Our best-loved Pre-Billing Clio Report: The Matter Balance Summary Report and Why
We use the Matter Balance Report as a pre-bill tool to accomplish two primary objectives.
First, it allows us to identify clients who have funds in trust that can be applied to an outstanding accounts receivable (AR) balance. This helps ensure clients do not receive a past-due notice when they already have sufficient trust funds available to cover their balance.
Second, it functions as a practical forecasting report. It enables us to estimate how much trust will be drawn during the billing cycle (i.e., how much will be earned from trust during that period). We then add two additional columns, supported by simple Excel formulas, to calculate:
- The amount expected to be applied during the billing cycle
- The projected remaining trust balance for each matter after those funds are applied
With a bit more Excel customization, you can also add a Responsible Attorney column. This is an important step for us when preparing the report for the firms whose billing we manage. Once that column is included, we can sort the report by Responsible Attorney and easily divide and distribute the relevant sections accordingly
Want more information on how to use this report for your billing process or other Clio reports?
Email Peggy at: peggy@cpn-legal.com to learn more!