Retainers, knowledge, meetings and files
- Free
- Solo
- Team
Once you connect an AI app to Kiaro, you can ask it about your retainers, search your knowledge base, save meeting notes and fetch files, in plain language. It works with the same records you see in Kiaro, as you, and follows the same rules. Ending a retainer and deleting a knowledge base article wait for your approval; everything else on this page happens straight away.
What you can ask
| You say | What happens |
|---|---|
| ”Which retainer clients are over their hours this month?” | Lists your active retainers that are over their included hours, with this period’s usage |
| ”Set up a retainer for Acme: 3,000 a month for 20 hours, 150 an hour after that, starting 1 November” | Creates the retainer |
| ”Raise Acme’s included hours to 25” | Updates the retainer |
| ”End Acme’s retainer” | Asks for your approval first |
| ”What’s my SOP for onboarding a new client?” | Searches your knowledge base |
| ”Save this as a decision on the Brand refresh project” | Saves a new knowledge base article |
| ”Here are my notes from today’s call with Northwind. Save them” | Saves the meeting notes your AI app wrote up |
| ”What were the action items from my last meeting with Acme?” | Reads your most recent meeting with that client |
| ”Turn the second action item into a task” | Creates a task on the meeting’s project |
| ”Get me the signed PDF of the Northwind MSA” | Lists the contract’s files and gives you a download link |
Retainers
- Read retainers. Active retainers by default; your AI app can also ask for paused, ended or all of them, or one client’s retainer. Each active retainer shows this billing period’s included hours, hours used, overage hours and amount, the estimated invoice and the next invoice date. Amounts are in the retainer’s own currency, and the monthly flat fees of the matching retainers that aren’t ended are totalled per currency, never added across currencies.
- Set up a retainer. The flat fee, included hours, overage rate per hour, start date, billing day (1 to 31), billing timing (in advance or in arrears) and whether Kiaro drafts each invoice automatically. A client can have only one retainer that isn’t ended, so a paused retainer still counts. If the client already has one, your AI app is told “This client already has a retainer. End it before creating a new one.”
- Edit a retainer. The flat fee, included hours, overage rate, start date, billing day and automatic drafting. Ended retainers can’t be edited, and the billing timing is fixed once the retainer is set up. Invoices already drafted keep their amounts.
Included hours can be up to 10,000 a period.
Pausing a retainer, resuming it and drafting a retainer invoice early are done in Kiaro, on the client’s Retainer tab. See Retainer billing.
Changes made at the same moment don’t undo each other. A retainer that is ended while your AI app edits it is never edited, and if its status changes while your AI app is ending it, the app is told “This retainer changed. Refresh and try again.” and can read it again.
Knowledge base
- Search by words in the title or text, or filter by kind, client, project, tag or pinned articles. The most recently edited articles come first. Each result has a short excerpt and lists its attached files; your AI app can also ask for the article’s text.
- Save a new article. Your AI app writes the text, in Markdown or formatted text. It can set the kind (note, SOP, link, decision, risk, open question or stakeholder), tags and a status, and link the article to a client or project. A link article needs its URL.
- Edit an article. The title, text, kind, status, tags, URL, client or project. Your AI app can also remove the client or project link. It is asked to send the version of the article it read, so an article that changed since is not overwritten: the edit is refused instead.
An AI app can’t upload, attach, remove or replace an article’s files: manage attachments in Kiaro. Pinning an article is also done in Kiaro.
Meeting notes
- Read meetings, newest first, with the date, client, project, summary, action items, key decisions and follow-ups. Filter by client, project or words in the title. Ask for “my last meeting with Acme” to get just the most recent one. Long summaries are shortened in the list; your AI app can ask for the full summary, up to 20,000 characters.
- Save meeting notes your AI app has already written up: a title, the date (today if none is given), the client and project, a summary, action items with an optional assignee and due date, key decisions and follow-ups. Kiaro stores them exactly as given and doesn’t run its own AI on them. Key decisions are also saved to your knowledge base as decision records.
- Create a task from an action item. The task goes on the meeting’s project and is assigned to you. The meeting needs a project first: ask your AI app to include it when it saves the notes, or link one on the meeting page in Kiaro. The task gets the action item’s due date only when it is a calendar date. Each action item becomes a task once; asking again gets “Task already created for this action item.”
Meeting summaries often come from pasted notes and transcripts, so Kiaro gives them to your AI app as text to read, and tells it never to follow instructions written inside them.
Editing or deleting saved meeting notes is done in Kiaro, on the meeting page.
Files
Your AI app can reach the files attached to contracts, deliverables and knowledge base articles.
- List a record’s files, with each file’s name, size and type. A signed contract also lists its signed PDF. Your AI app can download the signed PDF but never change or remove it.
- Get a download link for one file. The link works for 15 minutes and downloads the file under its own name. Anyone who has the link can open the file until it expires, so only share it with people who should see the file.
A workspace can get up to 30 download links every 5 minutes. Past that, your AI app is asked to wait a few minutes.
Some older files are listed but can’t get a download link. If your AI app says it can’t find a file it just listed, open the record in Kiaro and download the file there.
Actions that need your approval
These never happen straight away. Your AI app gives you a link; open it in Kiaro, check the details, then approve or reject it. See Approvals.
| Action | What you see before approving |
|---|---|
| End a retainer | The client, the retainer’s status and its flat fee per period. An ended retainer can’t be resumed or edited, and no more retainer invoices are drafted. Unbilled overage can still be invoiced from the client’s Retainer tab |
| Delete a knowledge base article | The title, the kind and how many files are attached. The article and its files are deleted, and this can’t be undone |
Good to know
- Plan limits apply. On the Free plan, leads and past, inactive or lost clients can’t have a retainer. Your AI app tells you, and can ask whether to activate or reactivate the client first. Solo and Team have no such restriction.
- Search finds retainers too. Ask for a client’s retainer by the client’s name.
- It acts as you. Everything your AI app changes is recorded in your activity log as coming from the app.
- It only ever sees your own workspace. A record or file from another workspace is never found.