Start from a template built for the client type
Every template ships with a scoped onboarding checklist and a recurring monthly pack — edit either one to match how your firm actually works.
Firm template → client version → monthly engagement
A template exists at three levels, and understanding the difference matters more than any individual requirement list. The firm template is the shared master your team maintains — the 11 requirements a typical retail client needs, for example. When you add a client, Cohesio creates a client version: a copy of the firm template scoped to that specific business, where you can add a requirement unique to them or remove one that doesn’t apply, without touching the shared master or any other client’s copy. Each month, an engagement is issued from the current client version — a fresh, dated instance the client actually submits documents against. Editing the firm template updates what future client versions start from; it never reaches back into a client version already created, and it never reaches into an engagement already issued or closed. That separation is what lets a firm improve its standard retail template company-wide without accidentally changing what a specific client’s engagement, already in the client’s hands, is asking for.
Pick a starting point, not a blank page
Each template below is a real requirement set built from how firms actually run these client types — counts are what ships by default before you customize anything. The due day is a starting recommendation, not a rule; change it per client from the engagement settings.
Retail
Point-of-sale exports, merchant deposits and inventory adjustments, month after month.
- Onboarding
- 14 requirements
- Monthly pack
- 11 requirements
- POS settlement reports
- Merchant processor statements
- Inventory count adjustments
Recommended due day: 5th business day of the following month
The most common exception is a merchant deposit total that doesn’t match the POS settlement report for the same window, usually because a batch settled a day late across a month boundary. A close second is a missing inventory adjustment for a location that had a physical count but no one exported the variance report before the due date.
Tip: Set the merchant processor statement requirement to accept a date range rather than a calendar month, since most processors batch by settlement date, not sale date, and a rigid calendar-month rule creates a false exception every single period.
Use this templateRestaurant
Tips, tip credits, food cost and multi-location deposits without a spreadsheet chase.
- Onboarding
- 16 requirements
- Monthly pack
- 13 requirements
- Daily sales summaries
- Tip and gratuity reports
- Vendor invoices by location
Recommended due day: 7th calendar day of the following month
Tip credit reconciliation throws the most exceptions, since declared tips, credit card tips and any tip pool distribution rarely land on the same total without a manual adjustment for cash tips. Multi-location restaurants also generate exceptions when one location’s daily sales summary export uses a different POS than the others and its report format doesn’t match the extraction pattern for the rest.
Tip: For multi-location groups, create one engagement per location rather than one combined engagement — it isolates which location is late, and keeps a single format mismatch from blocking the whole group’s close.
Use this templateEcommerce
Marketplace payouts, ad spend and shipping fees reconciled against the storefront.
- Onboarding
- 15 requirements
- Monthly pack
- 12 requirements
- Marketplace payout reports
- Ad platform invoices
- Shipping and fulfillment statements
Recommended due day: 10th calendar day of the following month
Marketplace payout reports span settlement periods that rarely align with a calendar month, so the most frequent exception is a payout total that only partially covers the period being closed. Ad platform invoices generate exceptions when a client runs campaigns across more than one ad account and only remembers to forward one invoice, leaving the other account’s spend unaccounted for until a reviewer flags the gap.
Tip: Ask for a full payout report export rather than a screenshot summary — the underlying transaction detail lets AI extraction match individual orders to payouts instead of accepting a single unverifiable total.
Use this templateProfessional services
Time and billing exports, retainers and contractor payments for firms that bill by the hour.
- Onboarding
- 12 requirements
- Monthly pack
- 9 requirements
- Time and billing exports
- Retainer and prepayment ledgers
- 1099 contractor payments
Recommended due day: 5th business day of the following month
Retainer ledgers are the recurring exception source: a client draws down a prepaid retainer unevenly across months, and the running balance in their billing system doesn’t always match what was invoiced, especially when a project pauses mid-retainer. Contractor payment totals also throw exceptions when a firm pays contractors through more than one method (direct deposit plus occasional check) and only one method’s export gets submitted.
Tip: Add a standing note field to the retainer requirement asking the client to flag any mid-month retainer top-up — it turns an otherwise-invisible balance change into something a reviewer can check against the ledger directly.
Use this templateReal estate
Rent rolls, security deposits and property-level expenses across a portfolio.
