Using the Kantivo AI Assistant

Perform everyday bookkeeping tasks by typing plain-language requests -- the AI interprets what you need, pre-fills the right form, and lets you confirm before anything is saved.

✨ NEW · JUNE 27, 2026

The assistant can now operate the app for you.

Beyond answering questions, Kantivo Core AI now drives the real screens on your behalf -- it opens the correct form, fills it in, picks the right accounts, and even completes multi-step jobs (for example, create a customer and then invoice them). It always leaves the work staged for your review, and asks rather than guessing when something is ambiguous. Power users can bring their own Anthropic key to run it on Claude Opus.

What the AI Assistant Does

Rather than navigating through multiple screens and manually filling out fields, you can tell Kantivo what you want in conversational English. Say something like "Invoice Acme Corp $500 for design work" and the assistant takes care of locating the customer, populating the invoice form, and presenting it for your approval.

Desktop-First Intelligence: Because Kantivo runs locally on your computer, the AI assistant reads your customer, vendor, and account data directly from your PostgreSQL database -- ensuring fast, private lookups with no round-trips to external servers for your financial data.

Core Capabilities

Conversational Input: Type requests the way you would speak them -- no syntax or special formatting required
Aware of Your Data: The assistant references your existing customers, vendors, and chart of accounts for accurate suggestions
Continuously Improving: Patterns from successful interactions are retained so the system gets sharper over time
Quality-Checked: Newly learned patterns go through a verification step before being broadly applied
You Stay in Charge: Every form is presented for review and nothing posts to your books without your explicit confirmation

Launching the Assistant

How to Open the AI Panel

Look for the AI Assistant button anchored to the lower-right corner of any screen in Kantivo
Alternatively, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Space from anywhere in the application
A conversation panel slides into view, ready for your input

Making Your First Request

Start with something straightforward:

"Send an invoice to ABC Company for $100 for consulting"

Here is what happens next:

The assistant searches your customer list for "ABC Company" (or offers to create the record)
An invoice form appears with the customer already selected
The amount field reads $100
"Consulting" is entered as the line item description

Look everything over, tweak any details, and press Save to finalize.

Tasks the AI Can Handle

The assistant currently supports the following actions:

Task	What Happens
Create Invoice	Launches an invoice form populated with the customer, dollar amount, and line item description
Create Bill	Launches a bill form populated with the vendor, dollar amount, and expense category
Write Check	Launches a check form with the payee, dollar amount, and expense category filled in
Record Payment	Opens the payment receipt form so you can log incoming funds from a customer
Quick Expense	Captures a simple expense entry in just a few seconds
Create Customer	Opens a new customer record with the details you mentioned already filled in
Create Vendor	Opens a new vendor record with the details you mentioned already filled in

Sample Requests You Can Try

Invoicing Customers

"Invoice Smith Company $2,500 for consulting services"

"Create an invoice for ABC Corp -- $1,000 web design"

"Bill Johnson LLC $750 for project management, net 15 terms"

Recording Bills and Expenses

"Enter a bill from Office Depot, $200 for office supplies"

"Log a $150 bill from Amazon -- shipping materials"

"Add a $500 rent bill from my landlord"

Writing Checks and Recording Payments

"Cut a check to Staples for $75, office supplies"

"Pay ABC Properties $2,000 for this month's rent"

"Record that XYZ Corporation sent us $5,000"

Fast Expense Entries

"$50 expense for parking today"

"Log a $25 cash purchase -- coffee meeting with client"

Talking to Kantivo (Voice & Hands-Free)

You can run the entire assistant by voice. Everything below happens locally on your computer -- recordings are transcribed on-device and never sent anywhere.

Push-to-talk (🎤)

Click the microphone in the chat bar, speak once, and pause. The transcript lands in the message box so you can check it before it's sent -- nothing fires automatically.

Hands-free wake mode (🎧)

Click the headphones icon to switch on wake-word listening (it turns bright when armed). From then on, calling the assistant's name is all it takes:

"Kanta..." (or "BizBuddy") -- detection is near-instant, followed by a chime and a spoken acknowledgment.
Speak your request naturally: "...record a $312 utility bill dated today."
Kantivo performs the work in the app and stages it -- you review and approve before anything is recorded.
Watch the 🎧 icon: pulsing means it's busy with your command; solid means it's listening for its name again.

Good to know

The wake engine uses small neural models bundled with the install -- no cloud, no account, no audio upload.
Hands-free listening only starts when you arm it, and it resets when the session ends.
Want a personal trigger phrase? Add custom wake words in Settings → AI Assistant.
Spoken replies can be toggled with the 🔈 button, with a voice picker to choose how Kantivo sounds.

The On-Screen Assistant

Kantivo's assistant now appears as an animated character at the top of the chat panel, so a voice conversation has somewhere to look:

It blinks while idle and perks up visibly the instant it hears its wake word.
While working, it shifts into a thinking pulse; while speaking, its mouth animates in time with the audio.
Under Settings → AI Assistant → Assistant avatar you can choose between a minimalist orb, the BizBuddy mascot, or the professional Kanta figure -- or hide the character completely if you prefer a plain chat.

