Accounting staff handover checklist: keep client work moving during an absence

A colleague starts parental leave. Another is away for two weeks because of illness. Someone gives notice and leaves in three weeks. The clients are not leaving, but their work can still be disrupted if nobody plans who takes over. This checklist covers a colleague's work during an absence or after a departure. It is not about ending a client relationship.

A handover is more than a document signed on the last day. Use a short routine whenever you can foresee an absence. Ask four questions: What work must continue? Who will do it? Which access do they need? How will you check that the handover worked?

Name the trigger before it becomes urgent

Some leaves are known months ahead. Sudden illness gives no warning. Ontario's employment standards guide describes pregnancy and parental leave as job-protected. Together, they can last well over a year. That is too long to rely on someone remembering each client's details. Use a written handover for any absence longer than a few days. Keep the work list current at all times so it also helps during short, unexpected absences.

Record both why someone is leaving and for how long. It may be a two-week vacation, a multi-month leave or a resignation. Name the person and their expected first day back, or write “not returning”. Name who can change client commitments while they are away.

List what has to keep moving

Before assigning anyone, write down what the departing person was actually doing for each client: recurring tasks, filing dates, documents owed, and anything mid-review. A job title is not a work list. Two bookkeepers with the same title can carry very different client mixes and different amounts of work in progress.

• Recurring and one-off tasks currently assigned to that person, grouped by client.
• Anything due in the next few weeks, regardless of who normally handles it.
• Work that is partly done — a reconciliation half-reviewed, a return drafted but not checked.
• Standing client questions or promises made verbally that are not written anywhere yet.

This list is the actual handover. Everything after this step is about assigning and protecting it, not rebuilding it from memory two weeks later.

Assign a temporary owner, not just a note

For each affected client, name one temporary contact. Do this even if two or three people share the work. In Bookwits, you can reassign the “Manager” on the client profile. The record then shows who is responsible now, rather than relying on memory.

Reassign the tasks separately from the client. In Bookwits, a manager can move individual tasks to another team member while keeping their due dates and history. This helps when someone takes only part of a colleague's work, not the whole client list.

Hand over access without overreaching

Responsibility and system access are different decisions. A temporary client contact may not need every system the departing person used. A short absence rarely calls for broad new access that must be removed again in two weeks. For each client, decide what the covering person truly needs to see.

For a permanent departure, removing the former team member from Bookwits immediately ends their access to the firm's Bookwits workspace. That includes clients, tasks and shared documents inside it. It does not remove access to email, banking, payroll software or other outside accounts. List and review those systems separately. One removal action does not cover everything.

A short worked example: covering a two-week absence

A senior bookkeeper is taking two weeks of leave, with eleven active clients. The firm's checklist, built from the steps above, might look like this.

Two-week coverage plan for one departing team member

Step	Who confirms it	Evidence kept
List open tasks and due dates per client	Departing team member	Exported task list, dated
Assign a temporary Manager per client	Office manager	Updated client record
Reassign in-progress tasks	Covering team members	Task history showing reassignment
Confirm which outside systems need a temporary delegate	Office manager	Short written list, not assumed
Set a return-review date	Office manager	Calendar entry

These five rows are not just for vacations. The same checklist works for a sudden illness. In that case, someone who can reconstruct the list completes the first row instead of the absent person.

Close the handover deliberately

Do a short review when the colleague returns. Decide which clients return to them and which deliberately stay with the temporary contact. Check whether anything was missed. Otherwise, responsibility can remain split without anyone clearly in charge. If the absence becomes permanent, use the same review to finish assigning the clients for good.

Bookwits can keep the task list, client assignments and record of who did what. It does not choose who should cover a client, calculate pay or leave entitlements, or guarantee that outside systems are secure. The firm still makes these decisions. The checklist helps people remember them.