Interest

Firms that want unpaid bills to carry a real cost for late payment can charge interest through a contract payment profile rather than a one-off bill action. In Clio Manage, you can create payment profiles that automatically calculate interest once a bill's grace period passes, at a specified rate and interval, and add it to the bill as a separate line item. The result is consistent accrual interest across every overdue bill for that contact, including bills on closed matters.

Understand interest accrual

A bill accrues its first interest charge the day after its payment profile grace period ends, at midnight PST, and continues to accrue at the interval set by the profile until the bill is paid in full or voided. Interest applies to the whole bill rather than to individual activities, and each accrual appears on the client's invoice as a line item. 

Charge interest on bills

Before billing, create a payment profile that specifies the grace period and the interest rate charged on a recurring basis after the grace period ends until the bill is paid in full. Once this payment profile is created, you can add it to the contact and generate the bill.

1. Create or edit a payment profile and set the grace period and interest amount. See Configure Payment Profiles.
2. Apply the payment profile to the contact.
3. Generate the bill. See Generate Bills in Bulk.

Add interest to an already-generated bill

A bill only picks up a payment profile's interest terms when Clio Manage generates it, so an existing bill needs to return to an unbilled state before interest applies.

1. Void the bill. See Delete and Void Bills.
2. Confirm the contact's payment profile has the grace period and interest amount you want. See Configure Payment Profiles.
3. Generate a new bill for the same activities. See Generate Bills in Bulk.

Stop interest from accruing on a bill

1. Remove any payments recorded on the bill.
2. Void the bill. See Delete and Void Bills.
3. Generate a new bill for the same activities.

Up next

Configure Payment Profiles: Set the grace period, interest amount, and discount terms that a contact's bills follow.