Required Plan: The flat fee feature used in this guide is only available in our Business plan. Click here to read more on our available plans.
Please feel free to refer to this example video on how to run billing for personal injury or contingency:
This video was provided by Brent SIbley from Sibley Law.
Index:
Billing for contingency cases
1) Create your contact and matter.
2) Since you are doing a personal injury case, the matter rate would be contingency. You can put the percentage amount in the "Contingency Rate" field.
3) Enter expenses you cover for your client that you will be reimbursed for as "Hard Cost" expenses.
4) Add a settlement payment into trust (full payment-winnings).
5) Create a flat fee with the item name "Legal Fees" for the amount the attorney earned (based on contingency percentage).
6) Generate an invoice for the billable amount of attorney winnings and other expenses.
7) Make sure "Use Trust Account Balance To Pay This Invoice" is set to "Yes" and save the invoice.
8) Add payments using "Take Money Out" for any expenses that are being paid for directly using the settlement funds.
9) Using "Take Money Out", reward the remaining funds to your client.
Settlement funds ledger on invoices
1) Navigate to "Invoice Options".
2) Edit an existing template or create a new template.
3) Scroll down and click "Show More Options".
4) Scroll down until you see "Account Balance". Edit "Trust Account Balance Text" to something that indicates settlement funds. In this example, it will be named "Settlement Disbursement".
5) Set "Show Trust Account Balance" and "Show Trust Account Balance Ledger" to "Yes".
6) Scroll down and click "Save".
Note: For more information on using invoice templates, click here.
What happens now?
When generating your contingency invoices, make sure to use your edited invoice template. Your client will see a complete breakdown of the cases winnings, their paid medical expenses, as well as their personal winnings on the bottom of their invoice.
Want to see how Brent Sibley uses PracticePanther for his task and event workflows? Click here to watch the video!
Enjoy!