Onboarding a contractor in an afternoon.

Get the money settled first

Rate, engagement type, invoice day and payment terms, agreed in writing before the first ticket is assigned. Almost every awkward conversation in month two traces back to one of those four being assumed rather than stated.

In Bothy those live on the crew record, which is also where the markup sits. Putting them in one place is less about tidiness and more about the fact that a rate agreed in email drifts from the rate being billed.

Give them one thing to read

A single document that covers how hours are logged, when they are approved, how invoices are raised and who to ask. Not a wiki — one page. If a new person has to read four documents to bill correctly, they will bill incorrectly.

The test for that page is whether someone can complete their first week without asking you a process question. If they ask, the answer goes on the page rather than into a reply.

Put them on real work on day one

A small, finishable ticket with its own description and notes, in a project with a channel. Onboarding that consists of reading is onboarding nobody remembers. The first ticket also surfaces every access problem at once, while you are still paying attention.

The three things that actually go wrong

Hours logged on the last day of the month, which is a guess you then bill a client for. Access granted to a chat tool but not the board, so the work and the conversation live apart. And a rate change agreed verbally, which reappears as an invoice dispute a quarter later.