Bill States and Bill Approval

Bill states track a bill through generation, optional approval, sending, and payment. The approval step allows a second firm member to review a bill before it goes out. Knowing exactly where a bill stands, from draft to paid, keeps your firm's revenue cycle predictable and confirms that only approved bills are reviewed by a client.

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:

A bill enters the draft state when it is generated manually, unless you select Skip the bill approval process during generation. Draft bills allow full editing and deletion. Learn more about submitting draft bills for approval and approving draft bills below, editing bills, deleting bills, and applying client funds to bills in draft state.

Pending approval:

A bill enters the pending approval state when the draft bill is sent to another firm user for approval, or it is automatically generated by AI in Clio Manage. Bills with a pending approval can be fully edited or deleted. Learn more about how to approve the bill below, and how to edit bills pending approval.

Unpaid:

A bill moves to the unpaid state once it is submitted for approval and approved, or immediately after generation when you select Skip the bill approval process. An unpaid bill is ready to send to the client. Editing an unpaid bill is limited by default. You can enable full editing in Edit Bills. Voiding an unpaid bill, rather than deleting it, retains a full record. See Delete and Void Bills.

Paid:

A paid bill has been sent to the client with payment recorded. Editing locks once a bill reaches the paid state. To void a paid bill, first delete all recorded payments. See [LINK NEEDED].

All:

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

Archive:

This quick filter shows all deleted and voided bills.

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.

Autocharge status

If you autocharge your clients according to a schedule, you can view the status of these transactions or attempted transactions from the main Billing page or the Bills subtab in a contact or matter. The Autocharge column in the table will display the relevant status. If you do not see this column, click Columns above the table header and check the box for Autocharge to display the column in your table.

Charged:

The autocharge schedule successfully ran, and the contact's payment method was charged.

Date:

A date appears for when the autocharge schedule is set to run. Click the information icon to view the specific schedule and make changes to it (e.g., pausing the schedule).

Failed:

The autocharge schedule failed. Click the information icon to retry the charge.

Up next

• Edit Bills: Change bill details or activities before a bill reaches a locked state.
• Delete and Void Bills: Remove a draft bill, or void a bill you no longer need, without losing your billing record.