PBC Engagement Tracking

Every engagement — monthly close, quarterly review, year-end tax, audit support — has a list of documents and data that need to come from the client before the work can start or finish. Kraal tracks these as Provided-By-Client (PBC) items: one row per item, scoped to the specific engagement period, with status, owner, due date, and a place for attachments.

PBC tracking lives alongside the rest of the engagement workflow and shows in three places:

• A dedicated management view (under the accounting workspace)
• A summary in the AI assistant via the /pbc slash command
• Audit history once items move between states

Engagement period

A PBC list belongs to a specific engagement period. Use whatever label fits the engagement:

• Monthly close: 2026-04, 2026-05, ...
• Quarterly review: FY2026-Q1, 2026-Q2, ...
• Year-end tax: 2026-Tax
• Audit: 2026-Audit

Engagement periods are independent — the same item key (e.g., bank_statements) can exist with separate status on the April monthly close and the year-end audit.

Item shape

Each PBC item carries:

• Item key — short machine-readable identifier (trial_balance, bank_statements, prior_year_return, etc.). Unique within an engagement so clients can't accidentally request the same thing twice
• Label — display name shown in the UI and slash command
• Description (optional) — additional context for the requester or fulfiller
• Owner role — client, accounting, tax, payroll, finance, audit, or other
• Status — one of:
  • Requested — the default. Item has been asked for but not yet received
  • Received — item is in hand. The status change is timestamped
  • Reviewed — the team has reviewed the received item
  • Closed — fully done; no further work expected
  • Not applicable — explicitly waived for this engagement
• Due date (optional) — drives the overdue surface
• Assigned user (optional) — who is responsible for following up
• Attachment (optional) — link to a file uploaded as evidence
• Notes — free-text context

Starting a list

Two paths for seeding a new engagement:

Seed from default template

The fastest start. Kraal ships a small default template covering the items most engagements need:

• Trial balance
• Bank statements
• Fixed asset rollforward
• Payroll reports
• Revenue detail
• Prior year tax return

Click Seed Default Template in the PBC view, choose the engagement period, and Kraal creates the rows in Requested status with owner roles preset. Re-running the seed against an engagement that already has some of these items only adds the missing ones — it's safe to re-run.

Create individually

Use New Item to add an engagement-specific request. You'll be asked for an item key, a label, and an optional owner role and due date. Pick an item key that's short, lowercased, and uses underscores (e.g., lease_schedule, q1_payroll_filings).

Managing items

The management view shows:

• Scope row — active client, engagement period (editable), and status filter
• Summary card — total / received / requested counts and an overdue badge when items are past their due date
• Item table — one row per item with inline status dropdown, owner, due date (highlighted when overdue), and per-item actions

Actions per item:

• Mark received — sets status to Received and timestamps it
• Status dropdown — change status inline
• Delete — remove from the engagement (use sparingly; "not applicable" is usually preferable so the history is preserved)

Asking the AI assistant

The /pbc slash command in the AI assistant shows the active client's PBC list. Three views:

• No active client — shows the default template as a preview so the user knows what would be created if they picked a client
• Client selected, engagement not yet seeded — shows the default template + a callout telling the user where to seed
• Client selected with items — shows the live list with status and owner, plus a summary block (total, by-status, overdue count)

Use period=<engagement> to target a non-default engagement period; the default is the current month (YYYY-MM).

When PBC fits the workflow

• Before a monthly close kicks off — confirm the client has sent bank statements, payroll reports, and revenue detail
• During an audit — track every requested working paper with status and a link to the evidence
• As a year-end checklist — track every document needed before tax filing
• Between engagements — re-use the same template across multiple clients and quickly seed new engagements

PBC items are independent from the close engine's automated close items. The two run alongside each other: PBC tracks what we need from the client, the close engine tracks what we need to compute and post.

Security & access

PBC items are scoped per client, so users only see lists for clients in their access scope. Attachments link to files that already follow the client's existing document-access rules; the PBC surface doesn't grant additional access.

When discussing PBC requests with a client, share item labels and status, not internal identifiers. The attached evidence belongs to the client and should stay in the client's workspace.

Troubleshooting

• The seed button didn't create my items — check that no items with the same item keys already exist for that engagement. Seeding is idempotent — it only adds missing rows
• The status I want isn't in the dropdown — Kraal restricts status to a fixed set (Requested, Received, Reviewed, Closed, Not applicable). If you need a different workflow state, use the Notes field
• Overdue badge keeps showing for items that are closed — closed and not-applicable items are excluded from the overdue count. If you see overdue items in those states, hard-refresh to pick up the latest status
• Engagement period is being used inconsistently — Kraal stores whatever label you provide; for the cleanest history, agree on a format (e.g., YYYY-MM for monthly) and use it consistently