Asking for the replenishment before the retainer runs to zero
A fee agreement sets a floor, the balance drops under it while the matter is busy, and nobody notices until a bill is issued against a trust account that cannot cover it. Clio and MyCase can both hold a threshold per matter. Mechanical here is the daily sweep of ledgers against the floor each agreement names, plus the drafted request and the payment link. Applying funds is separate: nothing leaves trust without an earned fee event and an authorisation, and card processing fees belong in the operating account rather than against client money.
The same client name is typed into the conflicts database, the practice management system, the document management system and the ledger, and a conflict is only found later if two people spelled it the same way.
A firm organises everything by matter, and the matter record is created by hand from an intake form. That single re-keying step seeds four systems, and because there is no shared identifier between them, every later reconciliation is a name match against human typing.
- Clio
- Outlook
- QuickBooks Online
When this is the wrong thing to build
Pick something else if the practice is contingency work, where there is no replenishment to ask for and the trust activity is a settlement passing through once. The value here scales with how many matters carry a running balance, and a handful does not justify the plumbing.
The constraint that shapes it
The conduct rules decide what may be automated here, and they are adopted state by state rather than nationally, so specifics have to be checked against your own jurisdiction. More on how this sector works.
A list of things that are missing, worked until it is empty. Read what this shape is, or start from one of these.
- Chasing a compliance file to complete
- Chasing a referral fee through to a closing you cannot see
- Chasing the warranty credit the distributor has not issued
- Clearing the HERS verification that holds a permit final
- Working an aging replacement proposal before it goes stale
- Turning uncategorised transactions into one question list
- How do I know when a client trust balance falls below the minimum?
- Can Clio send a replenishment request automatically when trust runs low?
- Is a trust replenishment request an invoice or a funds request?
- Where should credit card fees on a retainer deposit be charged?
- How do family law firms keep evergreen retainers topped up?
Back to law firms, or see how this is priced and scoped.