Bill States and Bill Approval

Bill states are the categories that yours bills move through from bill generation to bill payment. Throughout this process, you can submit bills for approval, approve bills, edit bills, delete bills, void bills, download bills, and record payment or apply client funds on approved bills. 

View bill states

You can view the state for each of your bills from the main Billing tab or from the Bills subtab in a matter or contact.

1. Go to Billing or go to the Bills subtab in the contact or matter.
2. Click any one of the Draft, Pending approval, Unpaid, Paid, All, or Archive quick filters to view bills within that bill state. Learn more about each state in the section below on Summary of each bill state.

Summary of each bill state

Draft:

When a bill is generated, and you do not select the box for Skip the bill approval process, the bill will appear under this section as a draft bill. A draft bill requires approval before it can be sent to the client. You can fully edit or delete draft bills and apply any existing client funds on the bill, but you cannot accept payment on draft bills. Learn more about sending draft bills for approval and approving draft bills below, editing draft bills here, deleting draft bills here, and apply client funds to draft bills here.

Pending approval:

When a draft bill is sent to another firm user for approval, it can be found below this section as a bill pending approval. Bills pending approval can be fully edited or deleted. Learn more about how to send a draft bill for approval and how to approve the bill in the section below and how to edit bills pending approval here.

Unpaid:

When a draft bill is submitted for approval and the bill is approved, it will move into this state. You can also bypass the draft and pending approval states when generating a bill by clicking Skip the bill approval process. The bill will automatically move into an unpaid state and can be sent to the client for payment. You can also manually record payment and apply client funds to unpaid bills. Unpaid bills have very limited edit functionality and can only be voided, not deleted. Learn more about editing bills here and sending bills for payment here.

Paid:

A paid bill has been sent to the client and payment has been recorded on the bill. You cannot edit this bill. You can void the bill after deleting any recorded payments. Learn more about recording bill payments here and voiding bills here.

All:

This quick filters shows all your generated bills regardless of bill state.

Archive:

This quick filters shows all deleted and voided bills. Learn how to delete and void bills here.

Submit bills for approval and approve bills

When you generate a bill and you choose not to skip the bill approval process, you will need to submit the bill for approval. Once submitted, the bill will move to a pending approval state. Then, the firm user to whom you submitted the bill for approval can approve the bill and send it to the client.