A new client intake form is the set of questions a service practice asks before taking someone on, and its quality shows up weeks later: the engagements that run smoothly are usually the ones whose intake asked the right things. The form's job is to feed three moments: the decision to accept, the first working session, and the paperwork that frames the engagement. Built backward from those, a new client form needs five blocks: identity and contact, the work itself, expectations, logistics, and consents, each carrying only fields someone downstream will actually read.
Identity, contact and the referral line
Full name, business name where relevant, and how to reach them by their preferred channel. Add one line asking how they found you: the referral answer costs the client five seconds and quietly builds the only marketing data a small practice ever truly trusts. Keep this block short; it is the easy part, and forms that dwell here run out of the client's patience before the questions that matter.
The work and the expectations, in their own words
What do you need, by when, and what does a good outcome look like to you: asked openly, answered in the client's own words. These answers do double duty. They prepare the first session, and they surface the mismatch early, the client who wants something the practice does not do, or wants it on a timeline nobody can meet. An expectations answer that worries you at intake is the cheapest warning you will ever receive; the same discovery after acceptance costs the whole engagement.
Logistics, consents, and the block that is yours
Availability, decision-makers, access you will need, billing contact: the practical answers the first week runs on. Then the consents your practice requires, captured at the moment of answering, plainly worded. Last, the block specific to your trade: the accountant's year-end and entity questions, the therapist's history, the agency's brand assets. That block is professional judgement and properly yours; the template on this site is the skeleton it hangs on, working its figures on the page, free.
Questions people ask about new client intake form
How long should a new client intake form be?
Long enough to feed the acceptance decision, the first session and the paperwork; short enough to be finished at home in one sitting. If a field has no downstream reader, cut it; every extra question costs completions.
Should pricing be discussed on the intake form?
Ask about budget expectations or scale where relevant to fit, plainly, without turning the form into a quote engine. The pricing conversation itself belongs to the human step after review, where the practice can respond to what was actually written.
When should the form go out?
The moment the enquiry lands: capture first, form immediately after, one polite chase if it sits unanswered. Answered before the first conversation, it turns that conversation from information-gathering into actual advice.