Clients & CRM

• Free
• Solo
• Team

Clients are the foundation of your Kiaro workspace. Every project, invoice, and contract is linked to a client.

Adding a client

There are four ways to add a client, each with different policies so the workflow matches the situation:

• Clients → New Client (the full form) is for clients you plan to invoice. It requires a name, a contact person, an email address, and a complete billing address (address line 1, city, postal code, country). These fields are what every invoice needs, so we collect them up front rather than letting you save an incomplete profile you’ll have to come back to.
• Clients → Quick add is for capturing a lead before you have any other details. It only requires a name. The client lands in Lead status and waits for you to fill in the rest when the engagement becomes real.
• Invoices → New Invoice lets you add an active client from the client picker with just a name and an optional email, so you can bill someone new without leaving the invoice. See Adding a client while you invoice.
• AI command bar (/client Acme Corp or a natural sentence like “add Acme to my clients”) also creates a lead-stage client with just the name, and extracts any other fields you happen to mention. Fastest path for ad-hoc capture.

You can also manage clients, contacts, follow-ups and leads from an AI app you connect to Kiaro, such as Claude or ChatGPT. See Clients, contacts and leads from your AI app.

Backfill prompt for legacy clients

If you open a client that predates the required-field policy and is missing any of the invoice-ready fields, you’ll see an amber banner at the top of the client detail page listing exactly which fields are missing, so you know what to fill in on the Profile and Contacts tabs. The banner disappears once all required fields are saved. Existing clients are never auto-blocked or deleted, just nudged the next time you touch them.

Client fields

• Client name: Short name shown throughout Kiaro (dropdowns, dashboard cards, breadcrumbs). Think “Brand Factor”
• Legal / billing name: Optional. The registered entity name rendered on invoices and contracts. Think “CDF Marketing Pty Ltd”. Leave blank and Kiaro uses the Client name everywhere
• Email: Used for sending invoices and portal access
• Phone: Contact phone number
• Contact person: The primary person you work with at the client
• Industry: The client’s industry (optional, useful for filtering)
• Billing address: Required for new clients. Rendered on every invoice sent to this client. Includes street, city, state/region, postal code, and country (searchable picker: type the country name and Kiaro stores the ISO-3166 code behind the scenes)
• Billing currency: Optional override that changes the default currency used when creating invoices, projects, or quotes for this client. Leave empty to use the workspace default. Once an invoice is issued, its currency is locked; changing this setting later does not affect existing invoices
• Default VAT rate: Optional percentage (0 to 100) pre-filled on new invoices for this client. Falls back to your workspace default, then 0, when unset. Existing invoices keep the rate they were saved with. Changing this later does not alter past invoices
• VAT / tax number: Optional. Rendered on invoices in the Bill To block. Required in most jurisdictions when invoicing a VAT-registered client
• Status: One of: Lead, Active, Inactive, or Past
• Value: Lifetime or contract value for this client
• Start / End date: When the engagement began and ended
• Notes: Free-text notes visible only to your team

Client name vs legal name

Kiaro splits the short display name from the legal billing entity so you get “Brand Factor” in every dropdown and dashboard card and “CDF Marketing Pty Ltd” on the invoice. Common cases where this matters:

• South African Pty Ltd trading-as: “CDF Marketing Pty Ltd t/a Brand Factor”
• UK Limited trading as: “Acme Holdings Ltd t/a Acme Studio”
• Dutch BV handling onder: “Acme Consultancy BV h/o Acme Studio”

Leave Legal / billing name blank if the two are the same. Kiaro then uses the Client name on invoices.

Cross-border invoicing and VAT

When you invoice a client in a different VAT jurisdiction than your own (for example a Dutch consultant invoicing a South African client), the VAT treatment is usually reverse-charge: you charge 0% VAT and add a note on the invoice like “VAT reverse-charged” or “Out of scope, non-EU B2B services”.

The simplest way to handle this in Kiaro is to set the client’s Default VAT rate to 0 and add the reverse-charge note in the invoice’s Notes field. Kiaro does not yet auto-detect reverse-charge scenarios based on country and VAT number. If your situation is more complex than the common cases, check with your accountant.

Client statuses

Use statuses to organize your pipeline:

• Lead: A prospective client (default for new clients). A lead opens into a lead workspace with pipeline stages, deal details, and a prep checklist.
• Active: Currently working with this client
• Inactive: Paused or dormant relationship
• Past: Engagement has ended
• Lost: A lead that did not convert. Read-only and archived, with an optional reason. You can revive a lost lead back into your pipeline at any time.

What each status can do (Free plan)

On the Free plan, each status has different capabilities. Solo and Team plans have no restrictions: all statuses can do everything.

Leads can capture early-stage context (meetings, proposals, notes) and run the full lead workspace without counting against your active-client limit. Once a lead is ready to work with, mark them won (or activate them). The limit check runs at that point.

