Practice Management overview
The Practice Management module is the operational centre of Kuberan AI. It answers the questions every accounting firm deals with daily: What work is currently in progress? Who is responsible for it? How much time has been spent? Has the client been billed?
This guide explains how the pieces fit together before you dive into the individual how-to guides.
The engagement: your core unit of work
Everything in Practice Management is organised around the engagement. An engagement is a defined piece of work for a specific client — for example:
- “Maple Ridge Bakery Inc. — Monthly Bookkeeping — March 2025”
- “Chen Family Holdings — Corporate Tax Return — FY2024”
- “Okafor Consulting Ltd. — HST Filing — Q4 2024”
An engagement has:
- A client it belongs to
- An engagement type (bookkeeping, tax preparation, payroll, advisory, etc.)
- A status that moves through your workflow (Not Started → In Progress → In Review → Completed)
- A due date and an assigned team member
- A task list — the individual checklist items that must be completed
- Time entries — billable and non-billable hours logged against it
- Invoices generated from those time entries
This structure means you always know exactly where a piece of work stands, who is on it, and what it will cost the client.
Playbooks: standardising your work
A playbook is a reusable task template. When you assign a playbook to an engagement, Kuberan AI automatically creates all the tasks in that playbook as the engagement’s checklist.
For example, a “Monthly Bookkeeping” playbook might contain 12 tasks:
- Download and import bank statements
- Reconcile chequing account
- Reconcile credit card accounts
- Categorise uncoded transactions
- Review and post recurring entries
- Reconcile accounts receivable aging
- Reconcile accounts payable aging
- Review payroll entries
- Check for unapplied payments or credits
- Prepare GST/HST working paper
- Generate draft financial statements
- Partner review and sign-off
Every time you create a “Monthly Bookkeeping” engagement for any client, that same 12-step checklist appears automatically. You do not have to remember what the steps are or manually type them in — the playbook does it for you.
Playbooks are the biggest lever you have for consistency. When every staff member follows the same playbook, the quality of work is predictable, training new staff is faster, and nothing gets missed at month-end.
See Using playbooks for the full guide on building and managing playbooks.
The time tracking pipeline
Time flows through Practice Management in a predictable sequence:
Log time entry → Link to engagement → Mark as billable → Review → Create invoice → Send → Record paymentLogging time: Team members log time entries directly against engagements. Each entry captures the date, hours, description, billing rate, and billable/non-billable flag. Time can be logged manually (entering hours after the fact) or using the live timer (starting and stopping a clock while working).
Unbilled time: Time entries accumulate on the engagement until you create an invoice. The Unbilled Time report (under Practice > Reports) shows all time across all engagements that has been logged but not yet billed — this is your revenue pipeline.
Invoicing: When you are ready to bill a client, you create an invoice from the engagement. Kuberan AI pulls in all billable time entries and presents them as draft line items. You can edit, add, or remove line items before sending. Once sent, those time entries are marked as billed.
Payment: When the client pays, you record the payment against the invoice. Kuberan AI marks the invoice as paid and the revenue shows up in your billing reports.
Firm-level banking vs. client books
An important distinction: the Banking and Reconciliation features in Practice Management apply to your firm’s own bank accounts — the accounts your practice uses to receive client payments and pay firm expenses.
This is separate from the Books module, which manages each client’s bank accounts and accounting records.
If you receive a payment from a client into your firm’s chequing account, that is a Practice Management banking transaction. If you are reconciling the bank account for a client’s business, that happens inside the client’s Books module.
Navigating Practice Management
The main screens are:
| Screen | What it’s for |
|---|---|
| Engagements | Create and manage all client engagements; switch between list and board views |
| Tasks | See all tasks across all engagements in a unified list; filter by assignee and status |
| Time Entries | View all logged time across all engagements; filter and export |
| Invoices | Manage all practice invoices — draft, sent, paid, and overdue |
| Payments | Record and track client payments against invoices |
| Banking | Manage the firm’s own bank accounts and transactions |
| Reconciliation | Reconcile the firm’s bank accounts against statements |
| Reports | Run time, billing, and revenue reports |
| Billing Rates | Configure hourly rates for each role or individual |