SaaS Onboarding and Offboarding Checklist for Finance and IT

What is an offboarding checklist for SaaS tools?

An offboarding checklist is the list of steps that removes someone who leaves from every software tool they used, hands their work and files to a colleague and stops the company paying for their seats. Its partner, the SaaS onboarding checklist, gets a new starter into the right tools before day one. Both work best when finance and IT share them.

Joiners and leavers touch more tools than most teams expect. Across 989 companies on Cledara between October 2025 and September 2026, the median company paid for 32 software tools (the middle half paid for 16 to 48), and plenty of those were bought by a team on a card rather than set up by IT. Finance pays for the seats; IT controls who can get in. When the two work from different lists, leavers keep their access and the company keeps paying.

Onboarding and offboarding is one of the core jobs of SaaS management. This guide gives you two copyable checklists, a table of who does what, the cost of getting it wrong and how to automate it from your HR system.

Key takeaways

• Treat onboarding and offboarding as one job shared by HR, IT, finance and the owner of each tool.
• Make your HR system the trigger: a start date or a leave date should start the process, not an email.
• Turn off a leaver's sign-in on their last day, then remove their paid seats within a week.
• Removing a user is not the same as cutting the bill: lower the seat count too, or renew at the right number.
• Name a new owner for every tool a leaver owned before you cancel anything.
• Record every tool a new starter gets, so the offboarding checklist is ready the day they hand in their notice.
• Cledara Agent can set up new joiners, remove leavers and take back unused paid seats inside the tools, with your approval.

Why does an offboarding checklist matter? The cost of getting it wrong

When someone leaves and nobody works through an offboarding checklist, two things happen: the company keeps paying for seats nobody uses, and a former employee keeps access to company and customer data. Slow onboarding has a cost too: new starters wait for logins, share passwords or buy a tool you already pay for.

Paid seats left running

Most software bills keep running whether or not anyone signs in. 90% of software transactions on Cledara are monthly subscriptions, so a leaver's seat is charged again every month until someone removes it. On an annual contract the seat is already paid for, and it usually renews at the same count unless someone lowers it before the renewal date.

The cost adds up quickly. Take an illustrative 150-person company where 20 people leave in a year. If each leaves behind three paid seats at £25 a month and nobody notices for six months, the company pays £9,000 for software nobody uses. Vendors also raise renewal prices by 8 to 12% a year on average, so forgotten seats get more expensive every year they survive.

Access risk when someone leaves

Every account left open is a way back into company data. In a 2022 Beyond Identity survey of people in the US, UK and Ireland who had left a job, 83% admitted they had kept access to accounts from a previous employer. Shared drives, CRM records and AI tools holding customer data are the obvious worries. Admin rights, API keys and connected apps are just as risky, because nobody remembers they exist.

Auditors check this too: for SOC 2 or ISO 27001, expect to show that access was removed promptly when someone left, and when.

New starters waiting for logins

On the onboarding side, the cost is time and first impressions. A new starter who spends their first week chasing their manager for logins can't do the job they were hired for. Some borrow a colleague's login; others sign up for a tool that does the same job as one you already pay for, which is how duplicate tools and shadow IT start.

Who does what in onboarding and offboarding?

Onboarding and offboarding fail when everyone assumes someone else has done it. HR knows the dates, IT controls sign-in, finance pays for the seats and each tool owner can add or remove users. Give each one a clear part of the job, with a deadline, and the process stops depending on memory.

Tip: Write down an owner for every tool, not just the ones IT manages. "Who owns this tool?" is the question that slows down most offboarding, especially when the owner is the person leaving.

SaaS onboarding checklist: the new starter software checklist

A SaaS onboarding checklist makes sure a new starter can sign in to every tool their role needs on day one, with the right level of access, without the company buying seats it doesn't need. Split it into three stages: before day one, day one and the first week. Copy the lists below into your own process and add your own tools.

Before day one

• ✓ HR adds the new starter to the HR system with start date, role, team and manager, at least a week before day one.
• ✓ The manager confirms the tools the role needs: company-wide tools, the team's tools and anything specific to the role.
• ✓ Check each tool's seat type. Does the role need a full paid seat, or will a view-only or free seat do?
• ✓ Reuse a seat freed by a leaver before buying a new one.
• ✓ Finance approves any new paid seat. Give owners of team tools a week's notice if it needs budget or a contract change.
• ✓ IT creates the company email address and SSO account, and adds the person to the right groups.
• ✓ Each tool owner adds the user with their company email address.
• ✓ Record every tool and seat against the new starter's name, so you know exactly what to remove when they leave.

Note: Many tools offer cheaper or free seat types, such as view-only or guest access. A junior copywriter may only need to view designs in Figma, while a designer needs a full seat. Choosing the right seat at the start avoids paying for a higher tier than the role needs.

Day one

• ✓ Hand over the laptop, the company email address and sign-in instructions.
• ✓ Set up two-factor sign-in and the company password manager before any other tool.
• ✓ Check every core login works: email, SSO, chat, file storage, calendar and video calls.
• ✓ Confirm each tool owner has added the new starter, and chase any who haven't.
• ✓ Walk through the security basics: two-factor sign-in, no shared logins, and how to report anything suspicious.
• ✓ Show the list of tools the company already pays for, and how to request one that isn't on it, so they don't sign up for a duplicate.

First week

• ✓ Add the role-specific tools, each with the right permission level.
• ✓ Ask which tools they would like training on, and book short sessions with the team's expert users.
• ✓ Remove any seat set up "just in case" that the role doesn't need.
• ✓ Check the onboarding record matches what was actually set up.
• ✓ Check in at the end of the first week and again after a month: which tools are missing, and which aren't useful?

