Pre-billing is the process of reviewing, organizing, and preparing charges before generating a final invoice for a client. CARET Legal supports several pre-billing workflows depending on the type of fees and costs involved. Use the sections below to find the workflow that matches your billing needs.
Overview
Before creating an invoice, it is important to understand what type of charges you will be billing for. CARET Legal supports the following pre-bill workflows:
- Time-Based Billing - for matters billed by the hour using tracked time entries
- Flat Fee Billing - for matters billed at a fixed rate regardless of time spent
- Expense / Soft Cost Billing - for out-of-pocket costs and disbursements to be passed on to the client
- Pre-Bill Review - for reviewing and editing unbilled time and costs before generating an invoice
1. Time-Based Billing
Time-based billing allows you to generate invoices from time entries logged against a matter. Before billing, ensure all time entries have been recorded and reviewed.
- Navigate to the Accounting section and review open time entries for the matter.
- Confirm all time entries are attributed to the correct matter, timekeeper, and billing rate.
- Proceed to generate the invoice from unbilled time entries.
Video Guide: How to review and bill time entries?
Related KB Article: How do I log time entries?
2. Flat Fee Billing
Flat fee billing is used when a matter is billed at a fixed amount rather than by the hour. This workflow uses a New Invoice from Scratch (blank invoice) to manually enter the service line item.
- Navigate to Accounting, then click + in the tab bar and select New Invoice from Scratch - or use the Quick Add menu from the top navigation bar and select New Invoice from Scratch under Billing and Accounting.
- Enter or select the Matter from the drop-down list in the Invoice modal, then click Start Invoice.
- The Matter, Issue Date, and Due Date fields will be auto-populated. Edit as needed.
- Click + to add a Line Item. In the Type field, select Service or Time and configure the flat fee amount.
- Click Save & Close to return to the Invoice screen, or Save & New to add additional line items.
- When all line items are added, click Create to save the invoice.
Video Guide: How to create a flat fee invoice?
Related KB Article: How do I bill Flat Fees?
3. Expense / Soft Cost Billing
Soft costs are expenses incurred on behalf of a client (e.g., filing fees, postage, copying costs) that are passed through to the client on an invoice. These are added as line items on a blank invoice or alongside time entries.
- Create a New Invoice from Scratch or open an existing pre-bill.
- Click + to add a Line Item and select SoftCost from the Type drop-down.
- Enter the description, quantity, and cost amount.
- Click Save & Close or Save & New to continue adding items.
- Click Create to finalize the invoice.
Video Guide: Billable Activities Overview (Time & Expenses)
Related KB Article: How do I add expenses to a matter?
4. Pre-Bill Review
Before finalizing any invoice, CARET Legal allows you to review unbilled charges - including time entries and costs - to make edits, write off amounts, or adjust billing rates.
- Navigate to the Pre-Bill or Billing section to view all matters with unbilled activity.
- Select the matter you wish to review.
- Edit, write off, or approve individual line items as needed.
- Once satisfied, generate the final invoice.
Video Guide: Creating and Managing Pre-Bills in CARET Legal
Related KB Article: How do I approve Draft Invoices?