Configure General Bill Settings

General bill settings control how your firm's bills look, calculate, notify your team, and lock down before you generate them. You set the PDF page size, bill details, currencies, LEDES billing, time rounding, non-billable time, bill states, bill notifications, and default delivery options. Configuring these once means every bill applies your firm's preferences without adjusting each bill.

Set bill PDF page size

This setting sets the page size for bills you download from Clio Manage: letter, A4, or legal.

1. Go to Settings > Billing > General.
2. Under PDF Page Size, select the page size.
3. Scroll to the bottom and click Save changes.

Select default billing template

You can set the default billing template in Clio Manage to apply to new bills and select whether to include a cover page before the invoice. The default billing template applies to every new bill until you select a different one when generating a bill.

1. Go to Settings > Billing > General.
2. Under Bill details, click View to review the current firm default billing template.
3. To change it, select a different template from the drop-down, then scroll to the bottom and click Save changes.

Enable a bill cover page

A cover page precedes the invoice with the bill number and total amount due. The cover page is not customizable.

1. Go to Settings > Billing > General.
2. Under Bill details, check or uncheck Apply cover page to bills.
3. Scroll to the bottom and click Save changes.

Manage currencies

In Clio Manage, the Currencies section of general bill settings supports multiple currencies for activities, billing, reporting, and bank transactions. See Manage Currencies to add, edit, or remove a currency and to set how time and expense entries convert between a matter's currency and your firm's default.

Set tax defaults

The Taxes section of general bill settings sets your firm's primary and secondary tax rates and whether they apply to bills by default. See Configure Tax Settings for the full setup, including compound tax logic and applying or removing tax on an individual bill.

Enable LEDES billing

LEDES billing generates bills in the Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard (LEDES) format that corporate clients and third-party clearinghouses such as insurers often require. Enabling it makes LEDES billing available to enable on individual clients and their matters.

1. Go to Settings > Billing > General, and scroll to LEDES billing.
2. Check Enable LEDES billing.
3. Under Code sets, search for and select the code sets your firm uses, for example ABA Bankruptcy or EW Civil Litigation. These code sets become available when you configure LEDES billing on contacts.
4. Scroll to the bottom and click Save changes.

Set up UTBMS codes

The UTBMS codes subtab in Settings > Billing routes to this same General tab, since UTBMS code sets are enabled alongside LEDES billing above. See UTBMS Codes for what the codes classify, how your firm applies them to time and expense entries, and how to show or hide them on bills.

Set time and decimal rounding

Clio Manage offers two rounding options for time entries and bills:

Decimal rounding:

Rounds time entries to the nearest two decimal places. A 0.248-hour entry appears as 0.25 hours.

Time rounding:

Rounds time entries up to the nearest minute increment you choose. With a 5-minute increment, a 22-minute entry rounds to 25 minutes.

1. Go to Settings > Billing > General.
2. Scroll to Time rounding.
3. Check or uncheck Enable decimal rounding and Enable time rounding.
4. Click Save changes.

Set non-billable time defaults

This setting controls how Clio Manage treats hourly time entries on flat rate and contingency matters, where firms track time for reference rather than bill it at an hourly rate.

1. Go to Settings > Billing > General, and scroll to Non-billable time.
2. Check Set hourly time entries on flat rate and contingency matters to non-billable by default to record hourly entries at your normal billing rate and mark them non-billable automatically.
3. Uncheck this setting to leave the non-billable checkbox unchecked by default and bill hourly entries on these matters at a rate of $0.00 instead.
4. Click Save changes.

Manage bill states

This setting controls whether your firm can edit a bill once it has moved to the Approved state.

1. Go to Settings > Billing > General, and scroll to Bill states.
2. Check or uncheck Allow editing of approved bills and trust requests.
3. Click Save changes.

Enable bill generation notifications

This setting notifies members of your firm when bills have been generated.

1. Go to Settings > Billing > General, and scroll to Bill notifications.
2. Check Display notification section during bill generation.
3. Click Save changes.

Set default bill delivery options

Set how bills attach and whether text delivery is on by default. You can still change these options for an individual bill when you send it.

Default bill attachment:

Send bills as a secure PDF link or as an attached PDF.

Default text message:

Text delivery is on by default. Turn it off to keep it off for new bills. Contacts need a valid texting phone number to receive text messages.

1. Go to Settings > Billing > General.
2. Set your options under Default Bill Attachment Options and Default send by text message.
3. Scroll to the bottom and click Save changes.

Up next

Configure Tax Settings: Create tax rates and set invoice tax defaults.