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Nine steps · two weeks · one cycle

Your First WorkStream, in Two Weeks

Pick one cycle, teach it once, and let it run for a second client without you. This is the path we walk with new firms, written out so you can do it yourself.

Written for practice managers No engineering required Updated August 2026
01
Day one

Choose the cycle, not the client

Take the job your team does the same way every month for at least five clients — bank reconciliation, sales tax prep, month-end packs. Repetition is what you are teaching; a one-off engagement teaches nothing that carries.

By the end: one named cycle, written on one line, with the five clients it applies to.
02
Day one

Write down what happens today

In plain sentences, list every step a person takes now, including the fiddly judgment calls and the bit where someone emails the client. You are not designing a process; you are recording one.

By the end: a numbered list your team recognizes as what they actually do.
03
Day two

Connect the ledger, read-only

Point me at Xero, QuickBooks or Sage with read access first. Nothing is written back until you have seen a full run and said yes.

By the end: a live connection and a first look at real data, with no write permissions granted.
04
Days three to five

Run it beside you, once

Sit through one run on one client. Watch the reasoning as it goes, not the output at the end — that is where you see whether I understood your firm or a textbook.

By the end: one completed run you have read line by line.
05
Days three to five

Correct in the thread, not in a spec

When I get something wrong, say so where it happened. Corrections are learned against the cycle, so the next client inherits them without anyone rewriting instructions.

By the end: three or four corrections captured, and a visible change on the next run.
06
Day six

Set the approval gate

Decide what I may finish alone and what waits for a signature. Most firms start with everything gated and open up cycle by cycle. Both are one setting.

By the end: an approval rule written down and agreed with whoever signs.
07
Days seven to nine

Add the second client

This is the real test of the fortnight. The same cycle should run for a different client with a different chart of accounts and no new teaching.

By the end: two clients on one WorkStream, and a note of anything that needed a tweak.
08
Days ten to twelve

Let one run unattended

Pick your steadiest client and let a run finish without anyone watching. Read the trace afterwards. The point is not the output; it is that you can see how it got there.

By the end: one unattended run, reviewed after the fact.
09
Days thirteen to fourteen

Hand it to the team

Show two colleagues where the queue is, how to approve, and how to correct. If they can do those three things, the WorkStream is theirs and you are free to teach the next one.

By the end: two people who can run it without you, and a candidate for the next cycle.
Before you start

Five things worth having ready

Someone who can grant ledger access without a change request
A named signer for the approval gate
Five clients on the same cycle, ideally on one ledger
Two hours of one person's week, not twenty of everyone's
Your IT questions written down — we answer them in the trust center
Next
Start from a gallery WorkStream instead →
Also useful
What 412 firms recovered last year →

Rather do it with us in the room?

We run the same two weeks with your data and your signer. Most firms reach an unattended run inside two weeks.

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