Bookkeeper Center

Everything a bookkeeping practice does, in order: take on the client, work their package on schedule, send the monthly report, invoice the fee and collect it. Tax preparation and a practice website are there too, each switched off until you want it.

Opening the Center

Select Bookkeeper Center in the sidebar. It has four tabs:

• Today is the one list of what needs a person, across every client. Each item offers a single main action.
• Clients lists who you serve, with New client for a prospect and Add existing books for a company you already keep.
• Reports holds the monthly reports waiting for your review.
• Set up gathers the rest: Your practice, Packages and prices, Letters and emails, Billing, Tax preparation, Website and Workload.

On first use the Center asks one question, What does your practice do? Choose the client types you take on (households, businesses, clubs, nonprofits, government) and say whether you prepare tax returns. Anything you do not offer is hidden from daily work. In Set up, sections you are not using stay visible but greyed, with a short note on what each does and how to turn it on.

The Center works across every company you belong to at once, so you do not switch companies to see who needs attention. To try it before adding a real client, choose Try a sample client on the Clients tab and pick a household, Scout pack, business, food pantry or town. Each is a complete set of sample books on a package, safe to delete.

Plans and Access

• Included with every accountant and bookkeeper plan, including the free Partner plan, and fully usable during the trial.
• Business plans see the menu item with a lock; opening it explains what the Center does and how to upgrade.
• Clients on their own licence need no Center of their own. The package runs on their computer under your licence (see Clients on Their Own Licence).

Your Practice Profile

Under Set up → Your practice, enter your practice name, your name, email, phone, website, logo and accent colour. Everything a client sees carries this branding: monthly reports, the year-end package, proposals and emails. Replies to report emails come to the email address you enter here.

• Offices. A practice with one office sees a single line. Add a second and each client gains an office, shown under their name in the client list.
• Credentials and renewals. Record each EA, CPA, CPB, CB, AFSP, PTIN or EFIN with its holder, renewal date and CE hours. Today reminds you 60 days ahead of a renewal. Kantivo never stores the credential number itself.

Packages

A package is what you sell a client: a list of jobs, monitors, requests, scope limits and a monthly report. Kantivo starts you with ready-made packages you can edit or copy:

Business packages take service modules on top: payroll, bills, invoicing, sales tax and 1099s. Each module adds its own checks; the payroll module, for example, notices a pay run that was never recorded.

The rentals package gives every property its own books and a year-end summary arranged by Schedule E line. For a vacation rental, tick Short-term rental on the Rental properties tab and enter the days rented and days of personal use. The year-end summary reports them and flags, for the tax preparer to consider, a year where personal use was heavy or the property was rented for fewer than 15 days. Kantivo flags it; the preparer decides what it means.

Every price shown is labelled Suggested starting prices. Set your own. You set the price per package, per module and per client, line by line if you like. Editing a package later never silently changes what an existing client was sold: each client keeps a copy of the package as it was when you added them, and you choose when to refresh it.

Adding Clients

1. Create the client’s company first (File → New Company, or import their QuickBooks file), or start from New client, which creates it for you.
2. On Clients, choose Add existing books, pick their books and a package, and set the fee, the report day, the name to show on reports and the client’s email.
3. The package starts running at once, and the client’s page shows its first findings within a minute.

Each client’s page shows the package, fee, open items and reports, with sub-tabs for net worth (household packages), rental properties, the tax folder and client questions.

Today: the Queue

Checks run on schedule while Kantivo is open (every few hours, with a catch-up when you start the app) and put what they find into one queue across all clients. Examples:

• Transactions to review from bank feeds, and bank connections that need attention.
• Reconciliations due, account by account.
• New subscriptions, price increases and unusual charges, such as a first-time $4,200 payment to a new payee.
• Budgets running over, by class or by category.
• Net-worth values going stale, such as a home value last updated a year ago.
• Tax reminders: estimated tax dates, a W-9 to collect from a contractor, a 1099-NEC to file.
• Scope: a client who has outgrown their package, with a price-change letter ready to send.

