Legal

Fees, time, invoices and the client trust account

How the Legal module handles money: five fee models with a preview before you propose, billable time entry, the invoice that builds itself from the hours and the accepted fees and becomes immutable once finalized, and the client trust account, which never goes negative and never mixes with another client's.

Four different things, in the right order

The money on a matter goes through four stages, and confusing them is what produces wrong bills. First the fee is agreed. Then the time worked is logged. Then the invoice is issued. And, running alongside all of that, there is money that belongs to the client and is merely held by the firm, which is never confused with revenue.

Fees

On the Fees tab you propose the matter's Fee model. There are five.

Hourly: an Hourly rate, multiplied by the hours worked.
Fixed: a Fixed fee for the whole engagement.
Contingency: a percentage of the amount recovered for the client.
Retainer: an upfront engagement amount.
Hybrid: a combination of the above, for example a fixed fee plus a contingency percentage.

Pick the Fee model.
Fill in the model's fields, among Hourly rate, Fixed fee, Contingency %, Retainer and Discount %.
Use the Fee preview, entering Hours and Recovery amount, to see the Estimate before proposing. The preview is only a calculation, it saves nothing.
Enter the Currency and click Propose fee.
When the client agrees, click Accept. An accepted fee is what makes it onto the invoice.

💡 While a fee is only proposed, it goes on no invoice. Only an accepted fee is billed.

Time

On the Time tab you log the matter's hours. Enter the Minutes, mark whether the entry is Billable or Non-billable, enter the Rate when it differs from the default, and describe the Activity.

The matter summary shows Total minutes, Billable minutes and Billable amount. The gap between total and billable minutes is the number a partner is really looking for: how much of the firm's work is being delivered without charge.

An entry with no rate counts as time, but does not turn into money on the invoice. If you expect that work to be billed, the rate has to be filled in on the entry.

Invoices

Open the matter's Invoices tab.
Click Build draft. The system assembles the invoice on its own, with one line for each billable time entry that carries a rate, calculated as rate times minutes, plus the accepted fees of the fixed and retainer kinds.
Review the lines and the Total.
Add the lines that depend on human judgment, such as reimbursable expenses and the contingency fee, which only exists once the recovery amount is known.
When it is right, click Finalize and enter the Invoice number.

Finalize is a one-way door. From then on the invoice is immutable: the amounts can no longer be changed and no new line goes in. Only drafts accept changes. Check it before finalizing, because fixing it afterwards means a new invoice, not an edit.

The client trust account

Firms receive money that is not theirs: advances for court costs, settlement funds, security deposits. That money belongs to the client and is held in trust. Getting it wrong here is not an accounting problem, it is a disciplinary offense.

SellioCRM keeps that money in an account per client and per currency, with four kinds of movement: a deposit, which adds; and a disbursement, a transfer to the firm's account and a refund, which subtract. Three rules are applied before any entry.

The balance never goes negative. An entry that would put the client's account in the red is refused.
There is no commingling between clients. The balance is always per client; one client's money never covers another's outflow.
A transfer to the firm's operating account only happens against an invoice. Moving money out of trust and into revenue with no invoice to justify it is not allowed.

Beyond the per-client balance there is a reconciliation per currency, which totals the whole trust position and flags any account that has gone negative. These trust operations are performed through the integration and by whoever administers the system; they do not have a tab of their own on the matter screen.

Example: On the matter Contract termination, Nordeste Log, the firm proposes a Hybrid fee: a R$ 12,000.00 retainer plus 10 percent contingency. The client accepts. Over two months the team logs 26 billable hours at R$ 450.00 an hour and 4 non-billable hours as a courtesy. On Invoices, Build draft assembles the invoice with the time lines, totalling R$ 11,700.00, plus the R$ 12,000.00 retainer. With the settlement closing at R$ 300,000.00, the partner adds the R$ 30,000.00 contingency line and finalizes the invoice. The R$ 20,000.00 the client had deposited in trust only moves into the firm's operating account afterwards, and against that invoice.

Frequently asked questions

I built the draft and it came out empty. Most likely there is no billable time with a rate entered, and no accepted fee of the fixed or retainer kind.
The contingency fee did not show up in the draft. It depends on the recovery amount, which the system does not guess. Add it as a manual line once the outcome is known.
I finalized an invoice with a mistake in it. A finalized invoice is not editable. Handle the correction as a new document and align with the firm's finance team.
Can I log time on a matter that is not mine? Only on matters you have access to through the ethical wall.
Why does the trust account have no tab on screen? It is operated through the integration and by whoever administers the system, so entries pass through the locks before they exist.
I work in more than one currency. The trust balance is kept per client and per currency, with no totalling across different currencies.

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