Past, inactive, and lost clients are fully read-only. All historical data remains visible, but no new records can be added. Reactivate a past or inactive client, or revive a lost lead, any time (subject to the 3-active-client cap on the Free plan) to resume work.

Active clients are capped at 3 on the Free plan. Leads, past, inactive, and lost clients are unlimited regardless of plan. The lead workspace is free on every plan, including new leads on Free; the only paywall is the active-client cap, which you reach the moment you win the work.

Activating a lead

A lead without full details shows an Activate button below the financial summary on their detail page. Click it to move them to Active. If you are already at 3 active clients, Kiaro shows what the Solo plan adds and offers two choices: upgrade, or stay on Free and set an existing client to Past or Inactive to free up a slot.

Reactivating a past or inactive client

Past and inactive clients show a read-only banner (“[Client name] is past and read-only.”) with a Reactivate button. Clicking it runs the same limit check as activating a lead.

Status transition rules

Moving a client between statuses follows these rules:

• Lead can move to: Active (Won), Lost, Past, Inactive
• Active can move to: Past, Inactive (not back to Lead; once active, always active or archived)
• Past can move to: Active, Inactive
• Inactive can move to: Active, Past
• Lost can move to: Lead (revive), Active

When you can edit the client, the status badge beside their name only shows valid destinations for the current status, so invalid transitions are not possible from the UI. A client you can’t edit (on the Free plan, a past, inactive or lost client) shows the badge with nothing to pick: use Reactivate or Revive on its banner instead. A lead can’t be marked lost from the badge, because Mark lost records a reason. For leads, the quickest path is the Mark won and Mark lost buttons in the lead workspace. On the Free plan, picking Active when you are already at 3 active clients opens the same upgrade dialog as Activate, and the badge stays on its current status.

Changing status from the clients list

In the clients list, right-click a client, or use the ⋯ button on its row or card, to change its status without opening it. The button appears when you hover a row or card or tab to it with the keyboard, and it is always shown on a phone or tablet. The menu has Status and Open.

Status offers the same moves as the badge on the client page (see Status transition rules). A lead can’t be marked lost here, because Mark lost records a reason. A client you can’t edit on the Free plan (past, inactive or lost) has no Status item in the menu, and its status in the list is plain text. On the Free plan, picking Active when you are already at 3 active clients opens the upgrade dialog, and the status stays where it was. Clicking the status in a row works the same way as the menu.

Lead workspace

While a client is a Lead, their detail page opens with a lead workspace above the usual tabs: a place to do the pre-sale work before you have won the job. It is available on every plan, including new leads on the Free plan, and nothing here counts against your active-client limit.

Pipeline stages

Every lead moves through four fixed stages, shown as a timeline at the top of the workspace: New → Contacted → Quoted → Follow-up. You never set the stage by hand. It advances on its own from what happens, so the timeline always reflects reality:

• New: the lead has just been added.
• Contacted: you have logged a meeting or started a proposal.
• Quoted: you have sent a proposal.
• Follow-up: a sent quote has been waiting a week or more for a reply, or you have set a follow-up date. This is the highest-risk moment in a deal, so it gets its own stage.

Stages are deliberately not customizable, so the pipeline reads the same across every lead. Won and Lost are outcomes, not stages (see below).

Deal details

The Deal card holds the commercial shape of the opportunity:

• Value: what you expect the work to be worth
• Expected close: when you think you will win or lose it
• Source: how the lead arrived (referral, website, social, cold outreach, repeat client, or other)
• Confidence: a coarse low / medium / high read

Click a value to change it. Value saves when you press Enter or click away, and Esc cancels; type it as 1,500 or 1 500,50, both work. Expected close opens a date picker and saves the date you pick; Clear removes it. Source and Confidence save as soon as you pick an option, and their None choice clears them. Values are shown in the client’s currency (or your workspace default).

Prep checklist

The Prep checklist is a lightweight to-do list for the work you do before quoting (measure the space, send a mood board, confirm scope). Type a task and press Enter or click Add. Check items off as you go, give them due dates, and reorder them. The checklist is separate from project tasks: it carries no time tracking and never appears in your Tasks  views. Items stay with the client after you win the work.

Marking a lead won

When you win the work, click Mark won. Kiaro activates the client and creates a project in one step:

• If the lead has an accepted proposal, Kiaro offers to build the project from it, pre-filling the name and the budget from the proposal’s non-optional line items, and links the proposal to the new project.
• Otherwise you name a blank project, pre-filled with the lead’s deal value as the budget.

The active-client limit is checked first. If you are already at 3 active clients on the Free plan, Kiaro stops before making any changes and shows the same upgrade-or-free-a-slot choice described under Activating a lead. Once the conversion is done, you land on the new project, where you can create the first invoice whenever you are ready. Kiaro never sends it automatically.

