Customer Onboarding Checklist

Parent: How We Work Together · Lives in: 03 — Pricing & Engagement

The first 7 days after a signed agreement. Everything we need to have in hand before Week 1 of delivery actually starts. If any of these aren't done by Day 7, the 45-day clock pauses.

Day 0 — Same day as contract signed

• Counter-signed MSA + SOW filed in /Confluxion/Customers/{company}/contracts/
• First invoice sent ($23,500 = 50% of $47K)
• Welcome email sent confirming next steps
• Kickoff meeting scheduled within 5 business days (60 min, video, both cofounders + their stakeholders)
• Customer record created in HubSpot, moved to "In Delivery" stage
• Slack/Teams channel created or shared external channel set up with customer

Day 1–3 — Access & accounts

• Stakeholders identified in writing (name, role, email, phone):
  • Decision-maker / signer
  • Daily user (the person whose workflow this is)
  • IT / systems contact
  • Backup contact for when primary is on vacation
• Customer's IT/security policy reviewed (if they have one — many small construction firms don't)
• Access provisioned to all required systems. Customer creates a guest/service user for us OR shares credentials via 1Password:
  • Email (Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace) — service account or shared mailbox
  • SharePoint / Drive — read+write to the relevant folders
  • Procore — guest user, role limited to the relevant projects
  • Sage 300 CRE or Sage Intacct — read access (SQL or API)
  • Bluebeam — license info if we're producing PDFs
  • Any other CRM/ERP/PM system named in the SOW

Never have customer email passwords via plaintext. Either: (a) they create a service user we own from day one, or (b) credentials transit via 1Password or similar.

Day 3–5 — Data & workflow

• 90+ days of historical workflow data delivered to us — emails, PDFs, Excel files, screenshots, whatever the workflow generates. The more the better.
• Recorded walkthrough of the current workflow from the daily user (Loom, Zoom recording, or in-person screen capture). 15–30 minutes of "this is what I do today."
• Workflow map drafted by us, reviewed and approved by customer. One page, swim-lane diagram showing every step + which system holds the data + who touches it.
• Sample of the "good" output — if we're generating an invoice / report / record, give us 3–5 examples of what a "correct" one looks like today.

Day 5–7 — Scope confirmation

• Acceptance criteria signed off in writing (email confirmation from decision-maker is enough). Pulled from the SOW — every checkbox must be specific and testable.
• Folder structure + naming convention agreed in writing. Show them the proposed layout. Get a yes.
• Threshold values, edge cases, exceptions documented. ("Alert fires at $X." "If field Y is blank, do Z." "Skip records where Z = 'archive'.")
• Definition of "go-live" confirmed. What does production actually mean — running on a schedule, or triggered by an event, or both?
• Communication cadence set. Default: weekly status email every Friday + Slack channel for async questions.

Before Week 1 build actually starts

All of the above must be ✅. If any of these are blocked because the customer hasn't delivered, the 45-day clock pauses and we communicate that in writing. Don't let the clock burn while you're waiting on credentials.

Red flags to surface immediately

If any of these come up during onboarding, talk to Addison or Sam before continuing:

• Customer refuses to give us access to the systems named in the SOW
• Customer wants to "add a few things" to scope before we've started
• Decision-maker has gone silent and we're talking to a junior person who can't approve criteria
• The 90-day historical data turns out to be much messier than the discovery call suggested
• IT/security is requesting a security review or vendor questionnaire (this is fine but adds ~1 week)

What customer sees from us in Week 1

To set expectations: customer should expect from us in the first 7 days:

• Confirmation that we received their data
• Workflow map for them to review
• A Friday status email
• Questions — lots of them, but batched (not drip-fed)

What they should NOT expect: working software. Week 1 is environment provisioning + backtest setup, not user-facing output.

Last updated: 2026-05-25