Client Intake Form for Tax, Accounting and Law Firms

Before you quote a fee you need four answers: who the client is, what they want done, who else is involved, and when it’s due. This form asks for those and stops there.

  • Two pages, US Letter, real form fields. Clients can type into it in any PDF reader.
  • A related-parties table for the conflict check, and an office box for the engagement letter, the fee and who ran the check.
  • No box for a Social Security number, EIN or bank account. Those come later, through your portal, once you’ve taken the client.

It’s written for firms that sign up new clients every week: tax preparers, bookkeepers, accountants, law firms and consultants. It is not for health information, so therapists, clinics and spas should look elsewhere.

Download blank PDF
Blank client intake form, page 1: firm details, client contact, business details, owners, services requested, deadlines and prior advisor
Page 1 of 2. Page 2 has the conflict check, document checklist, consents, signatures and the office-use box.

What the form asks, and why

Twelve parts, in the order a first phone call usually goes. Change the wording to suit your practice; the reasons below are what to keep.

  1. 1

    Your firm’s details

    Firm name, phone or email, and the link to your secure upload portal.

    Why: Fill this row once and keep the file as your master copy. The client then knows where sensitive documents go before they think of emailing them.

  2. 2

    Client and contact details

    Individual or business, new or returning, legal and preferred name, email, phones, mailing address, how and when to reach them.

    Why: The legal name goes on the engagement letter; the preferred name is what you say on the phone. Some clients never answer calls, so ask once how they want to be reached.

  3. 3

    Business details

    Legal name as registered, DBA, entity type, how an LLC is taxed, state and date formed, fiscal year end, industry, headcount.

    Why: An LLC’s return depends on its members and elections: by default a one-member LLC is disregarded and a multi-member LLC is a partnership, unless it elects corporate treatment IRS. Fiscal year end and headcount tell you about deadlines and payroll before you quote.

  4. 4

    Spouse, partners or owners

    Name, relationship or role, ownership share and contact details for up to four people.

    Why: A joint return has two taxpayers, and a business may have several owners. Each is a name for the conflict check, and each may have to sign something later.

  5. 5

    Services requested

    Tax return preparation, bookkeeping, payroll, advisory, a tax notice, a legal matter or other, plus a short description, the periods involved and how often.

    Why: Scope sets the fee and the engagement letter. For legal matters the box asks for a short summary only. Comment [4] to ABA Model Rule 1.18 tells lawyers to limit a first consultation to “only such information as reasonably appears necessary” to decide whether to take the matter Rule 1.18 cmt. [4].

  6. 6

    Key dates and deadlines

    Filing due dates, the response date on a notice, court dates, closings.

    Why: The date often decides whether you can take the work at all. Write it on the intake so it doesn’t live only in an email thread.

  7. 7

    Prior advisor

    The previous accountant, bookkeeper or attorney, permission to contact them, and (optionally) why the client is moving.

    Why: You’ll often need last year’s return, a depreciation schedule or the prior firm’s file. The reason is optional, but a fee dispute with the last firm is worth knowing about before you quote.

  8. 8

    Related parties

    The other side of any dispute, co-owners, business partners, a current or former spouse, lenders, key customers or vendors, and any former or trade names.

    Why: This is the list you run against your client records before you accept the work. More on that below.

  9. 9

    How they heard about you

    Referral source, and the referrer’s name.

    Why: So you can thank the person who sent them, and see which sources bring the clients you want.

  10. 10

    Documents to bring or upload

    Prior returns, notices, financial statements, bank statements, formation documents, payroll reports, contracts or court papers, photo ID; and how the client will deliver them.

    Why: Tick what you need before you send the form. The delivery line steers files away from email: IRS Publication 4557 tells firms to “caution customers against transmitting sensitive data, like account numbers, via email” IRS Pub. 4557.

  11. 11

    Communication and e-signature consent

    Permission to email, to text, and to send documents and engagement letters for electronic signature.

