What Types Of Billing Arrangements Are Supported?

What Types Of Billing Arrangements Are Supported?

Introduction

Matters.Cloud supports a variety of billing arrangements, ranging from traditional hourly rates to more flexible options like fixed fees and capped arrangements. This flexibility allows firms to automate and streamline the billing process, ensuring accurate and predictable invoices based on each matter’s specific requirements.

Supported Billing Arrangements

Below is an overview of the supported billing arrangements in Matters.Cloud:

Hourly

An hourly arrangement simply incurs unbilled fees/work in progress at the applicable hourly rate.

Capped fee

A capped fee arrangement utilises hourly rates up to an agreed maximum amount for a particular matter. For example if a firm has Unbilled fees of 4,800, with the Billing value set at 4,000, only the 4,000 will be charged. The Capped fee arrangement will also take into account interim bills raised on the matter previously. So the calculation to determine if the cap is applicable is Invoiced fees + Unbilled fees > Billing value.

Capped fee - recurring

A capped fee arrangement utilises hourly rates up to an agreed maximum amount for a particular matter within a given time period (eg Monthly). For example if a firm has un-billed fees of 4,800, with the Billing value set at 4,000, only the 4,000 will be charged. The capped fee arrangement will not take into bills raised on the matter previously. So the calculation to determine if the caUn-billed fees > Billing value.

Capped fee - recurring with contingent reserve

A capped fee with a contingent reserve uses the same calculation as the Capped fee (recurring) arrangement, the difference is that a contingent value is 'reserved' and is available to be invoiced once a successful outcome is reached for the matter.

Capped rate - recurring with contingent reserve

A capped rate with contingent reserve uses the same approach as a capped fee arrangement, the difference is that it automatically caps the values per time line to a specified rate and the remainder is held in reserve to be invoiced once a successful outcome is reached for the matter.

Fixed fee

A fixed fee arrangement will charge a set amount regardless of the time spent on a particular matter. For example if a firm has unbilled fees of 2,400, with the Billing value set at 4,000, the 4,000 will be charged. The fixed fee arrangement takes into account interim bills raised on the matter previously.

Fixed fee - recurring

A fixed fee - recurring arrangement works in the same way as the fixed fee, however it does not take into account interim bills issued on the matter previously.

Minimum fee - recurring

A minumum fee - recurring arrangement will charge a set amount where the amount of time is below a minimum threshold. For example if a firm has unbilled fees of 400, with the Billing value set at 1,000, the 1,000 will be charged. Alternatively, if the firm has unbilled fees of 400, with the billing value set at 1,000, the 1,400 will be charged.

Non-billable

An non-billable arrangement will automatically set the applicable applicable hourly rate to 0 for all time records.

Internal

An internal arrangement is used for tracking internal projects and/or non-billable internal work.

Assigning A Billing Arrangement

When creating a new matter, users have the flexibility to easily select a preferred billing arrangement from the available options.

This allows them to tailor the financial structure of each matter to fit client expectations and case requirements, ensuring that billing is accurate and aligned with the agreed terms right from the start. By choosing the appropriate arrangement during setup, users can streamline the invoicing process and maintain consistency across their matters.

The following displays where this value is set when creating or editing a matter:





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