Each item says what was found and offers the next step, such as opening the right screen in the client’s books. Mark it Done or Dismiss it. An item that clears up by itself (the reconciliation gets done) is resolved automatically; a dismissed one stays dismissed.

Monthly Reports

On its day each month (the 10th unless you change it), each client’s report for the month just ended is prepared as a draft. You find it on the Reports tab marked Ready for review.

• The figures come from the same report logic as the app’s own income statement and balance sheet, so they always agree.
• Kantivo Core AI drafts a short summary in plain language. You can edit it; your wording is kept.
• Check before sending lists anything worth a second look, such as accounts not yet reconciled through the month end.
• Sections can be switched on or off per package or per client: budget, net worth, subscriptions, rentals and others.
• You Approve, then Send. Nothing is ever sent automatically. The copy sent is kept as the record of what the client received.

Tax Folder and Questions

The Tax folder sub-tab predicts the documents each client should expect for the year from what is in the books: a 1099-INT from the bank that paid interest, a 1098 from the mortgage lender, a 1099-NEC to file for a contractor paid $600 or more. Mark each document received, not needed, or still expected, and attach the file.

The Questions sub-tab prepares a short weekly list of transactions only the client can explain (“What was the $380 at Costco on the 14th?”). Send them the list, and when you record their answer, Kantivo files the transaction and creates a rule, so the same question is not asked twice.

Year-End Package for the Tax Preparer

From a client’s Tax folder, choose Prepare the YYYY package. The package holds the year’s income statement and balance sheet, the tax folder with every received file attached, and the 1099 contractor summary. From February 1 to April 15 the Center reminds you if a client’s package has not been prepared.

• It is reviewed and approved like any report. Preview the email shows exactly what the preparer will receive, and the summary is available as a PDF.
• It is sent to the preparer by a secure link that expires after 30 days.
• A year with no activity is refused, so an empty package is never sent.

New Client: Intake to Setup

1. On the Clients tab, choose New client and fill in the questionnaire with the prospect: what kind of client, how many accounts, payroll, rentals, how many transactions a month.
2. The Center recommends a package and the service modules the answers call for, with a suggested monthly fee broken into lines, a catch-up quote, and the reasons. Your own packages compete with the starting ones.
3. It fills in a proposal for the prospect. Edit it as you like.
4. When they say yes, Start this client creates their books with the right chart of accounts, starts the package with the modules, and opens the bank-link invitation, filled in.

Clients on Their Own Licence

Some clients buy their own Kantivo licence and keep their books on their own computer. You can still run a package for them. No new company is created on your computer.

1. Your client opens Accountant Access in their Kantivo, chooses Invite, enters your email and leaves Let my accountant connect (Standard) ticked.
2. You receive an email with a code and accept it in Accountant Access, as for any connected client.
3. On the Clients tab, under Clients on their own licence, choose Attach a licensed client, pick them, a package and your fee, and choose Attach and start.

From then on you work the client from your own Center, as with any connected client. The scheduled checks run where the client’s books are, on their computer, so they keep running while your computer is off and the results are waiting when you open the client. Everything else happens on your side:

• Open items, reports and the year-end package appear in your Center. Prepare, review, edit and approve them there, run the checks on demand, change the fee, or end the package.
• Report summaries are drafted by Kantivo Core AI on your plan, never on your client’s.
• Reports are emailed from you, through your own email settings, with your practice’s name and logo, and replies come to you. The client’s books keep a record of every report sent.
• For the year-end package, the documents in the client’s tax folder are uploaded to the secure link from their side, and the email to the preparer comes from you.

Only your licence can change or act on the package you attached. If another accountant connects to the same books, they cannot read or replace it. The client can disconnect you at any time in Accountant Access.

Billing Your Clients

Nothing is billed until you turn billing on. In Set up → Billing, pick the company that is your practice’s own set of books, an invoice day and your terms. From then on:

1. On the invoice day, every billed client’s fee lines are turned into an invoice in your books. It posts to your ledger exactly as a hand-entered invoice would.
2. Today lists each new invoice as ready to email. You choose when it goes; Kantivo does not email an invoice by itself.
3. If an invoice goes unpaid, Today shows who owes what and how many days late. The item disappears when the payment is recorded.

