Everything in Kivos, on one plan.
Every feature, from the Plan grid to the audit trail.
Plan
Build and change the plan, position by position, with every cost worked out.
- Working plan
- One live plan that every operational screen shows, costed over the current fiscal year and running to the planning horizon.
- Change control on approved positions
- Once a plan is approved, an edit that trips an approval rule is proposed and routed, and the position changes only when approved; other edits save at once.
- Plan grid
- A table of every position in the plan, with filters and a click-through side panel.
- Positions and By month views
- Switch the grid between one row per position and one column per month, showing FTE or cost by month.
- Group by
- Group the grid by org unit, cost centre, location, legal entity or status.
- Personal column choice
- Each person chooses and orders the grid's columns, and Kivos remembers them.
Requests and approvals
Every change follows your rules, from the first ask to the final decision.
- Ask for a position
- Business leaders who cannot edit the plan request a new position with a business driver and justification.
- Cost estimate on requests
- The requester sees the estimated cost of their own request before sending it.
- Your requests
- A table of your own requests with their status and a side panel for each.
- Finance challenge
- Finance reviews each position request and can accept, reject, defer or accept with changes.
- Approve with changes
- An approver changes level, start or location, sees the new estimate and tells the requester what changed.
- Defer with automatic expiry
- A deferred request stays open for a set period, then Kivos rejects it automatically and records why.
Lifecycle and hiring
Follow every position from request to hire, and every leaver to a decision.
- Lifecycle board
- Positions in columns by status, from Requested to Budgeted, Hiring, Hired and Leaving, with counts and run rate.
- Requested, not committed
- A request shows in the plan from submission but counts as committed only once fully approved.
- Release for hiring
- Move a budgeted position into hiring, which opens the requisition.
- Release for hiring approval
- Release can follow its own approval rule before the position moves to Hiring.
- Hiring status from HR data
- Positions move to Hired and Active only when the HR data matches a person to them.
- Leavers on the board
- Positions whose person has gone wait for a Backfill or Eliminate decision.
Versions and scenarios
Budgets, forecasts and what-ifs, compared and approved.
- Plan versions
- Budgets and Forecasts taken from the Working plan as fixed copies over the months you choose.
- Versions list and page
- Every version with its months, source and status, and a page for each.
- Drafts stay current
- Changes to the Working plan flow into every open draft, field by field.
- Draft conflict resolution
- Where a draft and the Working plan changed the same thing, a finance user keeps one or the other, with a note.
- Checks before submitting
- Blocking issues, warnings and passed checks, with links to fix them.
- Submit, approve and lock
- Submit a version with a note; once approved it is locked with its figures, assumptions and rates.
Insights and reporting
See what moved, why, and who is behind it.
- Home
- A greeting and three groups (Plan, Review, Analyze) with pathways, plus suggestions for your work area.
- Dashboard
- Headline measures, a compact bridge, the position pipeline, the largest movements and your approvals queue.
- Dashboard bridges
- Three comparisons: approved to latest estimate, actuals to year end, and approved to actuals so far.
- Dashboard definitions and filters
- Each card explains its measure and the filter window sets the plan view.
- Cost bridge
- A waterfall between any two plans, with a bar for each cause such as new hires, leavers, merit, hiring timing and FX.
- Bridge drill-through
- Click any bar to see the positions behind it, filtered by card or chart bar.
AI assistant
Ask from where you already work, under the same rules.
- Connect your AI assistant
- Ask Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot or any MCP assistant about your workforce plan.
- Read-only, as the signed-in person
- The assistant sees exactly what the person sees and cannot change, approve or import anything.
- Eight assistant tools
- Who am I, plans, workforce summary, cost breakdown, compare scenarios, change status, saved reports and definitions.
- Secure sign-in for assistants
- OAuth 2.1 with PKCE, pre-registered clients only, with a consent screen.
- Company AI switch
- AI access is off until an Administrator turns it on and chooses which assistants are allowed.
- Whole teams only
- An option that limits assistants to asking about whole org units, to stop narrow cost probing.
Data and integrations
Your HR, ledger and master data, checked before it counts.
- Company setup
- A guided start for a blank company: planning calendar, reporting currency, workforce load and first plan.
- Nine-step setup with skip and resume
- A setup bar with progress, skip where allowed and a completion summary.
- Workforce file import
- Upload a CSV, map columns, review every row and commit all or nothing.
- Downloadable templates
- Every file upload offers a sample file with the columns needed and an example row.
- Import validation
- Exact matching to your own configuration, real calendar dates, duplicate worker IDs blocked, and errors separated from warnings.
- Formula and macro safety
- Spreadsheet binaries are rejected and formula-like cells are stored as text.
Security, access and administration
Who sees what, who can do what, and a record of all of it.
- Single sign-on with OpenID Connect
- Every screen and API call needs sign-in, with tokens verified on the server.
- Four roles
- Administrator, Super user, Planner and Viewer, each with a default set of capabilities.
- Seventeen capabilities
- Permissions such as raise demand, challenge, release to recruiting, approve plan versions and load actuals.
- Server-side authorisation
- Capabilities, data scope and salary visibility are enforced on the server, not only in screens.
- Data scope by organisation and geography
- Each person sees only their part of the organisation.
- Separation of duties
- Administrators run the system but do not see individual salaries by default.
Everyday experience
Built to be used every day, on any screen.
- Work areas
- Home suggestions tailored to Finance, HR or Business leader.
- Capability-aware screens
- People see only the screens and actions their role allows.
- Waiting count badge
- A count of requests waiting on you on Home and the Approvals inbox.
- Search
- Find screens and Dictionary terms from the top bar on every screen.
- Light and dark mode
- Choose Light, Dark or Same as my device.
- Preferred name
- Set the name used in your greeting.
Questions about Kivos.
What is Kivos?
Kivos is workforce and headcount planning software that puts Business, Finance and HR on one governed plan, with requests, approvals, cost and analysis in the same place.
How is Kivos different from planning in spreadsheets?
Everyone works from one plan, with one definition behind every measure. Requests follow your approval route, versions freeze on approval, and every change is recorded against a name.
Does Kivos replace our HR system or our ledger?
No. Kivos works with the HR and ledger data you already have. HR data is checked before it loads, and ledger actuals load each month. Kivos never writes back to your systems.
How does Kivos calculate the cost of a position?
From your own cost drivers by country: base salary, employer taxes and social charges, pension, benefits, bonus, equity and one-off fees such as recruitment. You see both the run rate and the cost in the year.
What is the difference between run rate and in-year cost?
The run rate is what a position costs over a full year. In-year cost counts only the months the position is filled this year, plus any one-off fees.
Can we use Kivos from our AI assistant?
Yes, from Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot or any assistant that supports MCP. Your assistant reads, never writes, as you and within your permissions, and only once your Administrator turns it on.
Who can see salaries?
Only people you allow. Everyone else sees Withheld, and no cost figure covering fewer than your minimum group size is shown to them.
Bring your plan. We'll bring Kivos.
A walkthrough built around your structure: your entities, your currencies and your approval rules.
Become a design partner
We are working closely with a small number of finance teams to shape what comes next. Partners get early access and a direct line to the people building it.
Ask about design partnership