Build a customer onboarding check

When to run this

Run this play when a client has the right intentions — it checks customers sometimes, takes guarantees occasionally, sets limits when it remembers — but does it inconsistently because there is no single routine. The gaps are where bad debts hide: the customer who was never credit-checked, the company whose guarantee was never signed, the account that never had a limit. A consolidated onboarding check turns a set of good-but-sporadic habits into one reliable process.

It is the natural capstone to the individual prevention plays: credit checks, terms, guarantees, PPSR and limits all become steps in a single workflow rather than separate decisions that may or may not happen.

The play (steps)

Pull the front-door work into one checklist the client runs for every new credit customer:

1. Verify identity. Confirm the exact legal entity, ABN or ACN, and that it is active and trading.
2. Run proportionate checks. Apply a credit check and trade references at the level the exposure warrants.
3. Capture agreement to terms. Have the customer complete and sign the credit application, accepting the terms of trade.
4. Take security where relevant. Secure a personal guarantee for company accounts and flag any PPSR registration needed for goods on credit.
5. Set the limit. Assign an opening credit limit and record it in the system.
6. File it together. Store the completed pack in one place so the account's basis is instantly clear if it is ever referred.

What good looks like

With a single onboarding routine, no customer is ever set up on credit with a hole in the file. Every account has a verified entity, agreed terms, appropriate security, and a limit — because all of it happens as one step before the first invoice. A new staff member can onboard a customer correctly by following the checklist. And if an account does go bad, the file already contains everything a recovery team needs, assembled at the only time it is easy to obtain: the beginning.

What to say to the client

Sell the simplicity: “You're already doing most of these things — just not every time, and not in one place. A single onboarding checklist means you can't accidentally skip the credit check or forget the guarantee, because they're all on the one list you run before the first sale. It's the same work, done reliably.”

Emphasise that the routine has to be quick, or the team will route around it. The aim is a tight, sensible check that fits the way the business actually sells, not a bureaucratic gate that slows every deal.

Common mistakes

The first mistake is keeping the steps separate, so each one depends on someone remembering it. The second is building a routine so heavy that staff bypass it to get the sale done. The third is doing the onboarding but scattering the resulting documents across emails and folders, so the file cannot be assembled when it is needed. One list, proportionate steps, one place to file — that is what makes onboarding stick.