How to Automate New Client Onboarding From Inquiry to First Invoice

Every new client goes through the same process: they inquire, you respond, they fill in some details, you set them up in your system, you send a contract, they sign, you raise an invoice. It’s the same steps every time, which means it’s exactly the kind of work that should run automatically.

This guide builds a full onboarding workflow using Typeform, Zapier, and Xero. Once it’s set up, a new inquiry triggers the entire sequence without you touching it.

What the workflow does

Here’s what happens automatically when a new client submits your inquiry form:

1. Their details land in your CRM or a Google Sheet
2. They receive a welcome email with next steps
3. A new contact is created in Xero
4. You get a Slack or email notification to review
5. When you mark them as confirmed, a draft invoice is created in Xero ready to send

You still make the final call on pricing and confirmation. The system handles the paperwork.

What you need

• Typeform, for the intake form (free plan works for basic forms)
• Zapier, to connect everything (free plan covers 100 tasks/month; Starter is US$20/month for more)
• Xero, for contact creation and invoicing (standard Australian accounting plan)
• Gmail or Outlook, for automated welcome emails

Step 1, Build your intake form in Typeform

Your Typeform replaces the back-and-forth of “can you send me your details.” Build it to capture everything you need upfront:

• Full name and business name
• Email and phone
• ABN (if you’re B2B)
• What they need (a dropdown or short answer)
• Timeline and budget (optional, useful for quoting)
• How they heard about you

Keep it under 8 questions. Long forms kill completion rates. If you need more information, collect it after they’ve confirmed.

Set your Typeform to redirect to a thank-you page after submission. That page should tell them what happens next and when to expect a response.

Step 2, Connect Typeform to Zapier

In Zapier, create a new Zap with Typeform → New Entry as the trigger. Test it by submitting a dummy entry through your form, Zapier will pull in the field data so you can map it in the next steps.

Step 3, Send a welcome email automatically

Add a Zapier action: Gmail → Send Email (or Outlook if that’s what you use).

Map the fields from the Typeform submission:

• To: the email field from the form
• Subject: “Thanks for getting in touch, [First Name]”
• Body: A short, warm message explaining what happens next and your typical response time

Write this email once. It goes out to every new inquiry automatically, within seconds of them submitting the form.

Step 4, Create a contact in Xero

Add another Zapier action: Xero → Create Contact.

Map the fields:

• Contact name → Full name from form
• Business name → Business name from form
• Email → Email from form
• Phone → Phone from form

This creates the contact in Xero before you’ve had a single conversation with them. When it comes time to invoice, they’re already in your system.

Step 5, Notify yourself

Add a final action to notify you of the new inquiry. Options:

• Slack → Send Message to a #new-clients channel
• Gmail → Send Email to yourself with a summary
• SMS via Twilio if you want a phone notification

The notification should include the client’s name, what they need, and a link to their Xero contact so you can review and follow up.

Step 6, Create a draft invoice when you confirm them

This step is slightly more manual, you trigger it once you’ve agreed on scope and price. Options:

• Add a checkbox to your Google Sheet and use a Zapier trigger on that change
• Use a Typeform or Jotform “confirmation” form you fill in yourself
• Create the invoice directly in Xero (takes 60 seconds when the contact already exists)

The contact is already in Xero from Step 4, so raising the invoice is a matter of opening their record, clicking New Invoice, and filling in the line items. The admin is already done.

The full workflow at a glance

Cost to run this

For most small businesses doing fewer than 10 new client inquiries a month, the free tiers of Typeform and Zapier are enough to run this workflow at no extra cost beyond Xero.

What this saves you

The manual version of this process, chasing details by email, manually creating contacts, copy-pasting information into Xero, takes 15–30 minutes per new client. For a business taking on 2–3 new clients a week, that’s an hour or two every week on pure admin.

More importantly, it removes the risk of dropping the ball. A new inquiry gets an immediate response, every time, even if you’re on a job or out of the office.

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Sources:

• Typeform, Pricing
• Zapier, Pricing
• Xero, Australian pricing plans

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