Welcome to Turnkey CFO.

Hardik (India-based) handles transaction entry and gets each client's books roughly 90% of the way. You are the expert layer above him: reviewing his work, owning the close calendar, and becoming the primary contact our clients trust. Ricky moves to the strategic layer as you ramp.

The team around you

Your 60-day ramp

Ricky grants the access; you confirm each one works and flag anything broken the same day. Work through this list top to bottom.

Email first

• Log in to your Turnkey CFO mailbox at office.com (Outlook on the web). Complete MFA setup on your phone. This address is your client-facing identity. All client email you send comes from here, never from a personal address.
• Set up your email signature: your name, Accounting Manager, Turnkey CFO, your-name@TurnkeyCFO.com, turnkeycfo.com. Warm and professional. No emojis in client-facing email, ever.
• Add the mailbox to your phone (Outlook mobile app) so client replies never sit unseen.
• Open the accounting inbox: accounting@turnkeycfo.com. Ricky will grant you shared-mailbox access; confirm it appears in Outlook (it may take a few minutes after the grant). This is the operational inbox: QBO access invites, bank statements, client document submissions, and system notifications land here. You will live in this mailbox during close week.
• Learn the accounting inbox layout: how incoming client mail is foldered, what gets flagged for Ricky, and what you can action directly. Rule of thumb: statements and documents get filed to the client's Drive folder; anything about scope, pricing, or a frustrated tone goes to Ricky.

Core systems

• Slack: accept your invite, install desktop + mobile, introduce yourself. Slack is our internal nervous system; client-facing email is Outlook.
• Financial Cents: accept your invite and log in. Section 03 is your full study guide for this platform.
• QuickBooks Online: confirm you can open every active client's QBO file. Report any client file you cannot open. Access flows through the firm's QBO Accountant seat tied to accounting@turnkeycfo.com.
• Google Drive: confirm you can open Turnkey CFO / 01_FIRM_OPERATIONS (your Drive access is scoped to firm operations; Ricky adds you). Section 08 covers file conventions.

Client platforms

• Ramp: confirm access to the Heirloom Church and Village of Hope Maui Ramp accounts (Kingdom City also runs Ramp; access as those wire in).
• Gusto: confirm payroll access for the Gusto clients (Heirloom, Harbour, VOH, with Epic Life and Kingdom City migrating in).
• Bill.com: confirm access for Epic Life (and Northpoint while it transitions to Ramp).
• Everything else via the Client Vaults: Toast, Planning Center, Subsplash, Tithe.ly, DonorPerfect, Shopify, and the rest are reached through each client's vault in Financial Cents. You will audit these in Section 03.

Financial Cents is our workflow backbone. Every client, every close, every document request runs through it. Before your first close cycle you need to know its layout cold.

Learn the layout

• Home / dashboard: understand the status pills on each project, task progress bars, and due dates. This view is how you will answer "where does every client stand" at a glance.
• Projects: open several monthly-close projects. Study how tasks are templated, who each task is assigned to, and how recurring projects regenerate each month.
• Client profiles: each client record holds contacts, notes, and the vault. Click through every active client's profile once.
• The Inbox (Clients Inbox folder): client emails sync here so requests and replies stay attached to the client. Learn how it differs from Outlook.
• Team Chat vs Client Chat inside a project: Team Chat is internal; Client Chat is visible to the client. Never put internal commentary in Client Chat. Read a month of both tabs on two or three clients to absorb the tone difference.
• Client Tasks: how we request documents from clients, how automatic reminders fire, and what the client sees on their end.

Client Vault audit (your first deliverable)

• Open every active client's vault and inventory what credentials are stored: banks, QBO, payroll, POS, giving platforms.
• Test the logins that matter for close (bank portals, statement sources, giving platforms). Note which work, which prompt for 2FA sent to someone else, and which are stale.
• Produce a vault gap list: one row per client, columns for system, status (works / 2FA blocked / stale / missing), and what is needed to fix it. Share it with Ricky in Slack.