Marking a lead lost

If a lead does not convert, click Mark lost and optionally pick a reason (price, timing, competitor, no response, not a fit, or other). The lead moves to Lost: read-only and archived, but still fully visible. A banner on the detail page lets you Revive the lead back into your pipeline whenever things change.

Pipeline view

From the Clients page, click Pipeline in the header to see all your leads grouped by stage in a single board, with your total open pipeline value shown per currency at the top. Click any lead to open its workspace.

Lead reminders on your home page

Your home page  surfaces reminders for leads that need attention: a lead with no next step scheduled, a lead that has gone quiet, and a quote you sent that has been waiting for a reply. Each reminder can draft the follow-up message for you in one click.

Client detail page

Click any client to view their detail page. From here you can see all related data in one place:

• Projects linked to this client
• Invoices and payment history
• Contracts
• Knowledge Base articles linked to this client
• Contact details and notes

Editing client information

Client details live in tabs below the summary at the top of the page:

• Profile holds two sections: Identity (legal name, industry, currency, VAT rate and VAT number) and Address (the billing address that appears on invoices). The client’s name and status are in the page header.
• Contacts lists everyone at the client. See Multiple contacts.
• Notes holds free-form notes about the client.
• Portal turns the client portal on or off. Leads don’t have this tab.

You change the client’s name and status in the page header, and every Identity value, by clicking it:

• Name: Click the name, type, and press Enter to save. A name can’t be left empty, and it can’t match another client’s name.
• Status: Click the badge and pick one of the moves it offers (see Status transition rules).
• Legal name, Industry and VAT number: Click, type, and press Enter.
• Currency: Click it and pick a currency. The change applies to new invoices and proposals. Existing ones keep their currency.
• VAT rate: Click it, type the percentage, and press Enter.

Press Esc while typing to cancel and keep the old value. If someone else changed the client after you opened it, your change doesn’t overwrite theirs. Kiaro shows “Couldn’t save. Someone else changed this client. Refreshed to the latest.” and reloads the page with the latest values, so you can make your change again.

The Address stays a form: click the pencil icon next to its heading, update the fields, and click Save. On the Notes tab, click the notes (or No notes yet. Click to add some.) to open the editor, then click Save, or Cancel to keep what was there.

A client you can’t edit shows its values with nothing to click. On the Free plan that is a past, inactive or lost client. Make it active again, or revive a lost lead, to edit it.

Multiple contacts

Each client can have multiple contacts. Contacts are managed on the Contacts tab of the client detail page. Click New contact to add one, or use the pencil and trash icons on a contact to edit or delete it. Every client must have at least one contact; Kiaro will not let you delete the only contact on a client.

Each contact has:

• Name: The contact’s full name
• Email: Their email address
• Phone: Their phone number
• Job title: Their role at the client organization
• Role: Decision Maker, Project Manager, Finance, Technical Lead, or Other

One contact is marked as Primary. To change it, use Make primary on another contact. A client always has exactly one primary contact, so you can’t clear the mark without choosing a replacement.

When you create a new client with contact information, that contact is automatically created as the primary contact.

Who receives what

Each contact has a setting for Proposals and one for Invoices, each set to To, CC or Off. Open a contact and look under Receives to change them.

• To puts the contact on the email’s To line. The greeting uses the first To recipient’s first name.
• CC copies the contact on the email.
• Off leaves the contact off those emails.

The Invoices setting covers everything about an invoice: the invoice itself, reminders, upcoming and overdue notices, and the receipt your client gets after paying. The Proposals setting covers proposal emails.

New contacts start at Off, so adding someone never changes who gets your emails until you say so. The first contact on a new client gets To for both. If nobody is set to To for a category, the primary contact receives it.

At the top of the Contacts tab, a summary shows the current routing, for example “Invoices go to Anna Jansen, CC Ben de Vries. Proposals go to Carla Smit.” Each contact also shows chips for what they receive.

You can change the recipients for a single send. The send dialogs for invoices, reminders and proposals have To and CC pickers prefilled from these settings, and you can add a new contact from the dialog without leaving it. An email can have up to 10 recipients. Scheduled invoice sends use the client’s settings at the moment they go out, not at the moment you scheduled them.

Portal access for a contact

Open a contact and look under Portal access:

• Can sign in to the portal lets this person request sign-in links and use your client’s portal. New contacts start with it off. The first contact on a new client has it on, and existing primary contacts were given access when this launched.
• Invoices, Projects, Deliverables, Proposals and Contracts checkboxes limit what the person sees. A section you hid for the whole client in the portal settings is locked off here for everyone.
• Send portal invite appears on each contact who has access and an email address, once the client’s portal is on. It emails that person a sign-in link.

