With Clio's AI features, you can automate many of your firm's financial processes, such as allowing it to help generate client invoices. This end-to-end automation transforms routine financial tasks into completed, payment-ready invoices, accelerating cash flow and reducing errors.
Understand the automated invoicing process
Once parameters are set, Clio's AI takes the following steps to complete your invoicing cycle:
- Proactive notification: Clio's AI notifies firm users before a invoice is created, prompting them to enter any remaining time and expenses.
- Invoice generation and refinement: Clio's AI converts recorded entries into invoices and refines descriptions for clarity and polish. Refined entries are highlighted in blue for easy review.
- Route approval: The generated draft invoice is automatically routed to the specified approvers for review and final approval.
Clio uses activity timestamps to determine which activities to include in an automated invoicing cycle. Automated invoicing jobs generate at 2:00 a.m. PT and 5:00 a.m. ET.
- Up to the end of previous week: This setting includes all entries created in Clio before 11:59 p.m. on Sunday. The system excludes any entries created on the current Monday, even if the activity date is backdated to the previous week.
- Up to the date the invoice is generated: This setting includes all unbilled entries created in the system before the 2:00 a.m. PT generation time.
Tip: Because automated invoicing relies on the time the entry was created in Clio, ensure all firm users finalize their time and expense logs before the end of the business day prior to your scheduled generation. This ensures your draft invoices reflect all work performed without missing the automated cutoff.
Configure invoicing automation
An invoicing manager must define the parameters for automated invoice generation. You can now include hourly, flat fee, and contingency matters in your cycles.
- Go to Manage > Invoices > Automated invoicing.
- Click the settings (gear) icon.
- Set the details and conditions for the invoice generation schedule.
- Enter a number and select week(s) or month(s) from the dropdown to set a cadence for generating invoices.
- If you select weeks, select which day of the week to generate invoices.
- If you select months, select the day of the month (e.g., Day 15) or a particular day of a particular week in the month (e.g., the last Tuesday).
- Under Invoicing rules, set the minimum amount required to generate an invoices.
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Optional: Toggle the option to include flat fee and contingency matters.
Note: This setting only affects new matters. When switching an existing matter to a flat rate structure, you will be prompted to enable automated invoicing for that matter. - Under Invoice details, configure your invoice dates and template:
- Issue date: Choose to have the issue date be the Same day as the generation date or a specific number of days after the generation.
- Due date: Select Use contact's grace period to calculate the date or set a specific number of days after the issue date.
- Invoice template: Select to use the matter's default template, or select a preferred template from the dropdown menu.
- Select which time and expense entries to include. You can choose to invoice activities up to the end of the previous month or week, or up to the invoice generation date.
- Optional: Toggle the option to refine entry descriptions using Clio's AI. When enabled, descriptions refined for clarity will be highlighted in blue during the approval process.
- Optional: Under Invoice approvers, specify who needs to approve the invoice, including by firm role or specific users.
- Click Save settings.
Select and deselect matter to apply automated invoicing to
Once you configured your invoicing automation schedule and settings, you can choose which matters the automation should apply to and which ones it should not apply to.
- Go to Manage > Invoices > Automated invoicing.
- Use the toggles in the Automation column to turn the automation on and off for selected matters. You can also use the checkboxes to multi-select matters, then click Turn on automation or Turn off automation.
Disable automated invoicing
You can stop the automated invoicing process for your firm at any time to cancel in-progress automations or reset your invoicing flags.
- Go to Manage > Invoices > Automated invoicing.
- Click the settings (gear) icon.
- In the bottom left of the Firm invoice generation settings modal, click Disable Automated Invoicing.
Up next
- Create and Manage Expenses Entries: Add expense entries to a matter and attach receipts.
- Send and Automate Invoice Reminders: Send manual reminders or set up automated ones for outstanding balances.