Reviewing Staged Work

When the assistant prepares something rather than completing it outright, that work is staged -- it waits for you instead of touching your books. Staged items live in one place: Tools → AI Staged in the left sidebar.

Finding your staged items

The sidebar row is always there, whether or not anything is waiting. When items are pending, a red counter appears beside it showing how many. Two shortcuts get you to the same screen:

Click the green "N items staged for your review" chip that the assistant drops into the chat right after it stages something
Click the floating 📋 Staged button near the chat bubble in the lower-right corner (it appears only while items are pending)

What you can do with each item

👁 View -- opens the actual form, pre-filled, so you can change anything before it posts. Saving from that form clears the item.
✓ Approve -- posts it to your books exactly as prepared, without opening the form.
✕ Decline -- discards it. Nothing is written to your ledger.

Pending, Approved and Declined

The screen has three tabs. Pending is your work queue. Approved and Declined keep a running record of everything you have already decided on, with the date you resolved it -- useful when you want to confirm what the assistant actually posted last week, or check that something you turned down really never made it in.

Staged items are per-company. If you work across several companies, each one keeps its own queue. Switch companies to see the items staged there.

Getting the Most Out of the AI

Provide Key Details Up Front

The more information you include, the less the AI needs to guess:

Name: Mention the customer or vendor by their full name as it appears in your records
Dollar Amount: State the figure clearly
Purpose: A short phrase explaining what the charge is for

Ideal: "Invoice ABC Corporation $2,500 for consulting services"
Less Effective: "Create an invoice" (the assistant will need to ask follow-up questions)

Speak Naturally

Kantivo's AI handles many different phrasings for the same intent:

"Create an invoice" / "Bill them" / "Invoice" / "Make an invoice" all produce the same result
"$500" / "five hundred dollars" / "500 dollars" are treated identically
"for consulting" / "consulting services" / "consulting work" are understood the same way

Always Verify Before Saving

The assistant fills out forms on your behalf, but you have the final say. Before pressing Save, confirm:

The right customer or vendor is selected
The amount matches what you intended
The account or expense category is appropriate

Good to Know: When you adjust a pre-filled field, the AI takes note. Future requests with similar phrasing will reflect your corrections automatically.

The Self-Learning Process

Kantivo's AI refines itself through a structured feedback cycle:

You describe what you need - The assistant parses your request and determines the action
A form appears for your review - You see exactly what the AI understood
You confirm or make edits - Accept the form as-is or adjust any fields
The outcome is recorded - Successful request-to-action pairings are stored as patterns
Patterns undergo verification - A quality check ensures only reliable patterns are promoted
All users gain the benefit - Verified patterns improve accuracy for the entire community

Privacy Note: Only request structures and their outcomes are used for learning. Your actual financial figures, customer names, and sensitive data are not shared. The learning process focuses on how requests map to actions, not on the underlying dollar amounts or entities.

Bring Your Own AI Key (Run on Claude Opus)

By default the assistant runs on a fast, capable model included with your subscription (within a generous monthly allowance). If you want maximum capability -- especially for complex, multi-step work -- you can connect your own Anthropic API key and choose your model, including Claude Opus.

Go to Settings → AI Assistant (or click the model badge in the chat panel).
Turn on "Use my own Anthropic API key" and paste your key from console.anthropic.com.
Pick your model (Opus, Sonnet, or Haiku) and click Test connection.

With your own key, usage is billed directly to your Anthropic account with no monthly limit, and your key is stored locally on your machine. The chat panel always shows which model is currently running.

Common Questions

The AI did not understand my request. What should I do?

Reword your request with additional specifics -- include the customer or vendor name, the dollar amount, and a brief description of the purpose. If the assistant still cannot help, use the standard menu-driven forms to complete the task.

Could the AI create something I did not intend?

No. The assistant only prepares a form for your inspection. Nothing is committed to your books until you explicitly click Save. Always scan the pre-populated fields for accuracy before confirming.

How does the AI locate my customers and vendors?

It queries your local customer and vendor lists stored in your PostgreSQL database. The matching logic is flexible -- typing "Smith" will find "John Smith at Smith & Associates" if that is the only Smith record in your system.

Are there usage limits on the AI?

The AI assistant is bundled with your Kantivo license. Depending on your plan tier, there may be a daily cap on the number of AI-assisted actions. You can check your current limits under Settings.

Can I turn the AI assistant off?

Absolutely. Navigate to Settings → Preferences and switch the "AI Assistant" toggle to off. You can reactivate it whenever you choose.

What parts of my data can the AI access?

The assistant reads your customer list, vendor list, and chart of accounts so it can make informed suggestions. It does not browse through your transaction history or other sensitive financial records beyond what is necessary to fulfill the specific request you made.

Want to learn more? Visit the AI Assistant feature page for a deeper look at how the self-learning engine works, or contact support with any questions.