A client is never billed twice for the same month, and samples, paused clients and clients with no fee are skipped. Clients on their own licence are invoiced their monthly fee the same way. For work outside the package, add a one-time charge on the client’s Billing tab.

Holding reports. If you wish, set a number of days overdue at which a client’s report is held back. You can always override it with Send anyway.

Automatic payment. Connect your own Stripe account in your books (Payment Gateway settings), then choose Set up automatic payment on a client’s Billing tab. The client receives a sign-up page, enters a card once, and is charged monthly; each charge is recorded in your books as an invoice and its payment. Funds go straight from your client to your Stripe account, and Kantivo is never part of the money flow.

Running the Practice

• Letters and emails: a proposal, an engagement letter and welcome emails, filled in for a package or a client and ready to edit and send.
• Workload: estimated time per client and your effective hourly rate, so you can see which clients are priced right. The time estimates are editable under Set up → Your practice.
• Renewals and price changes: reminders before an engagement’s anniversary, and a price-change letter when a client has outgrown their package.

Firm Client Portal

On plans with the Firm Client Portal, clients see two extra tabs: Reports (the reports you sent them, exactly as sent) and Tax Folder (which documents you still need, with an upload button for each). A client upload marks the document received and puts an item in your queue. You can switch either tab off in the portal settings.

Tax Preparation (Optional)

Many bookkeepers also prepare returns; many do not. Tax preparation stays completely hidden until you tick My practice prepares tax returns under Set up → Tax preparation. Kantivo manages the engagement around the return (tracking, pricing, invoicing, letters). You still prepare and e-file the return in your tax software.

• One row per return. A Tax returns section appears below your client list, with the client, year and form (1040, 1065, 1120-S, 1120, 990 or other). A return can belong to a bookkeeping client or to a tax-only client, who needs only a name and email.
• Where each return stands. Waiting on documents, preparing, with the client for review, signed, filed, or extension filed. Today raises one item per return when it is signed and ready to file, when its due date is within three weeks, or when documents or the client’s review have gone quiet. The due dates are the standard calendar-year dates and are not adjusted for weekends or holidays.
• Pricing. Eleven suggested price lines to start from, all editable: a base 1040, a state return, Schedules A, B, C, D and E, K-1s, a business return, hourly clean-up and a rush fee. A practice with more than one office can price each office separately.
• A quote from last year’s return. Add the prior-year return as a PDF and Kantivo identifies the forms and schedules in it and pre-selects the matching price lines for you to confirm. The PDF is read locally and is not stored. Scanned returns are not readable this way.
• Invoicing. Save and invoice creates the invoice in your practice’s books. Optionally require payment before a return can be marked filed; File anyway overrides it.
• When you keep the books too. An approved year-end package offers We prepare this return: keep on file, so it becomes your own workpaper and no email is sent.
• Preparer letters. Letters and emails gains a tax return engagement letter, a consent to use tax return information, an e-file authorization checklist and an outline to start your information security plan. Ask an attorney to review the engagement letter.

To move figures into tax software, use Tax Trial Balance in the Tax Center, which exports each account, its balance and its tax line to Excel or CSV.

Practice Website (Optional)

Find it under Set up → Website. It builds a seven-page website for your practice from your profile and packages, with sample reports for each client type and your choice of how prices are shown. Preview it, and when you are ready choose Publish to give it its own web address, or connect a domain you already own. You confirm the content before anything goes live, and we review a new site once, on its first publication.

Enquiries from the site’s Get started form arrive in the Center with a recommended package and a proposal already drafted. The About page shows only the credentials you mark “On website” (never a PTIN or EFIN), and the contact page lists each office when you have more than one.

To see what a finished site looks like, visit our sample practice website, built for a fictional practice. The website is optional: everything else in the Bookkeeper Center works without it.