    Why: The checkboxes record what the client prefers. If a law requires you to give a consumer something in writing, the E-SIGN Act has its own consent steps before an electronic copy counts: the consumer must have “affirmatively consented” after specific disclosures 15 U.S.C. 7001(c).

  12. 12

    Signature and office use

    Client and second signer; then, for the firm: conflict check cleared, engagement letter sent and signed, separate 7216 consent, ID verified, fee quoted, assigned to.

    Why: The signature block says in plain words that sending the form does not engage the firm. The office box is your record that the conflict check happened before the engagement letter went out.

What to leave off

An intake form gets emailed, printed, left on a desk and scanned. Ask only what you need to decide whether to take the client. Collect the rest later, through something built for it.

Social Security numbers, ITINs and EINs
You need them to prepare the return, not to decide whether to take the client. Collect them through your portal after the engagement letter is signed.
Bank and card numbers
Same answer. Nothing about a first conversation requires them.
Health information
Therapists, clinics, massage and spa businesses need an intake built for health data. This isn’t it.
The full story of a legal dispute
Not before the conflict check. Ask for the parties and a short summary first.

Tax and accounting firms have a rule behind this. The FTC’s Safeguards Rule treats “an accountant or other tax preparation service that is in the business of completing income tax returns” as a financial institution 16 CFR 314.2, and IRS Publication 4557 says the same IRS Pub. 4557. The Rule requires you to encrypt customer information “both in transit over external networks and at rest”, and to dispose of it securely no later than two years after you last used it to serve the customer, unless you have a business or legal reason to keep it 16 CFR 314.4(c)(3), (c)(6). The sample security plan in IRS Publication 5708 begins its collection policy with: “We will only collect the PII of clients, customers, or employees that is necessary to accomplish our legitimate business needs” IRS Pub. 5708. Every SSN you leave off the intake form is one less thing to encrypt, track and shred.

Law firms have Model Rule 1.6(c): “reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client” Rule 1.6(c). There is also a quieter trap. Under comment [2] to Rule 1.18, a lawyer who invites people to submit information about a potential representation “without clear and reasonably understandable warnings and cautionary statements” has likely had a consultation with anyone who replies Rule 1.18 cmt. [2]. That is why the description box on this form asks for a short summary and no confidential details yet.

The conflict check

Law firms

Rule 1.7 bars a representation that is “directly adverse to another client”, or one with a significant risk of being materially limited by duties to someone else or by the lawyer’s own interest, unless the conditions in 1.7(b) are met, including each affected client’s informed consent, confirmed in writing Rule 1.7. Comment [3] is the part that shapes an intake form: a lawyer “should adopt reasonable procedures, appropriate for the size and type of firm and practice, to determine in both litigation and non-litigation matters the persons and issues involved.” And: “Ignorance caused by a failure to institute such procedures will not excuse” a violation Rule 1.7 cmt. [3].

Three more rules decide how wide you search:

  • The whole firm. While lawyers are associated in a firm, none of them may knowingly take a matter that any one of them would be barred from under 1.7 or 1.9, with two exceptions Rule 1.10(a). Search the firm’s client list, not just yours.
  • Former clients. You can’t act against one in the same or a substantially related matter unless they give informed consent, confirmed in writing Rule 1.9(a).
  • Prospective clients. People who consulted you but never hired you. If one gave you information that could be significantly harmful to them, you may be barred from acting against them in the same or a substantially related matter Rule 1.18(c), so their names belong in the conflicts list too.

These are the ABA’s model rules. Your state’s rules of professional conduct are the ones that bind you, and they can differ.

Tax and accounting firms

If you practice before the IRS, Circular 230 has a parallel rule. A conflict exists when representing one client is directly adverse to another, or when duties to another client, a former client, a third person or your own interest create a significant risk of materially limiting the work. You may go ahead only if each affected client gives informed consent, confirmed in writing within a reasonable period and “in no event later than 30 days”, and you keep the consents for at least 36 months after the representation ends 31 CFR 10.29.

