In Clio Manage, you can record expense entries to track and recover costs related to matters, such as court filing fees and travel expenses. Recording each cost against its matter, with receipts attached, supports accurate client billing and firm reimbursement. Your firm can also separate expenses by hard costs from soft costs and, with the Xero integration, track the real-time payment status of these expenses.
Note: If you are using the old Clio experience, go to Activities to record expenses, and Settings > Billing instead of Manage settings > Invoicing.
Enable expense tracking for hard and soft costs
By default, Clio Manage records every expense as a standard expense, with no hard or soft cost option. If your firm separates expenses paid to third parties (hard costs) from internal costs billed to clients (soft costs), you can turn on hard and soft cost tracking. Separating the two makes clear which costs the firm paid out on a client's behalf and which costs it charges for its own resources.
Note: Turning on this setting leaves previously recorded expenses unchanged.
Important: Turning off this setting reverts hard and soft cost expenses to standard expenses. Turning it back on restores their hard or soft cost type.
- From the user menu, go to Manage settings > Invoicing > Expenses.
- Toggle on Soft and hard costs for expenses.
- Your changes will save automatically.
Tip: If your firm uses Clio Accounting, hard costs recorded in Clio Manage sync to Clio Accounting. You can review all hard costs in one table on the main Hard costs tab in Clio Accounting. Accounting is in the Manage section of the left navigation and opens in a new tab.
Enable linking hard costs to bank transactions
Linking hard costs to bank transactions records which payment from your operating account settled each hard cost, so vendor payments appear correctly in financial reports. If your firm uses the Xero integration, linking a bank transaction to an anticipated disbursement also updates its vendor bill status to Paid.
Note: Link hard costs to bank transactions is available after Soft and hard costs for expenses is on.
- From the user menu, go to Manage settings > Invoicing > Expenses.
- Toggle on Link hard costs to bank transactions.
Add new expenses
Expense entries track costs related to a matter in Clio Manage. Recording these costs and attaching receipts supports firm reimbursement and gives clients clear bill transparency. You can create expense entries from Time & expenses in the Manage section of the left navigation, or from a matter's Time & expenses tab.
- Go to Manage > Time & expenses, then select Add entry > Expense.
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Under Expense type, select Hard cost or Soft cost if your firm has split expense tracking.
- Choose Hard cost for a cost paid to a vendor on behalf of a client (i.e., court fees).
- Choose Soft cost for a cost that is not linked to a vendor payment (i.e., photocopies or postage).
Tip: To link transactions to hard costs when you record a transaction, see Record and Export Transactions.
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Optional: Under Receipt, click Attach receipt, then select a file from Clio or upload one from your computer.
- You can select up to five files for each expense entry.
- To update the fields with values from the most recently attached file, click Autofill with latest receipt.
- To remove a receipt, click X. Removing a receipt detaches it from the expense.
- To include attached receipts on client bills, select the Send receipt with bill checkbox. Receipts attached to non-billable expenses stay off the invoice.
Tip: With AI features, details from the attached file can auto-fill fields in the expense form.
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Optional: Under Expense category, select a pre-created category to pre-fill certain fields.
- To create or edit categories, click Manage categories on the Time & expenses page.
- If the matter has LEDES billing enabled, select the relevant code under UTBMS expense code.
- For the Tax field, select one of your pre-created tax rates.
Note: The rates added here are the default tax rates. You can still edit them when you generate an invoice.
- Select the conversion rate if your firm uses multiple currencies and the expense currency differs from the matter's currency.
- This step applies if your firm sets the conversion rate when the expense is recorded.
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Complete the remaining fields for this entry.
- For the date, you can select a past, current, or future date.
- Select the Non-billable checkbox for a cost the firm absorbs. To show a non-billable expense on the bill anyway, also select the Show this entry on the bill checkbox.
Tip: Tracking non-billable expenses helps the firm report on non-billable activities with the Matter productivity by user report. Showing these entries on bills demonstrates the extra value invested in a client's matter.
Important: Non-billable expenses marked Show this entry on the bill appear only on invoices generated in bulk (Manage > Invoices > New invoices). Quick invoices leave them out.
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Optional: Under Tax, select a tax rate or rates to apply to the expense.
- Keep (Default) Use tax applied to invoice to use the tax applied to the invoice.
- Create the tax rate first to make it available in the dropdown.
- When selecting multiple rates, you can apply subsequent taxes to the pre-tax or post-tax amount.
- Save the entry.
- Click Save entry to save and close the modal.
- To save the entry and start a blank form for an unrelated cost, click Save and create another.
- To save the entry and keep the fields filled for a similar cost on the same matter, click Save and duplicate.
Track vendor bill status
If your firm uses the Xero integration with the Sync to Xero as bills to pay setting enabled, you can monitor the real-time sync status of your Hard costs and Anticipated disbursements.
Tip: Tracking the Vendor bill status ensures all firm-paid expenses are accounted for before you finalize a client bill. This helps protect firm cash flow by ensuring you don't overlook unpaid liabilities.
- Go to the main Activities tab or the Activities subtab within a specific matter.
- Locate the Hard cost entry.
- View the Vendor bill status field:
- Hard costs: These entries sync to Xero as Paid bills, as they represent expenses already settled by the firm.
- Anticipated disbursements: These entries sync to Xero as Unpaid bills. The status updates to Paid once you link a bank transaction to the entry in Clio Manage.
Note: Xero does not allow edits to paid bills. Once an entry is marked as Paid, it becomes read-only in Clio Manage and cannot be edited or reverted to Unpaid.
Duplicate and edit expenses
You can duplicate an expense to start a similar entry, or edit an unbilled expense to update details such as the amount, billable status, or description. Both actions are available from Time & expenses or from the Time & expenses tab within a matter.
- Go to Manage > Time & expenses and find the expense you want to duplicate.
- In the Actions column, click Duplicate, or select Duplicate from the dropdown.
- Update the fields that differ for the new entry, such as the date or amount.
- Click Save entry.
- Go to Manage > Time & expenses and find the unbilled expense you want to edit.
- In the Actions column, click Edit, or select Edit from the dropdown.
- Update the details, such as the amount, billable status, or description.
- Click Save entry.
Delete and recover expenses
You can delete an unbilled expense from Time & expenses or from the Time & expenses tab within a matter. Administrators can recover expenses from the Recovery Bin. You can also track deleted expenses in the Recovery Bin, on a matter timeline, and on the Firm Feed tab in Today.
Important: Deleted expenses remain in the Recovery Bin for six months and can usually be restored, but Clio does not guarantee data recovery. Users can delete individual expenses, and administrators can delete multiple expenses at the same time.
- Go to Manage > Time & expenses.
- In the Actions column, click Delete, or select Delete from the dropdown.
- To delete from the table instead, select the checkbox next to the expense, then click Delete above the table header.
- When the warning prompt appears, select Delete entry.
- Go to Manage > Time & expenses, then select the Expense filter.
- Select the checkbox in the table header to select all expense entries.
- Click Delete.
- When the warning prompt appears, click Delete entries to confirm.
- From the user menu, go to Manage settings > Recovery Bin.
- Click Filter and search by Activity.
- For the relevant entry, click Recover to attempt recovery.
Up next
- Record and Export Transactions: Link bank transactions to hard costs and anticipated disbursements.
- Activity Categories: Set up expense categories that pre-fill fields on expense entries.
- Configure Tax Settings: Create the tax rates you apply to expense entries.