Services in Pakistan
Onboarding and clean-up
Two to four weeks of onboarding, then one month-end close run alongside your existing arrangements, before we take over your books fully.
A handover you can check
Changing who keeps your books carries risk when it is rushed. Balances are carried forward without being checked, access to bank feeds or tax portals is incomplete, and the first month under the new arrangement is when you discover what was missed.
Our onboarding takes two to four weeks. We then close one month in parallel with your existing arrangements, so the two results can be compared before you rely on ours alone. After that month we take over fully, and your first month-end is delivered on your package timetable.
What onboarding looks like
Five steps, from the kick-off call to your first month-end on the package timetable.
Kick-off
A kick-off call, and the engagement letter signed.
Access
Access to your bank feeds, software, FBR and provincial tax portals, and prior-period records.
Opening balances
Opening balances reconciled, then signed off by you.
Parallel close
One month closed alongside your existing arrangements, with any differences explained.
Handover
Full handover, with the first month-end delivered on your package timetable.
What onboarding covers
Every retained client is onboarded. A clean-up or a migration is added where the records or the software call for one.
Onboarding
Your chart of accounts, software setup or migration, opening balances, documentation of how your processes run, and access to the client portal for your team.
Backlog clean-up
Scoped after a review of your records. The clean-up covers posting, reconciliation and correction of prior periods, so the monthly service begins from reconciled balances.
Software migration
For example, from Excel or desktop software to QuickBooks Online or Xero: historical data imported, opening balances brought across, and the result reconciled. See software consulting and setup.
What we need from you
Onboarding moves at the pace of access. The sooner these are in place, the sooner the parallel close can begin.
- A signed engagement letter
- Access to your bank feeds
- Access to your accounting software, or the files if your records are in Excel or desktop software
- Access to your FBR portal and your provincial tax portal (PRA, SRB, KPRA or BRA, as your registrations require)
- Your prior-period records
- Identification for the business and its beneficial owners, as set out below
Identity verification
Required for every client, before any work begins.
Anti-money-laundering regulations for accountants require us to verify the identity of every client and its beneficial owners before work begins. For a business, that means the entity itself and the individuals who ultimately own or control it.
We ask for what is needed at kick-off, so that verification does not hold up the rest of onboarding. The documents travel through the encrypted client portal, and only the partner and team assigned to you can see them.
Questions
Why run a month in parallel?
The first close under a new arrangement is where differences surface: a balance carried forward incorrectly, an account nobody mentioned, an accrual treated differently. Closing one month alongside your existing arrangements lets those differences be found and explained while both are still running, before you depend on our numbers alone.
Our books are months behind. Can you still take them on?
Yes. We review the records first and scope a clean-up covering posting, reconciliation and correction of the periods affected. The backlog is cleared as a one-off piece of work before the monthly service begins, rather than carried into it.
Do we have to change accounting software?
Not if you already use QuickBooks Online, Xero or Zoho Books, and the Scale package adds ERP support for Odoo and SAP Business One. If your records are in Excel or desktop software, we migrate them, importing the history and reconciling the opening balances. Either way, the subscription stays in your name.
What will our own team need to do?
Arrange access early, answer our questions about the opening position, and sign off the opening balances once we have reconciled them. During the parallel month your existing arrangements carry on as usual. After handover, your part is to share documents through the portal and review what we send you.
Speak with a partner
Every enquiry is read by a partner and answered within one business day. Meetings are held at our offices, at yours, or by video.