In practice: a couple who are separating and both want you to keep doing their taxes. Two S corporation owners who have stopped speaking to each other. The related-parties table on page 2 is there so these come up at intake, before you’ve started the work.

Keep the section 7216 consent off the intake form

Unless an exception applies, a tax return preparer “may not disclose or use a taxpayer’s tax return information prior to obtaining a written consent from the taxpayer” 26 CFR 301.7216-3(a). The regulation’s own examples are using return information to market products such as mortgage loans, mutual funds or IRAs. Firms lawfully practicing law or accountancy have a separate exception for their own legal or accounting work for the client, books and records included 301.7216-2(h), so check which rules fit your firm. Where consent is needed, the details matter:

  • One document can’t authorize both uses and disclosures; each needs its own (301.7216-3(c)(1)).
  • There is no retroactive consent. A consent to use or disclose return information to solicit business unrelated to tax preparation can’t be requested after you hand the client the completed return to sign (301.7216-3(b)).
  • For Form 1040 clients, Rev. Proc. 2013-14 sets mandatory wording and puts each consent on a separate written document, which may be attached to the engagement letter Rev. Proc. 2013-14.

So the intake signature is not a 7216 consent. The office box on page 2 has a line to confirm you got a separate one when you needed it.

One form, every new client

  1. Make a master copy. Type your firm name, phone and portal link into the top row in Acrobat Reader, Preview or your browser’s PDF viewer, tick the documents you usually ask for in section I, and save. That file is your blank from now on.
  2. Send it, or fill it on the call. Clients can fill the PDF in any reader. Or open it in JustFill during the first call, paste your notes or the client’s email, and the answers go into the matching boxes in seconds. Check them, fix what’s wrong, download. Your first clean download is free.
  3. Already have your own form? Upload it. JustFill finds the fields even in a flat or scanned PDF; fix anything it missed, then choose Save as template. Upload that same file next time and the fields are already in place. Keep the original file: a fresh scan of a printout is a different file and won’t match the saved template.
  4. Returning clients each season. Keep your client list in a spreadsheet with columns named after the form’s fields, andBatch Fillmakes one pre-filled intake per row. Clients check and update it instead of starting from blank. Useful columns:
contact_full_name, contact_preferred_name, contact_email, contact_mobile, address_street, address_city, address_state, address_zip, business_legal_name, business_dba, state_formed, fiscal_year_end, person1_name, person1_relationship, person1_ownership, person2_name, person2_relationship, person2_ownership

A saved template keeps the layout (field positions and labels), not your clients’ answers. What you type is kept as a draft so you can come back to it, and drafts are deleted after 30 days of inactivity (privacy policy). Don’t type SSNs or account numbers into JustFill; this form has nowhere to put them anyway.

Download blank PDF

Using your own intake PDF instead

If your firm already has an intake form, made in Word years ago and printed ever since, you don’t need ours. Upload yours here; it doesn’t have to be fillable.

By uploading, you confirm you have the legal right to use this document.

Common intake mistakes

  • 01Asking for the Social Security number on page one, then emailing the form back and forth.
  • 02Running the conflict check on the business name only. Check the owners, the spouse, former names and DBAs too.
  • 03Checking only your own clients. Under Rule 1.10 a conflict of one lawyer in a firm generally applies to all of them.
  • 04Taking the whole story from a prospective legal client before the conflict check.
  • 05Treating a signed intake form as the engagement. Scope, fee and who exactly the client is belong in the engagement letter.
  • 06Folding a section 7216 consent into the intake signature.
  • 07Leaving the response date of a notice in an email instead of on the form.
  • 08Keeping every intake form forever. Set a retention period in your security plan, then shred or delete on schedule (law firms: keep the names your conflicts system needs).

Questions

Sources

General information for US firms, not legal or tax advice. The ABA Model Rules are a model; your state’s rules govern. Last reviewed September 22, 2026.