Legal Aid Bills and Payments

Generate bills

1. Go to Billing.
2. Click the down arrow beside New bills and select New Legal Aid bill.
3. Locate the client you would like to bill and click Generate bill.
4. Fill out the required information and click Generate.

Generate Legal Aid bulk load spreadsheets

1. Go to Billing.
2. On the upper right side, click Generate Legal Aid CSV.
3. Review the information under the Type, Submission month, and Submission year dropdown fields.
4. Check the boxes for matters you would like to bill.
5. Click Preview Submission.
6. When you are ready to download the file, click Download CSV. The CSV file will download to your computer.

Add Legal Aid billing rates

After identifying the matter as Legal Aid work, you can then select the appropriate rates in the Fixed fee and Activity category dropdown menus. The rates you see in the Activities category dropdown are based on the information you filled out on your Legal Aid fields on your Matter details page. 

Record Legal Aid payments

Allocate partial payment from Legal Aid agencies

1. Go to Billing.
2. Click the dropdown menu next to Record payment and select Record Legal Aid Payment.
3. In the Legal Aid Record Payments section, enter the Reference, Date, and Value of the payment. The payment will be allocated automatically.
   • If it matches the value of the Open Balance, it will allocate it across every bill.
   • If the value of the payment is less than the Open Balance, it will allocate the value to each bill sequentially until it runs out of funds.
4. If you want to change the allocation, you can type in the Payment value next to each bill.

Write-off balance of Legal Aid payments

1. Go to Billing.
2. Click the dropdown menu next to Record payment and select Record Legal Aid Payment.
3. In the Legal Aid Record Payments section, enter the Date, Reference, and the Payment amount.
   • The value of the payment will automatically allocate sequentially against the bills with Open Balances. If you wish to change the allocation, you can type in the value next to each bill. The remaining amount will appear at the bottom of the screen in the Write off area.
4. Each bill will have a check box allowing you to select the bill remaining value to write off against each bill. Check the boxes of the bills you want to write off.
   • Any bills that you do not check the box for will remain with an Open Balance and can be paid or written off whenever you return to the Record Legal Aid Payment screen again
5. Click Record payment.

Track payments from Legal Aid agencies

Add time and expense entries

In Clio Manage, you can add time entries and expenses directly in you Legal Aid matter. Follow the steps below to do this. You can also capture time using the global timer or when filing emails with Clio's Outlook Add-in. Learn more about adding time entries using the timer here and more about adding time while filing emails with Clio's Outlook Add-in here. 

1. Open your Legal Aid matter.
2. Click the Activities subtab.
3. Click New time entry.
4. Fill in the time details and select the Activity category.
5. Click Save entry.

Allocate payments across matters

1. Go to Billing.
2. Click the dropdown menu next to Record payment and select Record Legal Aid Payment.
3. In the Legal Aid Record Payments section, enter the Date, Reference, and Value of the payment. The payment will be allocated automatically.
   • If it matches the value of the Open Balance, it will allocate it across every bill.
   • If the value of the payment is less than the Open Balance, it will allocate the value to each bill sequentially until it runs out of funds.
   • If you want to change the allocation, you can type in the value next to each bill.
   • If you have a variance remaining that you are happy with, select the Write off bill value checkboxes for the value you want to write off against each bill.
4. Click Record payment.

Billing threshold

When the billed work figure hits 90%, a warning will appear on your matter's Dashboard specifying the percentage value above the exceptional rate threshold and the remaining amount.