Every client runs the same rhythm, measured in business days (BD) of the new month. Each cycle delivers the prior month's books. This cadence is the product; protecting it is the job.

• Study the live Close Command tool: cfo-close-command.pages.dev. Learn the Overview (Gantt matrix), Week view, and per-client checklists. Checkboxes sync across the team.
• Walk one client through the full BD template on paper: what happens at each BD, who initiates, and what the deliverable looks like.
• Know the first-week-of-month reality: the close is a hard, recurring deadline. Plan your availability around BD1 to BD10 each month.

Who they are, what they run on, and what to watch. Deep detail per client lives in your Client Cheat Sheets; treat this table as the map.

This is the heart of your first two weeks. For each client, work the same protocol in QBO, with their Client Cheat Sheet open beside you. The goal is that by Day 14 you know every COA, every fund structure, and every quirk by name.

The per-client protocol (repeat for all)

• Read the Client Cheat Sheet first. Ricky prepared one branded PDF per client: snapshot, key people, money map, coding rules, watch list. It is your primer before touching the books.
• Chart of Accounts: read it top to bottom. Note the account numbering logic, parent/sub structure, and anything that looks over-categorized or legacy.
• Classes and funds: for churches and nonprofits, map which classes are true restricted/designated funds versus ministry tracking labels. This distinction drives how we report to boards and elders.
• Entity basics: entity type, fiscal year (Heirloom and Kingdom City start July; most others are calendar), accounting method, payroll mapping.
• Review 2–3 months of completed financials: develop a feel for what "normal" looks like, where the recurring activity lands, and where issues typically arise.
• Bank and card accounts: know every connected account, its purpose, and its reconciliation state.
• Recurring vendors and coding patterns: build your per-client reference notes as you go (vendors, common miscodes, payroll schedules, seasonal patterns).

Client-specific study flags

Four platforms carry most of the operational weight outside QBO. Get properly fluent in each.

Ramp (corporate cards + expense management)

• Learn the Ramp workflow: transactions land daily, cardholders owe a memo and receipt, and coding maps each transaction to the client's GL. Heirloom and VOH run daily automated GL-coding support; Kingdom City is manual for now.
• Know the cardholder rules per client: who holds cards, what their memos should say, and how memo quality drives coding accuracy. The cheat sheets carry the per-cardholder guidance.
• Memo deadline discipline: card memos are due by BD3 each month. Chasing memos early is one of the highest-leverage things you can do for the close.

Gusto (payroll)

• Tour each Gusto account: pay schedules (Heirloom is semi-monthly), employee vs contractor setup, and how payroll journal entries land in QBO.
• Understand clergy specifics: housing allowances and church payroll nuances are exactly why you were hired; make sure our setups match what you know to be right, and flag anything that does not.
• Know the compliance calendar: quarterly 941s, annual 940 FUTA, W-2s, and 1099-NEC season. Note which clients we file for and which self-file through the platform.

Bill.com and AP

• Epic Life AP: bills flow through Bill.com with approval chains; card spend rides BILL Divvy. Learn who approves what.
• Northpoint transition: currently Bill.com + Expensify, moving to Ramp. Understand both the current state and the target state.

Sales tax

• Paradox / Doxa: multi-location Texas sales tax across several cities. Study how Toast revenue backs out tax and how filings are prepared.
• Mojo (if it closes): a multi-entity Texas sales tax workpaper already exists: gross receipts back out 8.25% tax, then apply the timely-filing discount, rolled up by entity and month. Learn its logic now so you can run it later.
• Open items to track: Epic Life merch/coffee sales are not currently set up for sales tax collection. This is flagged, unresolved, and will need a plan.

Giving and POS platforms

• Map each platform to its client: Subsplash (Heirloom), Planning Center (Epic Life, Northpoint), Tithe.ly (Kingdom City), DonorPerfect (VOH), Toast (Doxa, Mojo), Shopify (Doxa), Square (Epic Life merch), Stripe and PayPal in several places. Know how each one's deposits hit the bank and how fees are netted.

