A new customer, and a shipment already on the water
Sales has won a new importer. The first shipment is booked. Accounts needs a credit application, trading terms acceptance and bank details. Customs needs the importer's identifiers and a signed authority to act for them, in whatever form your customs team uses. Operations need delivery addresses, warehouse contacts and how the customer wants to be notified. Each is requested by a different person, by email, in a different document.
Three weeks later, the container arrives, and half of it is still missing.
Why onboarding drags
Each department asks for what it needs, when it needs it, and nobody has the whole checklist.
- Forms are sent as attachments to be printed, signed and scanned.
- Different teams request overlapping information separately.
- Nobody sees which items are still missing.
- Approvals, such as a credit limit, wait in someone's inbox.
- The account is created in several systems by hand.
What the delay costs
First shipments move without the account complete, which means operating without agreed terms or without the details customs needs, and someone has to remember to go back and tidy up once the shipment has landed. New customers form their first impression of you through repeated requests for information. Sales wins are slowed down by admin. And incomplete accounts cause errors for months, such as invoices sent to the wrong contact.
The onboarding flow we build
- Your teams agree a single list of what a new account needs, by customer type. We build it into a guided online form with electronic signature where you choose.
- The customer completes it once, uploading documents and adding contacts, addresses and notification preferences.
- Details that can be checked are checked: company registration and VAT numbers against public registers, email addresses, postcodes.
- Approvals route to the right people, such as a credit limit to finance and standing instructions to operations, with reminders.
- Missing items are shown to the customer and your team on one status page.
- Once approved, the account is created in your forwarding and accounts systems through their APIs or imports.
| Item | Today | With onboarding |
|---|---|---|
| Credit application | Emailed form, scanned back | Online, signed electronically |
| Identifiers and authorities | Requested separately | In the same form |
| Contacts and addresses | Collected over several emails | Entered once by the customer |
| Approvals | Sit in inboxes | Routed with reminders |
| Account creation | Typed into each system | Created from the approved record |
After
New customers complete one form rather than answering a series of emails. Your teams see a single status for each new account. First shipments are more likely to move with everything in place. And customer records start complete, which saves errors later.
Sales benefit directly. The time between winning an account and moving the first shipment smoothly shrinks when the paperwork is not a chain of emails, and the salesperson is not the one chasing the customer for a signed form. The status page shows them exactly what is outstanding if the customer asks.
We do not decide what your customs team or accounts team require from a new customer. They set the list; the flow collects it.
Checklist
- New account forms are emailed and scanned.
- Different teams ask new customers for the same things.
- First shipments move before the account is complete.
- Credit approvals wait in inboxes.
- Accounts are set up by hand in several systems.