Clients & CRM

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

Adding a client

There are three 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.
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.

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, with an Add details button that opens the Identity card for inline editing. 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, 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 the best of both worlds: “Brand Factor” in every dropdown and dashboard card, “CDF Marketing Pty Ltd” on the actual 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 will just use 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)
Active, Currently working with this client
Inactive, Paused or dormant relationship
Past, Engagement has ended

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

The client detail page displays information in cards: Identity, Contacts, Billing Address, Portal Settings, and Notes. To edit any card, click the pencil icon in its top-right corner. The card enters edit mode and you can update the fields. Click Save to confirm your changes. Only the card you are editing enters edit mode; the rest of the page remains read-only.

Multiple contacts

Each client can have multiple contacts. Contacts are managed in the Contacts card on the client detail page. Click the pencil icon on the Contacts card to add, edit, or remove contacts. 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. The primary contact is who receives proposals and invoices by email.

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

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 the Follow up on field to remind yourself to reach out to a client on a specific day. 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 three places to set or change a follow-up date:

The client form (New Client or the Identity card on the detail page) has a Follow up on date picker, plus four quick chips: In 1 week, In 2 weeks, In 1 month, In 3 months.
The Follow-up card on the client detail page shows your next scheduled follow-up and the last time you marked one done. Click the pencil icon to change the date.
The AI command bar accepts natural language: “remind me to follow up with Acme in 3 weeks”, “set Acme’s next follow-up to October 15”, or “clear Acme’s follow-up”. Kiaro resolves the phrase to a concrete date and shows it on the confirm card before saving.

What you see on the day

When a follow-up date arrives, Kiaro adds a card to your home screen with the client’s name, the status context (Lead, Client, or Past client), and a one-click way to draft the message. Up to three cards at a time; if more are due, a See all due follow-ups link takes you to the clients list filtered to just those clients.

Marking a follow-up done

When you’ve reached out, click Mark followed-up on the client detail page (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 and opens a small popover so you can schedule the next one in one step: In 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 3 months, or Done (clears the follow-up entirely).

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 — no selling, just opening the door

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 card 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 hi@kiaro.io if any of those would help you.

Portal access

Each client can be given access to the Client Portal. Toggle Portal Enabled on the client record to allow them to log in and view their projects, deliverables, and invoices. The client needs an email address on file for portal access to work.

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 and sort by name, revenue, or last activity.

CSV export

You can export your full client list as a CSV file from the clients list page.