Invoice Automation
With Lawmatics automations you can easily automate the delivery of your flat fee invoices through our time & billing feature. Automating this step enables you to accelerate your billing process so that you can get paid faster and free up time to focus on other priorities needing your attention.
To begin automating your flat fee invoices, simply navigate to the automations page found under the marketing tab, and then create a new automation or edit an existing.
If you are a time & billing user for your firm's Lawmatics account, you will have access to the Create Invoice automation action. This action will generate an invoice for any matter triggering into the automation, with the appropriate balance and payment terms.
Before setting up an invoice automation, you will first want to navigate to your firm's settings page and set up your invoice types. Click the settings gear icon near the top right of your page, and then select Invoices from the left sidebar menu.
Here you have the opportunity to create custom invoice types and give them a default value, if desired. This is an important step for automating invoices because it allows you to label the type of invoice that is sent automatically, giving you the ability to trigger an automation when that type of invoice is paid.
After creating your invoice types, return to the automations page and select the Create Invoice action item in your automation.
Once you select the Create Invoice action item you will also need to set up the automation step using the menu that appears on the right side of your screen. Let's walk through setting up your automated invoice.
- Select who should be billed. You will have the option to select the Automation Target, which is the main person associated with the matter itself, or you can select from any relationships.
- Select what date should be listed on the invoice. You will typically want to choose the option "Date Automation Action Fires", since this will date the invoice with the current date that it is being created on. You also have the option to select a manual date or match the date of a custom field value.
- Select the payment terms for this invoice to determine when it will be due. If selecting custom due date, you will then have the option to select how many days out from the creation of the invoice it should be due.
- Choose whether the funds from this invoice should allocate to your operating or trust account.
- Select from your invoice types created on the Invoices page in settings. This is key if you wish to trigger a different automation once this type of invoice is paid.
- Option to include a default note with your automated invoices.
Scroll down on the right side menu to continue making selections, explained below.
- Select from your firm's Lawmatics users to associate a staff person with this invoice.
- Select what type of activity this invoice is for. Remember, you can set up your custom activity types in settings > Time Tracking / Expenses.
- Option to include a description of this activity.
- If the activity type selected has a default amount, then this field will automatically show that default. You can also override the default by simply typing the appropriate flat fee amount for this invoice template.
- Select this option to add an informational section listing other invoices that have been sent (does not affect the total due on this invoice).
- Include adjustments to this invoice template such as tax, discount, etc.
- With this option selected the invoice will automatically be drafted and sent to the recipient. If you wish to only draft the invoice automatically and then review an send manually, leave this option turned off.
- Set a delivery window for the sending of this automatic invoice.