Contacts with access show a chip such as Portal: Invoices, Projects. Only workspace admins can change portal access; members see it read-only. If you turn a contact’s access off or delete the contact, they are signed out on their next page load. See Client Portal for the full picture.

AI re-engagement

When a client’s status is Inactive or Past, a Draft Outreach button appears on their detail page. Click it to have the AI draft a re-engagement email based on the client’s history, previous projects, last contact date, and industry context. Review the draft and send it from your email.

Scheduled follow-ups

Use follow-ups to remind yourself to reach out to a client on a specific day, with an optional note for why. It works for any status: warm leads you’re nurturing, active clients you want to check in on, and past clients worth reactivating.

Setting a follow-up date

There are two places to set or change a follow-up:

• The follow-up pill in the client header shows the next scheduled date (or a prompt to schedule one). Click it to open a popover with a full date picker, four quick options (In 1 week, In 2 weeks, In 1 month, In 3 months), an optional What’s this follow-up about? field for a short reason, and a Done button.
• The AI command bar accepts natural language, including a reason in the same sentence: “follow up with Acme next Tuesday about the signed contract”, “remind me to follow up with Acme in 3 weeks”, or “clear Acme’s follow-up”. Kiaro resolves the phrase to a concrete date, captures the reason if you gave one, and shows both on the confirm card before saving.

The reason is not required. It shows up wherever the follow-up date appears: the client detail page, the clients list, and Home.

What you see on the day

Clients with a follow-up due today or tomorrow appear as cards on your home screen, showing the client’s name, the reason (if you added one), and two inline actions: Snooze 1w to push the date out a week, and Done to mark it complete without leaving Home.

Marking a follow-up done

When you’ve reached out, click Done in the follow-up pill’s popover (or use the AI command bar: “mark my follow-up with Acme done, remind me again in a month”). Kiaro records the timestamp as Last followed up, clears the current follow-up and its reason, and the popover stays open prompting you to schedule the next one: In 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 3 months, or Done (leave it cleared). This cadence loop makes it easy to keep a recurring check-in going without a separate reminder tool.

Finding follow-ups on the Clients list

The clients list has a Follow-ups filter (All, Due or overdue, Upcoming, No follow-up) and a Next follow-up sort, so you can pull up everyone you need to reach out to next. Where a client has a reason attached, it shows next to the follow-up date in the list.

How the AI drafts your message

When you click the Draft button on a follow-up card, the AI uses the client’s notes, industry, status, latest meeting, and any open proposal as context. The tone changes based on status:

• Lead gets a closing-oriented message that proposes a concrete next step
• Active client gets a relationship check-in that avoids generic “just checking in” language
• Past client gets a low-stakes reactivation message that opens the door without selling

The AI never sends. It always returns a draft for you to read, edit, and send from your own email client.

Status changes preserve the date

Moving a client from Lead to Active, or Active to Past, keeps your scheduled follow-up date in place. The safest default for a “don’t forget” feature is to preserve, not clear. Clear it manually from the follow-up pill in the client header if you no longer need it.

What is not included

Recurring cadences, daily email digests, lead scoring, and automated email sequences are deliberately out of scope. Tell us at support@kiaro.io if any of those would help you.

Portal access

Portal access is set per contact, not just per client. Each client has a portal switch (Settings → Client Portal, the client’s Portal tab, or Enable client portal when you create the client), and each contact has its own access. A contact signs in to the Client Portal only when both are on, and the contact needs an email address.

Only workspace admins can turn a client’s portal on or off and change a contact’s portal access. Other members see it read-only.

Last activity and the “Quiet 30d+” tag

The Last Activity column and the small coloured health dot next to each active client reflect your most recent activity of any kind on that client: tasks, time entries, invoices, meetings, proposals, contracts, notes, client edits, and logged follow-ups. An active client with no activity at all for 30 days is tagged Quiet 30d+ so dormant relationships stand out. Any activity in the last 30 days clears the tag.

Searching and filtering

Use the search input on the clients list page to quickly find a client by name. You can also filter by status or by follow-up status, and sort by name, revenue, last activity, or next follow-up.

On a phone the filters move into a panel behind a Filters button, and the filters in force show as chips you can remove individually. See Using Kiaro on a Phone for how that works.

Saved filters

Kiaro remembers your status filter, follow-up filter, and sort order for the clients list, per browser. Leave the page and come back later, and it reopens exactly where you left it instead of resetting to the unfiltered list. The search box is not remembered: it always starts empty so you never land on a filtered list you didn’t mean to see.

Opening a link with its own filter in the URL (for example, one shared by a teammate) always shows that filter and does not overwrite what you had saved.

To go back to the full list, remove a filter chip shown above the list, or click Clear all to reset every saved filter at once.

Export

You can export your full client list from the clients list page. Click Export and choose CSV or Excel (.xlsx).