The first 30 days with an outsourced team

• The first 30 days decide whether a new seat reaches full productive hours in month two, or is still catching up in month four.
• Two documents make the difference: a role brief for the person joining, and named access to your systems. Write both before day one.
• Send a small number of ordinary clients first. A quarter of the eventual list in week one is enough to test the process.
• Review points per job is the number to track from day one. Log every one in writing, and expect the count to fall by half within three weeks.
• If the first three weeks go to plan, full seat hours arrive by day 30. If review points are still high at day 21, hold the client list steady for an extra week before adding the rest.

What the first 30 days decide

A new person joining a seat needs three things before they are productive: access to your systems, a clear brief on each client, and a pace that builds up instead of landing in full on day one. Skip any of the three and the cost arrives in week three, when unanswered queries slow every job on the list.

A practice bringing on a new seat — an Accounts seat, a Production seat for bookkeeping, payroll or marketing, or a Senior seat — runs the same process each time, whatever the role. This guide sets out that process day by day, with a worked example for a Production seat doing bookkeeping and VAT.

Before day one

Two documents, written before the person starts, decide how smooth the first week is.

The role brief

One page, written before the person starts, not after the first query. It names the clients going to this seat in week one, the software and bank feeds each one uses, the named contact in the practice for questions, and what counts as finished for this role — a bookkeeping seat's finished point is different from an accounts seat's. If the role is bookkeeping and VAT, the brief states the VAT scheme for each client and the filing date for the current quarter. If it is payroll, it states the pay date, the pension provider and who signs off the submission before it goes.

Access and security

Set up named logins before the start date: individual access to the accounting software, the bank feeds and the document store, never a shared password passed between whoever is doing the job that month. Confidentiality and data protection rules apply to outsourced work the same way they apply to a new employee, and a named login is the simplest way to show which person did what, when a client or a regulator asks. The fuller data protection picture is in data security and confidentiality when outsourcing accounts.

Days 1 to 7

Spend the first week on access and shadowing, not production. Walk the new person through two completed jobs for two of the clients going to them first, on a recorded call so the explanation does not need repeating for client three. Then give them a small number of real, straightforward clients — a quarter of the eventual list is plenty — and review every piece of work that comes back, line by line, before it goes anywhere else. Log every review point in writing. A point raised on a call and never written down cannot be counted at day 30, and it cannot be fixed twice.

Days 8 to 14

Add the next batch of clients, still ordinary ones: no VAT inspections, no payroll queries mid-dispute, no accounts with a prior-year problem still open. The person doing the work should now be raising their own questions in one list per client, not scattered across the week as they go. That is the first sign the process is working: the question arrives once, with everything already checked that could be checked without an answer, and the answer comes back within two working days from one named person in the practice.

Days 15 to 21

By the middle of this third week the review points from the first two batches should be falling. Classify each one as a mistake, a missing piece of information, or a house preference. Only the first is a quality problem. Fold the other two into the role brief before the next batch goes out, because a point raised once and never fixed in the brief is a point the next person raises again.

This is also the week to extend the client list again, this time including one client with a genuine complication: a VAT partial exemption calculation, a payroll query that needs a pension provider on the phone, or a set of accounts with a stock count. One complicated case inside a batch of straightforward ones tests the query loop without risking the whole week if it runs slowly.

Days 22 to 30

The final week moves the seat to its full client list and its full monthly hours. For an 80-hour Production seat that is roughly 18 to 20 hours a week; for a 160-hour Accounts or Senior seat it is closer to 37. Review time should be shorter by now, because the role brief answers most of what a reviewer would otherwise have to ask. Hold a short review at day 30, thirty minutes is enough, covering review points, queries answered and the client list covered so far. If the numbers are where they should be, the next batch of work goes out at full pace. If they are not, look first at the role brief, the access, or the pace of the first two weeks before changing the person doing the work.

A worked example for a Production seat

Illustrative, using our own published rates. A Production seat for bookkeeping and VAT, 80 hours a month at £1,100 (pricing), covering 18 clients on cloud software with live bank feeds.

Eighty hours across the month is the full seat. At £1,100 for 18 clients the seat cost works out at £61 a client a month, before the practice's own fee for the work. The hours build up over the four weeks: review and shadowing take the first week, and the heaviest client count lands in the last.

What to check at day 30

Count these for the first batch of clients, then check them again at day 60 against the full list.

If day 30 does not look like this

Stop adding clients and look at two likely causes: a role brief that was too thin when clients were added, and a review that is not happening on the schedule it needs. Classify the review points logged so far as a mistake, a missing piece of information, or a house preference. If most of them are missing information, add that detail to the role brief before the next batch goes out. If review itself has been slipping, fix the diary first: a thirty-minute review slot held every day for the first month catches the pattern before it repeats across five more clients. Either fix should show up in the numbers within a week.

Where to start

Work out how many hours your own client list needs with the capacity calculator, then read how it works for the sequence a new seat follows before day one. If the seat is for accounts production, handing over year-end accounts without losing quality covers the file standard and review points in more detail; for bookkeeping, payroll or back-office work, the back-office page sets out what moves and what stays with the practice. When you are ready to start the first 30 days, get in touch. We write the role brief and the access checklist with you before day one.

Published 6 October 2026. Tax rules and rates change, so check current figures on gov.uk before relying on anything here. This is general information for practice owners and is not advice.