- Onboarding
- 17 requirements
- Monthly pack
- 14 requirements
- Rent roll exports
- Security deposit ledgers
- Property management statements
Recommended due day: 10th calendar day of the following month
Portfolio clients generate the most exceptions when a rent roll export omits a unit that turned over mid-month, since occupancy and rent totals won’t reconcile against the property management statement for that property until the turnover is accounted for separately. Security deposit ledgers also throw exceptions when a deposit is partially or fully returned to a departing tenant and the return isn’t reflected in the same period’s export.
Tip: Scope one engagement per property rather than one per portfolio owner when a client holds more than four or five properties — it makes a single property’s late rent roll easy to isolate instead of blocking the whole portfolio’s close.
Use this templateNonprofit
Restricted funds, grant reporting and donor acknowledgements tracked by program.
- Onboarding
- 13 requirements
- Monthly pack
- 10 requirements
- Grant award letters
- Restricted fund activity
- Donor contribution summaries
Recommended due day: 15th calendar day of the following month
Restricted fund activity is the recurring exception: a donor contribution or grant disbursement is recorded against the wrong program in the client’s own tracking, and the mismatch only surfaces when the fund’s monthly activity is compared against grant terms in the award letter. Donor contribution summaries also throw exceptions when a fundraising platform’s export groups gifts by campaign rather than by fund, requiring a manual remap to the org’s restricted-fund structure.
Tip: Attach each grant’s award letter as a persistent reference document on the client record rather than re-requesting it monthly — reviewers can check restricted spending against its actual terms without hunting for the letter each period.
Use this templateConstruction
Job costing, retainage and subcontractor pay applications by project.
- Onboarding
- 18 requirements
- Monthly pack
- 15 requirements
- Job cost reports by project
- Subcontractor pay applications
- Retainage schedules
Recommended due day: 15th calendar day of the following month
Job cost reports throw the most exceptions when a cost is coded to the wrong project — common on firms running several concurrent jobs with a shared crew — and the miscode only becomes visible when the project’s cumulative cost jumps unexpectedly against budget. Retainage schedules also generate exceptions when a subcontractor’s pay application retainage percentage doesn’t match the rate specified in that subcontractor’s contract on file.
Tip: Require job cost reports scoped per active project rather than one combined report for the whole company — it’s the difference between a reviewer spotting a single project’s anomaly and having to manually split a company-wide total first.
Use this templateSaaS
Deferred revenue, payment processor payouts and usage-based billing exports.
- Onboarding
- 13 requirements
- Monthly pack
- 10 requirements
- Payment processor payouts
- Subscription billing exports
- Deferred revenue schedules
Recommended due day: 5th business day of the following month
Deferred revenue schedules are the main exception driver: annual and multi-year subscriptions recognized monthly rarely match the client’s own billing-system schedule exactly, especially after a mid-term upgrade, downgrade or proration event. Usage-based billing exports also throw exceptions when a metering change mid-month changes what a line item represents, and the export doesn’t distinguish the old metering basis from the new one within the same period.
Tip: Ask for the billing platform’s revenue recognition export directly, rather than the customer-facing invoice export — it already separates recognized from deferred amounts, which is otherwise a manual reviewer calculation every month.
Use this template
No client type above? Start from the closest match and adjust
Every template above is a starting point built on the same underlying structure, so building one for a client type we haven’t published — a medical practice, a franchise operator, a property manager running short-term rentals — is a matter of duplicating the closest fit and editing it, not building from zero. Start with the template whose document types overlap most (retail for anything point-of-sale-driven, professional services for anything billed by time or retainer), then walk through onboarding and monthly requirements one at a time: keep what applies, remove what doesn’t, and add anything specific to how that client’s business actually runs. Once a custom template is right for one client, you can promote it to a new firm-level template so the next similar client starts from it too, instead of repeating the same edits by hand.
Template FAQ
Yes, but edits to the shared firm template only apply to engagements issued after the change — client versions already in progress or already closed keep the requirements they were issued with. This prevents a mid-cycle template edit from silently changing what a client already submitted against.
Removing a requirement from a client’s version doesn’t touch the shared firm template underneath it, and doesn’t retroactively change past closed engagements. The requirement simply won’t appear on that client’s next issued engagement, and the onboarding or monthly count shown for that client updates to match.
Yes — mark a requirement as quarterly, annual, or tied to a specific calendar month (like a year-end template for tax documents), and Cohesio only includes it on engagements that fall in that window. Everything else on the template behaves as a standard monthly requirement.
A client typically has one onboarding engagement and one recurring monthly engagement, each from its own template, but nothing prevents issuing an additional ad hoc engagement from a different template — for a year-end package, for instance — alongside the regular monthly cycle.
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