A Guide is the main deliverable you create and share with clients in Kerdora. It's a customizable page that pulls together everything about a client's financial life — their net worth, goals progress, investment breakdown, insurance analysis, changes to be made, and more — into one clean, branded document. This walkthrough covers how to build your first Guide and what tools are available to make it yours.
Guides live under the Overview section inside any client. To get started, open a client and click Overview in the left sidebar.
How Guides Work
A Guide is made up of components — building blocks that each display a different piece of the client's financial picture. You add, arrange, and customize components to create a Guide that's tailored to each client. Nothing is included unless you add it, so every Guide can be different.
Kerdora has over 20 embeddable components you can add to a Guide, including:
Net Worth Summary — A snapshot of the client's total assets and liabilities
Balance Sheet — Detailed breakdown of what the client owns and owes
Goals Progress — Visual progress bars showing how the client is tracking toward each goal
Investment Breakdown — Where the client's money is invested (asset class, allocation, etc.)
Insurance Overview — Coverage summary across life, disability, homeowners, and liability
Estate Overview — Document completeness checklist for estate planning
Cash Flow — Income, spending, savings, and debt payment summary
Savings and Debt — Focused views on savings progress and debt payoff
Changes to Be Made — The client's action items and recommendations
Tasks — Assigned tasks for the client to complete
Custom Text — Your own written commentary, notes, or explanations
Custom Image — Upload charts, diagrams, or any visual you want to include
...and more. The full list covers every major area of a client's financial plan.
Building Your Guide
Adding Components
Click the "Add section" button to see the list of available components. Select one to add it to the Guide. You can add as many components as you want and arrange them in whatever order makes sense for your client.
Reordering
Drag and drop components into your preferred order. Most advisors put a high-level summary or welcome message at the top, followed by the areas most relevant to the client.
Customizing
Each component has its own settings. Depending on the type, you may be able to:
Show or hide specific data points
Add notes or commentary for the client
Choose which accounts, goals, or categories to highlight
Filter by status (e.g., show only incomplete changes)
The goal is to make every Guide feel personal — not like a generic report.
Removing
If a component isn't relevant for a particular client, remove it from the Guide. Removing it doesn't delete any underlying data — it just hides that component from the Guide view.
Previewing Your Guide
As you build, the Guide updates in real time. What you see on the Overview tab is exactly what your client will see when they access their Guide through the Client Portal. This makes it easy to tweak and polish before sharing.
Sharing the Guide
Once your Guide looks good, share it with your client by inviting them to the Client Portal. When a client logs into their portal, the Guide is the main thing they see. They can view all the components you've included, review their financial picture, and check off their Changes to Be Made.
To invite a client, go to the Profile tab, click Household, find the client's name, and send them a portal invitation.
Guide Templates
If you find yourself building similar Guides for multiple clients, you can save significant time with Guide Templates.
The Guide Template Editor
The Guide Template Editor lives at the advisor level (not inside a specific client). You can access it from the main navigation. It has three tabs:
Guide Templates — Create, edit, duplicate, reorder, and delete templates. Each template defines which components to include and in what order. When you apply a template to a client, it populates their Guide with your pre-configured layout.
Template Fields — Create reusable text and image fields with default content. These are shared across templates and can be customized per client when you apply the template. For example, you might create a "Welcome Message" field with standard intro text that you tweak for each client.
Changes Template — Configure the default change categories that get created when you apply a template. This saves you from manually adding the same categories for every new client.
AI-Powered Template Generation
The Guide Template Editor includes an AI assistant that can help you build templates faster. Describe what you want — "Create a template for a young professional with retirement and education goals" — and the AI will generate a template layout with the right components in a logical order. You can then refine it with follow-up prompts or manually adjust. This is especially useful when you're getting started and want to see what a well-structured Guide looks like.
Tips for a Great First Guide
Start simple. You don't need to include every component for every client. Focus on the areas that matter most for this client's situation.
Lead with the big picture. Put summary components near the top so the client immediately sees the most important information.
Include Changes to Be Made. This is where clients see their action items — what they should do next. It's often the most valuable part of the Guide.
Use custom text to add your voice. A short note explaining what you found and what you recommend makes the Guide feel personal rather than automated.
Review before sharing. Click through the Guide as if you were the client. Make sure everything makes sense and the flow feels natural.
What Clients See
When a client opens their portal, the Guide is front and center. They see exactly the components you've included, formatted cleanly and branded with your firm's logo and colors. Clients can't edit the Guide — they can only view it. If you need to make changes, update the Guide on your side and the client will see the updated version next time they log in.