LawPay Pro allows you to deposit funds such as retainers into a Client's Trust Account and then later apply those funds to an invoice of your designation. You might send a Trust request to the client at the beginning of the case before you start working on it. Or, you may wish to replenish Trust funds if you’ve been working on the case and recently billed the client for completed work. Payments are automatically reconciled to the client’s Trust account for the case.
Request a Trust Payment
- Select the Trust Request button on the dashboard.
- Select a Contact from the drop down.
- Add an Amount.
- Select a Due Date if different than the default date.
- Select the account the payment is Deposited Into.
- Allocate Funds to a Case.
Tip: You can earmark trust funds by Case. This allows you to separate each Case's trust balance and prevent improperly applying trust funds. If you don’t allocate funds now, you can always do it after the deposit is made from the Contact Details page.
Note: Select a Client Name to keep trust funds on the Client level (unallocated option).
- Keep the default message or add a new Email Message.
- Click Send.
Once the request is sent, the client receives an email requesting payment through a Deposit Funds button. Once the client clicks the button, they are taken to a payment page. Once they complete the payment, they will get an emailed receipt.
Once the payment is made, you will see it marked as Paid on the Billing page in the Trust Requests tab. This allows you to see the status of each Trust Request. If you see that there are Overdue or Unpaid Trust Requests, you can send a reminder for payment by selecting the three dots next to the status of the contract and selecting Send Reminder.
You can then manage requests by going to the Contacts Billing Tab and selecting the Trust Request page.
How to Reallocate Funds
If you have a Trust Request that you didn’t allocate to a case when sending, you can do that on the Contact Details page in the Contacts tab. This is an important step to ensure that your records are accurate when you reconcile trust accounts for clients with multiple cases.
Once in the Contact Record, select the Billing tab and then the Trust Allocation tab.
You see a list of all trust deposits for the client and allocate the funds to one of the client’s cases. Click the pencil icon for the case to which the trust deposit should be allocated to. This will reduce the amount of unallocated funds in the client's trust account by the same amount.
Depositing Trust Funds
You can also process a payment into a client's trust account on their behalf. You can do that directly from the Contact Details page here or go to the Dashboard and select Collect a Payment.
Select the Contact for whom you wish to make a trust deposit. If there is an outstanding Trust Request for this client, you can select that here so that this payment is automatically reconciled to the right invoice and case.
If there is no outstanding Trust Request, then select the Trust Account and select the case in which you wish to Allocate Funds. You can choose to deposit the funds into the client’s unallocated Trust Account if you wish. This means that it would not be associated with one of the client’s cases.
If this client has processed payment in the past, you can see that the client's credit card is stored in the system. Just select the payment type, amount and notes, then Deposit Funds.
You can also enter a different card or choose an offline payment. We understand that sometimes clients send in checks or pay offline. A big benefit is that you can accurately record the client’s trust account within LawPay, even if they didn’t pay electronically.
Select the Confirm Deposit button. Once that is done, you will see the Deposit Confirmation.
Now these funds are waiting to be applied to an invoice once you have completed billable work for the client. If you wish to send the client a receipt, go to the client’s Contact Details page, and select Billing and Trust History. Export the list as a PDF from here and email it to the client.