An accountant keeps a list of what they still need from you: the receipt for a charge, an explanation of a wire, a signed form. In kBooks that list lives inside the books, on the Requests tab beside Calendar. The ask is made from the entry it is about, you answer it in place with words or a document, and a document you hand over attaches itself to that entry.
Asking
Open any entry and press Ask the client in its action bar (the speech bubble with a plus). The window proposes a title from the entry, for example "Receipt for Home Depot, $1,234.56 on Aug 12, 2026", a message and a due date a week out. Pick Document when you need paper or Question when you need words, change anything you like, and press Send request. For something not tied to one entry, press New request on the Requests tab.
Asking is the accountant's or bookkeeper's side: the person keeping the books for you, with Accountant access or higher. The business answers; it does not see a New request button of its own.
Answering
Open the request from the Requests tab, the Overview card or the link in the email. Write your answer, or press Attach documents and hand over the receipt; both at once is fine. A document goes into your Documents and, when the request is about an entry, onto that entry too. Press Send reply.
What the status means
- Waiting on the client (amber): nobody has answered yet. The client reads it as waiting on you.
- Answered (green): the client replied, and the ball is with the accountant's side. A follow-up from the accountant, or anyone else at the firm, puts it back to waiting and emails the client's people.
- Closed (gray): done. The asker, or anyone who can edit the books, can close a request and reopen it later. A reply on a closed request reopens it.
A request past its due date and still waiting shows as overdue in the list and on the accountant's client list. A request the client has answered is never overdue: the date was their deadline, and they met it.
Reminders
- One goes by itself. When a request passes its due date with nobody answering, the client's people get one reminder email, in the asker's name, the next time anyone opens the books. The machine never sends a second one.
- Remind the client in the thread window sends another, now. Only the person who asked sees the button, and only while the request is waiting on the client. The band then reads "Reminded once" (or "3 times") with the date, and the list shows a small bell beside the due date.
- If the reminder cannot go (your kBooks operator has not switched that mail on, or nobody on the client's side has an email address), the window says so and records nothing.
- On the accountant's Clients list, a request waiting on the client with no word for two weeks shows as quiet: the cue to pick up the phone.
Where else it shows
- The Requests tab wears a count: for the business, the requests waiting for its answer; for the accountant, the answers waiting to be read.
- The Overview tab carries a Requests card while anything is open, each row opening its thread.
- A document handed over opens from its chip in the thread, with Print and Close. If the entry a request was about has since been deleted, what you hand over stays on the reply.
- The Requests list has a Quiet filter too: waiting on the client with no word for two weeks.
- On the accountant's Clients list, a Requests column counts what waits on each client and what came back. Each chip opens the tab already showing that slice: the answered ones, the overdue ones, or what waits.
- Emails go to the people who can edit the books when a request is made, and to the asker when the client answers, once your kBooks operator has switched that mail on.
Who can do what
| Action | Needs | |---|---| | Ask | The accountant's or bookkeeper's side, Accountant or higher | | Reply with words, close or reopen | Accountant or higher | | Reply with documents | Read and write or higher | | Read the thread | Anyone who can open the books |