When this article is for you
You've just signed a new client and want to onboard them onto TaxItEasy cleanly. This article walks through the right setup sequence, what to avoid (signing up on their behalf), the realistic first-30-days expectations, and the per-client settings worth tuning early.
For the invite mechanics from the client side, see invite your tax advisor. For the read-only boundaries once you're in, see read-only scope. For the cockpit you'll spend most of your time in, see tax-advisor cockpit.
The wrong way — don't do this
Some advisors instinctively try this:
- Create a TaxItEasy account using their own (advisor) email
- Pretend to be the client during the onboarding wizard
- Upload the client's invoices themselves
- Hand the client a "read-only login" at the end
Don't. Four reasons:
- Audit trail is broken. Every action shows you as the actor. A few months in, the client can't tell what was their data vs your data-on-their-behalf. Tax-authority audits look strange.
- Billing confusion. Your card is on their subscription. Reimbursement is a recurring expense-report headache. If you leave the relationship, who owns the subscription?
- GDPR confusion. You become the data subject for things that aren't yours (your email is on the account; account-related notifications come to you). The processor-controller-sub-processor model in GDPR considerations for tax advisors breaks.
- Account ownership. When the relationship ends, the client doesn't actually have a TaxItEasy account they can keep using. Migration is painful (we don't currently offer "transfer ownership to client" as a self-service action).
The right way costs an extra 10 minutes upfront and saves hours of complication later.
The right way — the 20-minute kickoff
Block 20 minutes of screen-share with the client. Walk through these steps in order:
Step 1 — Client signs up themselves
The client opens app.taxiteasy.org/register in their own browser. They use their own email + a password (they should pick a long one — 10+ chars; see sign up and add your company for the password rules).
They get a 6-digit verification code by email and enter it. They're now signed in to a fresh TaxItEasy account that belongs to them.
If they have Google sign-in, that's faster — they can use Sign in with Google and skip the verification code.
Step 2 — Client picks a plan
You can advise but they pay. Walk through the four plans:
- Free — for very low volume (under 10 docs/month). Most clients outgrow this in week 2.
- Starter (€29/mo) — for solo freelancers with up to 30 docs/month.
- Business (€49/mo) — for SMBs up to 75 docs/month with bank-matching needs.
- Growth (€129/mo) — for higher volume + recurring vendors + bulk export.
For a typical SMB client doing 50–60 invoices/month, Business is usually right. The annual cycle saves ~17% (2 months free). See annual vs monthly billing for the math.
If they're unsure, start on Starter and upgrade later — it's prorated cleanly. Better to underestimate than overcommit.
Step 3 — Onboarding wizard (company name, country, currency)
The wizard asks three things:
- Company name — exactly as on their legal documents.
- Country — drives VAT-rate suggestions (DE → 19% / 7%, FR → 20%, ES → 21%, etc.). Does NOT affect data residency (always Frankfurt).
- Base currency — the currency they want their books reported in. EUR for most EU clients; GBP for UK; USD for some international SMBs.
See the onboarding wizard explained for what each field does downstream. Each is editable later in Settings → Company.
Step 4 — Client invites you
In their Settings → Tax Advisor, the client clicks Invite tax advisor and types your email. You get an invite email from [email protected].
Click the link in your TaxItEasy inbox. If you already have a tax-advisor account (likely if you have other TaxItEasy clients), the invite adds this client to your existing cockpit. If you're a first-time tax-advisor on TaxItEasy, you sign up with the link — your account is created, 2FA is mandatory (set it up immediately), and the client appears in your cockpit.
Step 5 — Email forwarding kickoff
Two paths for getting invoices into the system:
- Forwarding (set up email forwarding) — works with any email client; client copies their
u-<hash>@in.taxiteasy.orgaddress and forwards manually OR sets a Gmail/Outlook/Apple-Mail filter. - OAuth direct connection (connect Gmail, Outlook, or IMAP) — TaxItEasy polls the client's inbox read-only every 5–15 minutes. No client effort once set up.
Recommend starting with forwarding (lower commitment, easier rollback). Direct connection can be added in week 2 if the client wants it.
Show them how to forward one test invoice while you watch the cockpit. Within a minute they appear in your queue. That confirms the loop works end-to-end.
Step 6 — First test upload
Have the client drag-and-drop a PDF invoice into the Documents page. Watch as the AI extracts fields (~30 seconds for a typical invoice). Open the document together; show them what the confidence scores mean (understanding confidence scores); walk through one correction.
This is the moment the product "clicks" for most clients. They see the magic in action.
