When you work with Changes to Be Made in Kerdora, you'll notice that change categories come in two types: shared and custom. Understanding the difference helps you organize your recommendations efficiently and decide what to show clients.

Shared categories are built-in templates that come pre-loaded on every client's Changes page. These cover the most common planning areas — things like Accounts, Cash Flow, Allocation, Insurance, and Procedures.

Shared categories are read-only. You can't rename them, delete them, or change their structure. They're designed to give you a consistent starting point across all clients. You can still add, edit, and complete individual change items within shared categories — you just can't modify the category itself.

Each shared category has an internal tag (like "accounts," "cashflow," "allocation," "insurance," or "procedures") that Kerdora uses to identify it behind the scenes. This is what keeps shared categories consistent across clients and allows features like the Extractor to automatically place changes in the right category.

Custom categories are ones you create yourself. You can name them whatever you want — "Tax Planning," "Estate Updates," "Q1 Action Items," or anything else that fits the client's situation.

Custom categories are fully editable. You can rename them, reorder them, and delete them. They give you the flexibility to organize changes in whatever way makes sense for each client.

To add a custom category, open the client's Changes page (under Planning → Changes) and use the option to create a new category.

Both shared and custom categories — along with all the change items inside them — are visible to clients in the Client Portal. The Changes to Be Made tab is a shared space between you and your client. If a change is on this tab, the client can see it and check it off as complete.

This means you should only add changes that you're comfortable with the client seeing. If you need to track something internal — like "follow up with estate attorney next quarter" or "review allocation after market correction" — don't put it on the Changes page.

For reminders or action items the client shouldn't see, use one of these options instead:

While the Changes page shows everything to the client, the Guide gives you control over which categories appear in your deliverable.

On the Changes page, each category has an eye icon. Clicking the eye icon hides that category from the Guide. The category still exists on the Changes page (and clients can still see it there), but it won't appear in the Guide.

In the Guide editor, you can click into the settings for the Changes component and switch from "Show all" to "Choose sections." This lets you hand-pick exactly which categories appear in the Guide and reorder them however you want.

You might use this to:

Shared categories give you a consistent starting point. Custom categories let you tailor changes to each client. Both are visible to clients on the Changes page — use the Guide settings to curate what goes into the deliverable.