The Completion Statement is a tab on your conveyancing matter in Clio Manage. It brings together your activities (as firm fees), the third-party fees you add, and the client funds recorded against the matter to show a single, up-to-date breakdown of the amount your client needs for completion. You can then share a client-ready statement by email or the client portal, or download it as a PDF.
Understand the Completion Statement
The Completion Statement fills itself in as you work on the matter. When you save a billable activity, an expense, or a client funds transaction on the matter, it appears on the statement, so the statement always reflects what is recorded in Clio. On a purchase matter, the statement shows the total amount due from your client. On a sale matter, it shows the total due to your client.
You can add the following details on completion statements:
- Property details and balance of the property price: The property address, seller, buyer, exchange date, completion date, and property price that you enter on the statement.
- Firm fees and expenses: Your billable activities and expenses on the matter automatically appear on the completion statement, including disbursements and anticipated disbursements, with VAT.
- Third-party fixed fees: Amounts paid from your client's completion funds to a third party, such as Stamp Duty Land Tax or a mortgage broker.
- Apportionments: Shared bills, such as service charges and management fees, divided between the buyer and the seller across the completion date. The portion owed by the seller is highlighted in the Amount due to authorities section, if relevant.
- Client funds: The money on account your firm has received into the client account for the matter, including any mortgage advance.
- Notes: Payment details and instructions for your client.
Set up completion statements on matters
Clio Administrators can set up the Completion Statement subtab on matters for specific practice areas.
By default, Clio is set up to show the Completion Statement subtab on the Conveyance - Purchase practice area and the Conveyance - Sale practice area. These are default practice areas available in Clio. You can set up additional practice areas for purchase and sale conveyancing matters if you use your own practice area naming conventions.
You can also set additional conditions about when to show the Completion Statement subtab on a matter.
Add practice areas and set conditions
- Go to Settings > Firm Preferences > Conveyancing.
- Click + Add practice areas, then use the drop down to select a practice area.
Tip: To add or rename practice areas, see Create and Manage Practice Areas. -
Optional: Select + Add matter fields, then select additional conditions.
Note: The conditions you set using the fields will apply in addition to the practice area you specify.Tip: If you use the same practice area name for both purchase and sale matters, you can create and add a custom matter field to distinguish between the two.- Status: Choose Open, Pending or Closed. The completion statement subtab appears only on matters with that matter status.
- Matter stage: Choose a matter stage. This option appears only if your firm has created at least one matter stage.
- Billable: Choose Checked or Unchecked. This matches the "This matter is billable" checkbox in the Billing preference section when you create a matter.
- Bill template: Choose a bill template. The subtab appears only on matters with that template selected under Billing preference (see Create Matters). You will only see this option if your firm has created at least one billing template.
- Custom fields: Each matter custom field your firm has created of the type Picklist, Checkbox, and Text (one-line). For text fields, enter the value to match. Learn how to apply a custom field to a matter.
- Click Save.
Matters with the practice areas you selected and the conditions you specified will show the Completion Statement subtab. The practice area and every matter field you add must all match for a matter to show the completion statement subtab. To cover more than one combination, add another practice area row.
Manage send settings and apportionments
Administrators can manage whether to turn apportionments on or off for the whole firm and how the statement is sent to clients.
- Go to Settings > Firm Preferences > Conveyancing.
- Apportionments: Toggle this firm-wide setting on or off to control if apportionments appear on the Completion Statements.
- PDF downloads: Toggle this firm-wide setting on or off to control whether a PDF is attached when sending completion statements to the client (see "Share the Completion Statement" below) or if only a secure link to a PDF is sent.
Track completion statement details on matters
The completion statement allows you to keep track of specific details like the property details so that they appear on the client-ready PDF statement whenever you need it. These details are kept separate from your matter fields, so the statement stays in step with the contract of sale your client sees.
- Go to Matters and open a conveyancing matter.
- Click the Completion Statement subtab.
- Enter the required details like property address, seller, buyer, exchange date, completion date, and property price.
- Click Save.
As you gather more details on the matter, you can return to the Completion Statement subtab and add additional information as needed, e.g., adding the mortgage advance for purchase matters or the mortgage redemption or estate agent fee for sale matters. As you continue work on the matter you can click Edit fixed fees and expenses to edit any existing billable entries, click Add apportionments to add apportionments to be divided on a sale, or click Add third party fees to track what you are paying out from the client account directly to third parties on completion.
Note: You can add your time and expense line items directly in the Completion Statement subtab or add them as you normally would add a time entry or add an expense entry. Both areas will update regardless of where you track time and expenses.
Any client funds that you receive in GBP are also added to the completion statement. Protected funds are not included in the total. A note shows when a matter holds funds in another currency.
Save, download, and share the Completion Statement
From the Completion Statement subtab you can download and share a PDF to share with your client. Review the details, line items, and values in the statements before downloading/saving and/or sharing the statement with your client.
Tip: Use the Notes section to enter payment details or any other instructions for your client.
Save or download the Completion Statement
- Go to Matters and open a conveyancing matter.
- Click the Completion Statement subtab.
- Click Save to matter to store a copy of the statement in the matter's Documents tab, or click Download to save a PDF to your computer.
If you save the statement again after making changes to it, Clio keeps each version in the same document.
Share the Completion Statement
- Go to Matters and open a conveyancing matter.
- Click the Completion Statement subtab.
- Click Share and select Email or Client portal.
- Complete the details and click Send.
Up next
- Create and Manage Practice Areas: Add or rename the practice areas that show the Completion Statement tab.
- Record Client Funds Transactions: Record funds you receive so they appear on the statement.
- Create and Manage Expenses Entries: Record disbursements and set their tax so the right VAT shows on the statement.