What to set up early (within first week)
A few per-client configurations worth doing in week 1, not week 4:
- Per-client matching rules for the vendors the client uses every month. Stripe payouts, AWS, recurring SaaS, hosting, telecom — anything that comes monthly at a predictable amount. Saves both of you time on every cycle. See creating a custom matching rule. Note: matching rules are client-side (Bookkeeper+ role); you guide them, they create.
- Auto-review threshold (the amount above which an invoice always requires your advisor review). Default is €500; raise for clients with lots of large invoices that are all routine (e.g. €2000 raw materials orders that need no advisor attention), lower for clients with complex tax situations where even small invoices need scrutiny.
- Notification preferences for the client: do they want every flag immediately, or a daily digest? Most clients prefer daily digest (less interrupt-driven).
- Inviting their bookkeeper / co-founder as team members if relevant. Not your call — the Owner client invites their own team.
The first 30 days — realistic expectations
| Week | What happens | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Client uploads test invoices, forwards a few sample emails | Spot-check extraction quality, flag anything wrong as a teaching moment |
| 2 | Client backfills the current quarter's invoices (if any) | Bulk-approve the obvious vendors; flag patterns worth a real review |
| 3 | Routine flow — invoices arrive, you review, flag, approve | Client gets used to your flag-template wording; refine rules |
| 4 | First period close (month-end or quarter-end) | Run a period-filtered export for your usual accounting flow |
Don't expect to be at "queue empty" in week 1. Even an ideal client takes 2–3 weeks to develop the upload rhythm. Be patient + use the flag templates consistently so the client learns the conventions.
Conversation patterns for the first few weeks
A few openings that work:
- After their first upload: "Looks great. The AI got 4 of 5 fields right — let me show you how to correct the vendor name so it remembers it for next time." (Teach the vendor-correction loop.)
- After their first VAT-rate flag: "I flagged this because the rate should be 7%, not 19% — books are at the reduced rate. Once you correct it, the AI learns this vendor → reduced rate going forward."
- After their first bulk forward: "The 30 receipts from last weekend are now in your account. Most look fine. I'll review the unusual ones (5 over €500) and you'll get notifications if any need your input."
The goal is to make the client feel competent + supported, not micromanaged.
Edge cases
"Client wants me to do everything — they don't want to learn the app." Push back gently. Show them just two screens: how to forward emails and how to drag-and-drop a PDF. Those two cover 90% of their job. Anything beyond, you handle from your cockpit. The minimum the client must do is forward / upload (the read-only scope forbids you from doing that for them).
"Client is in a country with non-Euro currency." Fine. Their base currency is whatever they pick at onboarding. Multi-currency invoices get auto-converted at ECB rates per invoice date — see multi-currency and live ECB rates and multi-currency for cross-border clients. Their cockpit view shows their base currency; your cockpit shows each client in their own.
"Client revoked my access after 3 months — I lost data." Their data is theirs. After revocation you see no historical data either. You should have run a bulk export before the relationship ended. For ongoing clients, run quarterly bulk exports as a personal backup — costs nothing and saves the recovery scenario. See bulk export as a tax advisor.
"Can I run a 'tax-advisor-managed' setup where I own the account?" No, by design. The client owns their account. We don't sell white-label tax-advisor setups — would compromise the audit story and the GDPR-controller-vs-processor clarity. For internal-employee bookkeepers (an accountant who works for the client's company full-time), the alternative is the Bookkeeper team-member role — different flow, write permissions, inside-the-company.
"Client wants me to add team members on their behalf." Read-only scope blocks this. Walk them through Settings → Team themselves — adding a team member is one form they fill once. If they really won't do it, the alternative is the Owner doing it via phone with you on the screen-share.
"I've onboarded 50 clients — is there a batch-invite feature?" No batch-invite (the invite must originate from each client's account, not from your tax-advisor account). For high-volume firm onboarding, the bottleneck is the kickoff calls; the platform-side flow is already minimal.
"Client's company name changed mid-engagement." They update it themselves in Settings → Company → Name. Past exports keep the name they had at export-time; new exports show the new name. No data is moved.
"Client's plan was wrong — they need to upgrade." They upgrade themselves from Settings → Billing. Prorated immediately — see prorated billing. You don't need to do anything; the new plan limits apply on their next upload.
Related
- Invite your tax advisor — the client-side invite flow
- Read-only scope — what I can and cannot see — the bounds once you're in
- Tax-advisor cockpit — where you'll work day-to-day
- GDPR considerations for tax advisors — the legal framing for the relationship