To add a new client in Kerdora, go to the Clients page and click the "Add new client" button in the top-right corner. You'll enter a household name, click Create, and land on Plan Setup — a guided flow that walks you through building out the client's file. Upload documents you already have and the Extractor does most of the data entry for you; the whole process can take as little as a few minutes.
Creating the Client
When you click "Add new client", a modal pops up with one field:
Household Name — Enter the name for this client household (e.g., "John and Katie Smith"). This is how the client will appear in your client list.
Click Create and Kerdora sets up the client file and takes you straight to Plan Setup.
Note: New accounts start on a 14-day free trial with full access. After the trial, you'll need an active subscription to keep working with clients.
Plan Setup: The Guided Flow
After creating a client, you land on Plan Setup (it lives under Office > Plan Setup in the client sidebar, so you can come back any time). It runs in four phases:
Phase 1: Document Intake
This is where the Extractor shines. Drop in whatever you already have for the client — PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, CSVs, Word documents, screenshots, even pasted text from emails. You can also type extra context that isn't in any document ("Client is 42, spouse is 39, two kids"). Then click Extract with Dora and Kerdora pulls out household members, accounts, balances, income, liabilities, insurance policies, and more.
No documents handy? Skip this phase and enter data by hand in the next one.
Phase 2: Client Profile
Review what was extracted (or add data manually) across six steps:
Household — adults, children, businesses, and trusts. Ages, employment, and relationships feed the planning calculations everywhere else.
Assets — accounts, property, business interests, and investment holdings.
Liabilities — mortgages, loans, credit cards, and other debts.
Income — wages, retirement income, business income, and other cash flow.
Expenses — the household's spending assumptions.
Insurance policies — current coverage across life, disability, homeowners, auto, health, long-term care, and liability.
Phase 3: Planning Setup
Set up the analysis:
Goals — what the plan is solving for.
Goal assignments — map accounts to the goals they fund.
Target portfolios — assign investment targets for drift review.
Insurance planning — coverage needs across the household.
Estate planning — status of wills, powers of attorney, and other core documents.
Phase 4: Review & Output
Turn the plan into client-facing output:
Observations — findings Kerdora surfaced; convert the ones worth acting on into changes.
Changes — the action items the client should take.
Tasks — advisor and client follow-through.
Guide — the deliverable the client will see.
Invite clients — share portal invite links with household members.
You can move through the phases in order or skip ahead — nothing is locked in, and you can return to Plan Setup whenever you want.
After Setup
Once the file is built out, the client's left sidebar is your map:
Office — Your advisor-only command center: Home, Plan Setup, Notes, and Tasks.
Profile — View and edit all client data across Household, Accounts, Cash Flow, and Insurance.
Documents — Access uploaded documents.
Planning — Run the planning modules: Goals, Spending, Investments, Insurance, Taxes, Estate, Business, and Changes.
Guides — Build and customize the client's Guide (the deliverable you share with them).
Dora — The AI assistant for questions, summaries, and drafting.
Tips for Getting the Best Results
Upload documents first. The Extractor can pull data from investment statements, tax returns, insurance policies, pay stubs, and more. The more you give it, the less manual entry you'll need to do.
Review extracted data carefully. The Extractor does a great job, but it's always worth double-checking the numbers it pulled, especially for complex documents.
Don't worry about getting everything perfect right away. You can always go back to the client's Profile in the sidebar, or reopen Office > Plan Setup, to add or edit data at any time.
Add context in the text input field. If you have extra notes about the client — things from a conversation or meeting that aren't in a document — type or paste them in during Document intake. The Extractor will use that context too.