Ask enough drone pilots about the job that went sideways and you hear a version of the same story. The flight was fine. The ortho was fine. What went wrong happened two weeks earlier, when a new client called, the site address went on a sticky note, the price was agreed over the phone, and nobody wrote down who was actually going to pay the invoice. The invoice went to the wrong person, sat in the wrong inbox for a month, and by the time it surfaced the project manager who hired the pilot had moved on. That is why we think drone client onboarding is where most of the trouble in a drone business quietly starts.
This post is the checklist we recommend, and how it fits inside a CRM instead of a sticky note.
Why onboarding deserves its own checklist
Most drone pilots treat a new client as a quote. Get the acreage, send a number, wait. But a quote only answers "how much." Onboarding answers everything else you'll need later: who approves the work, who pays, where the files go, what the site rules are, and what "done" looks like. Skip it and you'll be asking those questions at the worst possible moment, usually the day before the flight or the week the invoice is late.
A checklist turns onboarding from a memory test into a routine. A CRM makes sure the answers land on the client record where every later quote, job, and invoice can see them.
The drone client onboarding checklist
Here is the list, in the order we actually ask.
1. Contacts and roles
- Requester: the person who called you.
- Approver: the person who can say yes to scope and price. Often not the requester.
- Billing contact: the person or inbox that pays invoices, plus any PO or vendor-number requirements.
- On-site contact: a name and cell number for the day of the flight.
Four roles, sometimes four different people. Write all of them on the client record, not in an email thread.
2. Company details for billing
Legal business name, billing address, and whether they need a W-9, a certificate of insurance, or vendor registration before the first invoice can be paid. Ask now. Vendor setup at a large contractor can take longer than the job itself.
3. Scope in plain words
What are they buying? An orthomosaic, a stockpile count, roof photos, a progress series? How often? Write the deliverable list in the client's words and yours. Vague scope is how a one-time map turns into "can you also fly the north parcel" with no change in price.
4. Site and access notes
Gate codes, check-in procedures, PPE rules, safety orientation requirements, and any airspace notes you already know. Save them once on the client or site record so the next job at the same site does not start from zero.
5. Delivery preferences
How do they want files? A shared link, a client portal, a specific file format for their engineer or CAD team? Who should receive the delivery notice? Getting this wrong is a common reason a finished job sits "delivered" while nobody on the client side has opened it.
6. Payment terms
Deposit or no deposit, net terms, accepted payment methods, and late-payment terms. Put the terms in the quote so they're agreed before the work, not argued after it.
7. Communication cadence
Does the approver want a heads-up the day before the flight? A weekly update on a multi-visit project? Decide it now and put it on the record.
Where each answer should live
The point of doing this inside a CRM is that each answer gets used again without anyone retyping it:
- Contacts and roles sit on the client record, so the right person gets the quote and the right inbox gets the invoice.
- Scope becomes the line items on the quote.
- Site notes travel with every job at that site.
- Payment terms carry from quote to invoice.
- Delivery preferences decide who gets the files when the job closes.
In Pilot Ledger, the client record is the hub: quotes, jobs, invoices, and deliveries all hang off it. That's the design choice that makes a checklist worth filling in, because you only answer each question once. If you're still comparing tools, our post on drone pilot CRM vs a generic CRM explains why job and flight context matters on that record.
A five-minute onboarding call script
You don't need a form the client fills out. A short call covers it:
- "Who else besides you needs to approve this?"
- "Who handles invoices on your side, and do you need anything from me to get set up as a vendor?"
- "Walk me through what you'll do with the files once you have them."
- "Anything I need to know about getting on site?"
- "How do you want me to keep you posted?"
Type the answers straight into the client record while you talk. That's it.
What changes when you do this every time
When every client is onboarded the same way, invoices go to the right person on day one. Scope arguments get rarer, because the scope was written down before the flight. Repeat jobs get faster, because the site notes are already there.
None of that is glamorous. It's just the difference between a business that remembers and one that guesses.
Start with your next new client
You don't have to go back and onboard every existing client. Start with the next new one. Run the checklist, save the answers on the client record, and see how much smoother the quote, the job, and the invoice go. If you want a place to keep all of it in one system built for drone work, take a look at Pilot Ledger.