Our Process

At Bright Line CPA, we understand the common challenges that can strain the client-accountant relationship, like the hassle of information requests, the need to reiterate key details to various team members, and the frustration of only interacting with your accountant annually. That's why we've designed our discovery and onboarding process to address these pain points from the start.

Who We Work Best With 

Our expertise is in empowering growth-oriented, owner-managed businesses that are on the path to expanding their teams and scaling their operations. Our ideal clients are tech-savvy entrepreneurs who are open to change and deeply invested in the financial health of their ventures. These businesses seek far more than just annual tax filings or occasional tax planning; they value continuous, strategic advisory services that offer more depth. Our clients benefit from regular, open communication, detailed financial reporting, strategic planning sessions, valuation tracking, and advanced cloud-based accounting solutions. By choosing Bright Line CPA, businesses looking to grow not only gain an accountant but a strategic partner dedicated to their long-term success and financial well-being.

Does this sound like you? Learn how to get started with us by reading about our discovery & onboarding process below. 

Discovery Form | Scoping

Our process starts with a discovery form to make sure we're a match for what your business needs. If your needs align with our services, we’ll send a link to schedule a discovery call. 

During the discovery call, we'll dive into your goals, discuss any challenges you're currently facing, and share our service recommendations for you. We're eager to understand your business objectives and future plans. This conversation will be a high-level exchange, focusing on gathering all the information we need to create your ideal plan with us. 

Proposal

Are we a perfect match? If so, we’ll create a comprehensive proposal for you. Once we have all the details, we'll craft your proposal and send it to you through our proposal & billing platform, Ignition. This proposal will lay out the service packages available to you based on what we understand your needs to be from our discovery process, along with our fees, terms, and conditions. In some cases, we may send an additional email prior to the proposal requesting more information. If you already have cloud accounting set up, we’ll need to do a bit of discovery in your systems to make sure we have everything we need to craft an accurate proposal.

Kick-off Call

Once you give us the green light by signing our proposal, we kick off an onboarding period that typically takes between 1 to 3 months. This time isn’t just about crossing T’s and dotting I’s; it’s about us getting to know the ins and outs of your business, ensuring we’re fully immersed in your company’s financial workflow. You’ll meet your go-to Bright Line team members who will walk you through every phase of the onboarding process, have a detailed timeline for cloud accounting implementation, and connect us to a champion on your team who will work closely with us during this phase. This ensures that when we start managing your accounting and taking over the work, it’s a thoughtful transition designed to keep things running smoothly.

Onboarding

Before we jump into our kick-off call, we'll send you a request and checklist from Karbon, our client portal software. Getting this info to us before the kick-off call is important to ensure we're all set to have the most productive meeting possible. During our call, we'll discuss your service package, connect on timelines, introduce you to our team, and plan any software implementations that might be needed. It's also the perfect opportunity to align our expectations and tackle any questions you have about the onboarding process.  

90 Day Review

After 90 days of collaboration, it's important for us to ensure we're perfectly in sync. That's why we set aside time with you to review the past few months. This is our opportunity to confirm that we're effectively meeting your needs and staying on track with our shared goals. In this meeting, we'll reflect on the work completed, talk through any recent updates, and make any necessary adjustments for future projects.

Process FAQ

  • Our goal is to provide you with the best and most efficient service, and to do that, we need to gather all the essential information. This helps us tailor a package and a plan designed for your success. Don't worry, we've streamlined everything to make the process as smooth and hassle-free as possible.

  • The duration of the onboarding process can vary depending on the specific services you choose and our team's current capacity. But don't worry, we'll keep you updated every step of the way. We'll inform you about crucial deadlines, any potential delays, and if we need any extra information from you. Our goal is to ensure a smooth journey towards your success.

  • Throughout the discovery call we get a comprehensive understanding of your business needs, objectives, and your existing accounting processes. With this information, we'll be able to direct you to the package that best suits your needs. Each tier has a baseline price, which will be updated to include any add-ons such as; software implementations, additional planning/strategy meetings, or additional services.

  • We know that when you're running a business, things don't always go according to plan. We use this meeting to ensure that your service package will continue to meet your needs moving forward now that we've spent some time together and know more about you and your business. If anything has changed, we'll realign our engagement, discuss updates, and adjust our service delivery plan to stay on track with our shared goals.

  • We’ll need a champion from your team to work with us for a few hours a week during the initial onboarding phase. This upfront investment of time will help us to reduce the amount of effort you spend digging up documents and answering questions about data entry, so we can focus our interactions on the advice that you value most from your accounting partner.

  • Karbon is our project management and client portal software. It also acts as our primary communication hub, facilitating most requests for information. Karbon is our preferred method for collecting information because we are often collecting information from our clients that has sensitive data (ie SIN/BN), and the Karbon checklists where you will provide that information are secure and encrypted. Clients can rest assured that the information they provide us is secure while still being accessible to the entire team.

Fill Out Our Discovery Form To Get Started