Your Drive access is scoped to Turnkey CFO / 01_FIRM_OPERATIONS — the firm's internal SOPs and operations. Client documents are handled inside each client's vault in Financial Cents (Section 03), not in your Drive.

• Confirm your access to Turnkey CFO / 01_FIRM_OPERATIONS. Flag anything you cannot open in Slack the day you find it.
• Learn the firm SOPs stored there so your close work follows the documented process.
• Keep it clean: descriptive names with the client and date beat "scan001.pdf", every file has one home, and do not restructure or rename folders — raise it rather than reorganizing solo.

The engagement letter is the source of truth for what we owe each client. You cannot QC a client's deliverables until you know what was promised.

Read every letter

• Locate each client's signed engagement letter in their 02_CLIENTS folder and read it end to end.
• Extract the essentials into your notes: scope, monthly fee, deliverables and cadence, start date, term/renewal date, and anything unusual that was promised.
• Flag term dates: at least one engagement (Soularis) has a renewal window in play; part of your seat is making sure no letter quietly lapses.
• Learn the letter structure itself: our standard terms, tiers (Books / +Dashboard / +Advisory), and how pricing maps to entity count and complexity. You will eventually walk new clients through this.

How a new client onboards

• Study the flow: proposal, signed engagement letter, billing setup, then QBO accountant access granted to accounting@turnkeycfo.com, systems access (payroll, cards, giving), opening balances and cutover, then the first monthly close.
• Review a live onboarding checklist: Epic Life and Northpoint both have working onboarding checklists in flight. Read them to see the real sequence and where clients typically stall.
• Know the cutover rule: opening balances and the prior-provider handoff are part of every onboarding. A close that starts from bad opening balances never recovers, so this step is never skipped.

This is our starting standard. You and Ricky will refine it together in your first weeks, and the refined version becomes the firm's playbook.

Channels

Response standards

• Client emails: acknowledge the same business day, even if the full answer comes later. "Received, working on it, you'll have it by X" builds more trust than a perfect answer two days late.
• Internal Slack: respond within a couple of working hours. If something will take longer, say so.
• Never leave a client guessing near a deliverable date. If BD6 is at risk, the client hears from us before the date, not after.

The escalation ladder

Voice rules for client-facing writing

• Warm, professional, plain-spoken. No jargon, no emojis, no filler.
• Lead with the answer, then the detail.
• During Phases 1–3, outgoing client communication is reviewed by Ricky before send. Full release removes the review step.

• Read this section twice, then bring your suggested changes to Ricky. You have run client relationships before; make this protocol better.

Clean, per-client time records help us learn what each client truly costs to serve, and they keep your logged hours accurate. Upwork's time tracker is your system of record; these are the habits that make the data useful.

• Track daily, per client: date, client (or "Training" / "Internal"), hours to the quarter hour, and a one-line description of the work.
• Separate training time from client time during onboarding so each client’s true cost stays clear.
• Log consistently: keep a per-client running total each week so client-cost reporting never depends on memory.
• Keep it simple: Upwork's tracker is the system of record; a light supporting spreadsheet is plenty if you want one. Show Ricky your setup in week 1.

The checkpoints from your 60-Day Onboarding Plan, in one place. Check them off as they land.

• Day 1: systems access granted; engagement letter review begins.
• Day 7: all client COAs, org structures, and key contacts documented; vault audit delivered.
• Day 14: Hardik's workflow observed end to end; client historical financials reviewed; study notes and question lists complete.
• Day 21: first parallel QC review complete alongside Ricky.
• Day 30: first full close cycle supported; first directed asks to Hardik issued.
• Day 38: Phase 3 begins; independent QC ownership starts.
• Day 45: first solo client call; first independently reviewed close cycle complete.
• Day 60: full release; formal check-in with Ricky.