Complex object type to simple

"exists" is a query object (ie complex). You need to test the column value returned by the query instead. You cannot use RecordCount here because it will be > 0 due to the usage of COUNT().

<cfif exists.kfis GT 0 > ... </cfif>

In addition to Dan's suggestion, I also think you will have better results if you specified an actual DB column in the COUNT function - many DBMS will not even allow a wildcard in functions, and if it is working then you are getting a count for every column which would likely be returned as a comma delimited list and NOT actually a numeric value, hence why it becomes a complex value.

Use the recordcount attribute of cfquery.