Bringing a new staff member into the firm
What an accounting or audit firm should set up before a new trainee or staff member starts, and how to plan their first year of supervised work.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
New people tend to join accounting firms at the worst possible moment. Trainees often start in January, just as year-end audits and tax season begin. An experienced senior is hired because the firm is already overloaded. The partner who should be welcoming them is in a client's boardroom, and the new person spends the first morning waiting for a laptop and a login.
That first impression is hard to undo. More importantly, a new staff member without a clear plan either sits idle or is thrown onto client files with too little supervision, which is a quality risk as much as a people problem. Good onboarding is not a nicety for a firm; it protects the work.
Orientation lasts a day; onboarding lasts a year
SHRM defines onboarding as the process of integrating new employees into an organisation, including orientation and opportunities to learn about the organisation's structure, culture, vision, mission and values. Its onboarding guide explains the difference between the two and how to plan each stage.
SHRM distinguishes the two clearly. Orientation covers paperwork and other routine tasks. Onboarding is a comprehensive process involving management and other employees that can last up to 12 months.
For a firm, orientation is the employment contract, the tax and pension forms, the independence declaration and the tour of the office. Onboarding is everything that turns a new trainee into someone the firm trusts to run a section of an audit file, or a new senior into someone the managers can rely on to review it. That takes a year, and it needs a plan.
SHRM lists four parts of onboarding: preboarding, orientation, foundation building, and mentoring and buddy systems. The sections below follow that order.
Ready before the first day
SHRM suggests preboarding activities such as inviting new employees to tour the facility, sending them information, providing welcome packs and assigning a buddy before their official start date. It also describes Facebook's "45-minute rule", under which new employees can begin work within 45 minutes of arriving because their systems and devices are set up before their first day.
A firm can apply the same idea. Before the start date:
- The laptop is set up, with the firm's software installed.
- The person has been invited to the firm's systems with the right role.
- A buddy, ideally a second-year trainee or a junior who remembers what it was like, has been named and has blocked time in the first week.
- The first two weeks are planned: training sessions, a real but low-risk task, and introductions to the people they will work with.
- The engagement teams they will join know they are coming.
Inviting them with the right role
In Achekam, a firm administrator invites colleagues by e-mailed link, gives each a role, and can later suspend, reactivate or remove them. The subscription's seat limit is checked on every addition, so check before the start date that a seat is free.
Choose the role deliberately. A firm can allow or deny what each role may do, check why a member may or may not act, and grant named time and collaboration permissions per role or per person. For a new trainee, start with what they need for their first assignments, and use the "why can or can't this person act" check to confirm the role does not allow more than you intend, such as approving or issuing anything.
Sign-in security and restricted clients from day one
Two settings are easier to get right at the start than to fix later.
Users can turn on two-factor sign-in with an authenticator app, and a firm can require it for all members. If your firm requires it, the new person sets it up on their first morning with their buddy, not weeks later. Members can also sign in with Google or Microsoft Entra ID once the firm has set up single sign-on.
Partners and administrators can restrict a client, or a single engagement, to named people with a reason. A restriction is lifted rather than deleted, with who did what and when recorded. If the firm has sensitive clients, such as a listed company, a client in a dispute, or a client related to a staff member, check the restrictions before the new person's access goes live. The account manager and the engagement's partner and manager can always open a restricted client.
Learning through the firm's own review process
Most of what a new accountant learns comes from having their work reviewed. In Achekam, each professional has a My Work list and a Professional Inbox, and the Supervision, Manager and Partner desks show their level's review queue, returned work and risks.
Use those as part of the learning plan:
- My Work shows the new person what is theirs to do, so the buddy can see whether they are overloaded or idle.
- Returned work on the Supervision desk is the most useful teaching material there is. Have the supervisor go through each return with the trainee for the first few months, not just leave notes.
- Review queues show managers how much of the new person's work is waiting for review, which tells you whether supervision is keeping up.
Opening a review from a desk does not by itself give sign-off authority, so a new senior who has been asked to look at a file has not been given the power to approve it.
Checkpoints across the first year
| When | What to check |
|---|---|
| End of week one | Systems working, buddy meetings held, first task done |
| End of month one | Role and access still right, first reviewed work discussed |
| Month three | Quality of returned work improving, training plan on track |
| Month six | Ready for more responsibility on files, access widened if so |
| Month twelve | Formal review of the year, onboarding closed |
At each checkpoint, ask the new person what is not working. They will see gaps in the firm's processes that everyone else has stopped noticing.
Plan the next start date now
Before the next person joins, write down who prepares the laptop, who sends the invitation, who is the buddy and who owns the year plan. For the mechanics of access, read inviting and removing staff and roles and permissions, and for the supervision itself, supervision under ISA 220.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