Use a standard set of tools for each team so you aren't starting from scratch for every new starter. Everyone gets the company-wide set (email, SSO, chat, file storage, video calls, password manager); each team adds its own. A typical starting point:

Tip: Ask someone from IT, rather than the manager, which tools the new starter wants training on. People are often reluctant to admit gaps to the manager who has just hired them.

SaaS offboarding checklist: what to do when someone leaves

A SaaS offboarding checklist turns off a leaver's software access on their last day, recovers their paid seats within a week and makes sure the company renews at the right number of seats. Start it as soon as notice is given, not on the last day itself, so the handover and the list of tools are ready before access is turned off.

On the last day

• ✓ HR confirms the leave date and time in the HR system and tells IT, finance and the manager.
• ✓ Turn off SSO and email sign-in at the agreed time, and sign the person out of active sessions.
• ✓ Remove access to tools outside SSO: tools bought on a card or expensed, AI tools and anything with its own login.
• ✓ Transfer files, shared drives and calendars to the manager, and forward or delegate the inbox.
• ✓ Move admin rights and tool ownership for every tool the leaver owned to a named colleague.
• ✓ Revoke API keys, access tokens and connected apps (such as Zapier) tied to their account.
• ✓ Collect the laptop, phone and any security keys.
• ✓ Don't cancel a subscription the leaver owned until a new owner has confirmed whether the team still needs it.

Important: Hand over files, inbox and admin rights before you delete an account. In many tools, deleting a user also deletes what they owned.

Within a week

• ✓ Remove the leaver from every paid tool they had, using the list recorded when they joined.
• ✓ Lower the seat count with the vendor where the seat isn't needed, or reassign it to a new starter.
• ✓ Cancel tools that only the leaver used.
• ✓ Archive or delete accounts in line with your data retention policy, keeping anything a legal hold requires.
• ✓ Check cards, invoices and expense claims for any charge still in the leaver's name or email address.
• ✓ Update your tool list: users, owners and seat counts.
• ✓ Check sign-in logs for any attempt to use the leaver's accounts after their last day.

At the next renewal

• ✓ Renew at the number of seats people use, not the number on the last contract.
• ✓ Check annual contracts for minimum seat commitments or true-ups that still count the leaver's seat.
• ✓ Review every tool whose owner has left: is it still needed, and who owns it now?
• ✓ Compare seats paid for with active users for each tool renewing in the next 90 days.
• ✓ Close any trial or account in the leaver's name that has turned into a paid plan.
• ✓ Record the seats and tools you took back, so finance can report the saving.

Note: Removing a user doesn't always lower the bill. In many tools you keep paying for the number of seats you bought until you reduce the seat count yourself or the contract renews. Our guide to finding and removing unused SaaS licences covers the seat review in detail, and the SaaS renewal management guide covers the renewal itself.

How to automate the offboarding checklist with your HR system

To automate onboarding and offboarding, make your HR system the trigger. When HR adds a start date or a leave date, the right tasks start on their own, go to the right owners and are tracked to the finish. That removes the steps that depend on someone remembering, which is where employee offboarding usually breaks down.

1. Connect the HR system. Start dates, leave dates, team and manager should flow into your software list automatically, so nobody has to email IT.
2. Keep one list of every tool. Record each tool's owner, users, cost and renewal date, including tools bought on cards and through expenses, not just those behind SSO.
3. Set standard tool sets. One set for everyone, one per team, plus extras by role. New starters get the right set by default.
4. Send each task to the tool owner, with a deadline. Track who has added or removed the user, and chase only the ones who haven't.
5. Use SSO and automatic user sync where you have them, but don't stop there. Turning off SSO stops new sign-ins, but the paid seat stays on the bill, and many tools are on plans without SSO or were bought outside IT.
6. Approve once, then let the system do the work. Remove leavers on their last day, take back their paid seats and flag tools nobody needs any more.
7. Review at every renewal. Use the seat counts from your joiner and leaver records to renew at the right number.

How Cledara automates onboarding and offboarding

Cledara is software subscription management for finance teams, and it handles joiners and leavers from the same list finance uses to manage every tool: owner, users, cost, renewal date and card. Finance and IT work from one list of who has access to what, instead of a spreadsheet each.

• Joiner and leaver workflows connected to your HR system. With the IT Management add-on, Cledara connects to more than 30 HR systems, including BambooHR, HiBob, Personio, Workday and Gusto. A new starter in HR starts an onboarding workflow with your company and team tool sets; a leave date starts an offboarding workflow listing every tool the person had. Access requests go through one approval flow.
• Cledara Agent does the admin inside the tools. The User Management add-on signs in to your SaaS and AI tools to set up new joiners before day one, remove leavers from every tool they had (not just the ones you remember) and take back paid seats nobody uses. You approve the change, or set a standing approval for routine work such as removing leavers. It works in 8,000+ tools, whether or not they have an integration, and never adds a paid seat without your approval.
• A card per subscription, not per person. Every tool has its own virtual card, so a team's tool keeps working when the person who bought it leaves, and a tool nobody needs can be cancelled by freezing its card.

A typical Cledara customer gets 30+ hours a month back, and customers save 23% on software spend on average. See how Cledara Agent sets up joiners and removes leavers, or compare plans and add-ons. IT leads can also read our SaaS management guide for IT teams.

Key takeaway: The best offboarding checklist starts the day someone joins. Record every tool and seat they get, connect the process to your HR system, and offboarding takes a day, not a quarter.