Set Up Evergreen Retainers

In Clio Manage, you can enable evergreen trust on a matter so that when the trust balance drops below a set minimum, Clio automatically generates an invoice for additional trust funds. You can then review and send this trust request along with other matter invoices for payment by your client. Separate from this, you can turn on Low balance notification to notify firm users when the matter's balance falls too low. These options helps keep a client's retainer topped up without you having to track the balance or create replenishment requests by hand.

Understand evergreen management in Clio

1. Collect the initial retainer. Create a trust request, send it to your client, and record the payment.
   • See Create Trust Requests and Approve and Send Trust Requests.
2. Set the minimum trust balance for the matter and turn on evergreen trust.
3. Record time and expense entries, then generate an invoice.
4. Apply the retained trust funds to the invoice.
5. Review the automatically generated trust request in drafts, approve it, and send it to your client with any invoices the matter attaches.

Enable evergreen trust and its triggers

When you enable evergreen trust on a matter or matters, you can set the threshold for a trust balance so that when a trust balance falls below this value, a trust request is generated. You can also turn on low balance notifications separately from enabling evergreen trust to ensure you remain informed on your matters' trust balances.

Send invoices with trust requests

With evergreen trust on, you can choose which invoices go out with the trust request. Your client receives the trust request and the attached invoices in one email, with one PDF and—if you use Clio Payments—one payment link. The details about each option are explained below.

• Send on its own: The trust request sends without invoices.
• Unpaid invoices and invoices paid from trust: The trust request sends with the matter's unpaid invoices and the invoice paid from trust. Your client pays invoices and replenishes the trust via a single payment link.
• Invoices paid from trust: The trust request sends with the invoice paid from trust, for your client's reference. Your client pays only the trust request.
• Unpaid invoices: The trust request sends with the matter's unpaid invoices. Your client pays the invoices and the trust request through one payment link.

Important: When the option includes unpaid invoices, every Unpaid invoice on the matter attaches to the trust request. This includes invoices you have not sent to your client yet. Invoices in Draft or Pending approval remain separate. To exclude an invoice, keep it in Draft until you are ready to send it.

Monitor trust balances

You can track trust balances on a single matter or across the firm. 

While viewing a matter's dashboard, the Time and Expenses or Time, Expenses, and Grants widget shows the matter trust funds balance, the minimum required amount, and a low-balance indicator if the trust balance is too low.

Across the firm, the trust management report shows unbilled activities, trust account balances, and minimum required amounts, so you can compare your billable work against the funds you hold. See Clio Manage Reports, Presets, and History to generate a report, and the Trust Management Report for more information.

Apply trust and generate a trust request

For matters with evergreen trust enabled, when you apply trust funds to an invoice that would cause the trust balance to drop below the threshold and trigger a new trust request to be generated, you can update the details in the Evergreen trust section according to your needs. The following additional fields are available when you apply trust funds to invoices for matters with evergreen trust enabled.

• Issue date and Due date: Both dates default to the current date. Update these  as applicable. The issue date can be any date in the past or future, and the due date any date from the current date forward.
• Add note: You can add a note for additional context.
• Skip the trust request approval process: Check the box so that the trust request is automatically approved when generated so that it is ready to be sent.
• Clear old trust requests to prevent duplicates: Check this box to delete draft requests, void unpaid requests, and write off the remaining balance on partially paid requests.

When you fill out these details and Apply trust to the existing invoice, a new trust request will be generate that you can approve and send.

Replenish manually with Autofill

If you have enabled evergreen trust on a matter and need to manually top up the matter, you can create a trust request and use Autofill to calculate the replenishment amount.

1. In Clio Manage, go to the matter Dashboard.
2. In the Time and Expenses or Time, Expenses, and Grants widget, click the more icon (vertical ellipses) for the Matter trust funds, then select New request.
3. Confirm the Issue date, Due date, Client, and Matter, and set Balance type to Matter.

4. Open the Autofill menu beside the Amount label and choose an option. Each option shows its calculated amount, so you can compare them before you choose.

   Note: The options show the same amount when a matter has no outstanding balance and no unbilled work in progress. Replenish uses the amount set for the matter's Minimum required trust balance.

   • Replenish: Brings the matter trust balance back up to the minimum required.
   • Replenish + outstanding balance: The replenishment amount plus any outstanding balance on the client's invoices.
   • Replenish + WIP: The replenishment amount plus unbilled work in progress.
   • Replenish + outstanding balance + WIP: The replenishment amount plus outstanding balances and unbilled work in progress.
5. Optional: Edit the Amount field to override the calculated amount.
6. Click Save trust request.

Up next

• Create Trust Requests: Create a trust request manually.
• Approve and Send Trust Requests: Approve a generated request and send it to your client.
• Record Payments on Trust Requests: Record your client's trust deposit against the request.