes the present state and what is open, not the full story of how the function came to work this way.
The routine list and the records map
The routine list is the spine of the pack. Write each task as a trigger, an action, and a finish condition, and keep each entry to a line or so.
The useful detail is in the finish condition. "Reconcile the statement" leaves a new person unsure what done means; "the statement balance and the record agree, and any difference is written on the open-items list" does not. Where a task genuinely depends on judgment, say so and point to the directory rather than inventing a rule.
The records map answers a narrower question: if someone asks for a document, where is it and who can retrieve it. Cover the records themselves, the source documents behind them, the supporting correspondence, and anything held in paper. Note where access is held by one person only, because that is the entry on the map that causes problems during an absence.
Do not name products or platforms in the map. Describe the location by what it is for and who administers it, so the map survives a change of tools.
Who to ask about what
A new bookkeeper's first weeks generate a steady stream of questions, and most of the friction comes from not knowing where to send them. A short directory removes almost all of it.
| Goes to | Why it sits there | |
|---|---|---|
| How something should be recorded or classified | The organization's qualified accountant | A professional judgment about this specific business, not a process question |
| Whether a commitment was approved, and by whom | The role named on the organization's approval authority page | The page and the approval record are the source, not anyone's recollection |
| A supplier's details, or a request to change them | The role that owns supplier records | Changes follow a defined request route rather than a message |
| An expense claim that does not fit the stated process | The reviewer named in the expense document | Exceptions are meant to be recorded, not resolved informally |
| Access to a system or a file store | Whoever administers that access | Keeps access grants traceable to a request |
| Anything about pay, employment terms or staff conduct | An employment attorney and the organization's HR advisors | Outside the scope of any finance process document |
Keep the directory by role rather than by name so it does not go stale every time someone moves. Names belong in a single list elsewhere that is cheap to update.
The open-items list
The open-items list is the part of the pack most often skipped and the part a new bookkeeper needs from the start. It is the honest inventory of what is unfinished.
Each entry needs the same elements: what the item is, what is known about it, what has already been tried, and who the organization believes can answer it. An entry where the last elements are blank is still worth writing down, as long as the blanks are visible rather than implied.
Include the awkward entries. Items nobody can explain, documents that have gone missing, and arrangements the organization is not sure are still in force all belong here. Omitting them does not make them go away; it makes the new bookkeeper discover them alone and without context.
Hand the list over as a live document rather than a snapshot. The new bookkeeper will close items and add items, and the list becomes the standing record of loose ends from then on.
The first month
Schedule the check-ins before the start date and put a purpose against each one, so they do not collapse into a general catch-up that gets moved.
A workable shape runs like this. An early session where the new bookkeeper walks back through the routine list and marks anything that does not match what they found. A session on the open-items list, item by item. A session on the records map, confirming they can actually reach everything on it. And a closing session where the pack is updated to reflect reality and the corrected version replaces the original.
That last session is what turns a one-time handover into an asset. The pack the new bookkeeper corrects is better than the one they were given, and it is the version the next person receives.
Set the frequency and length of these sessions to suit the organization and record the arrangement in its own documents. The only part that is not negotiable is that they are scheduled in advance, because check-ins that depend on someone remembering to arrange them do not happen.
A handover pack is a small amount of writing that keeps working long after the handover it was built for. If you want a starting outline for the routine list, directory and open-items list, the Free Resources page on this site is the place to begin.