Contents
What is a Trust Request?
Creating a Trust Request
Sorting and Filtering Trust Requests
Editing a Trust Request
Approving a Trust Request
Deleting or Voiding a Trust Request
Localizing Trust Requests
A Trust Request allows you to create a 'bill' to take in trust funds for your clients. You can create Trust Requests to collect an initial trust deposit or retainer from your clients, or to request a top up of trust funds. Trust Requests will not include any charges for services or expenses and all payments made on a Trust Request will be deposited immediately into a Clio trust account ledger.
Payments can be manually recorded on a Trust Request, or Clio Payments users can receive credit card payments directly into their trust accounts.
- For more information about recording payments, please see the Recording Payments on a Trust Request article.
- For more general information about Trust Requests, please see the Trust Requests FAQ article.
There are four ways to create a Trust Request:
- From the "Create New" button
- From the main "Bills" tab
- When viewing a Contact Card
- When viewing a Matter
To create the Trust Request, complete the fields in the "Trust Request" window as required.
- Issue Date: The issue date will default to today's date but you can change it by clicking in the field.
- Due Date: The due date will populate automatically based off of the grace period specified in the client's Payment Profile**.
- Client: Enter the client from whom you want to request funds in trust.
- Balance Type*: Select either the Matter level or client level to allocate the trust funds to. If your client does not yet have an associated Matter, then only the client option will be available. If you have chosen a Client level - there will be no #5 box to select a Matter.
- Select a Matter: Enter the Matter that the funds should be applied to. This field will only be displayed if you have selected "Matter" in the "Balance Type" field.
- Amount: Enter the amount to be requested.
- Add Note: Click the "Add note" link to add a short note that will appear on the request as a line item.
- Add another Matter: If your client has multiple Matters, you can add more than one to a request.
- Skip the Trust Request approval process: Check this box to generate the Trust Request directly into the Awaiting Payment state. If you anticipate that any edits may be required to the request, do not check this box.
To finalize the creation of the Trust Request, click the "Create Trust Request" button. Once created, the Trust Request can be found in the Draft Bill state.
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*Understanding Matter and Client Level Transactions
Allocating funds to the client level makes them available to be applied as payment on bills for any of that client's Matters. When trust funds are allocated at the client level, a transaction will be added to the client ledger which can be found on the "Transactions" sub-tab of the Contact card.
Allocating funds to the Matter level only makes those funds available to be applied as payment on bills for that specific Matter. When trust funds are allocated at the Matter level, a transaction will be added to both the client ledger and the Matter ledger - which can be found on the "Transactions" sub-tab of the Matter details screen.
For more information about managing transactions on either the client or Matter level, please see the "Managing Account Transactions" article.
**Trust Requests and Payment Profiles
Only the grace period on a Payment Profile is relevant to Trust Requests. Trust Requests do not charge interest or offer an early payment discount.
For more information about working with Payment Profiles, please see the "Payment Profiles with Interest" article.
Sorting and Filtering Trust Requests
When viewing any of the "Bills" tabs, Trust Requests can be differentiated from revenue bills by the "Trust" word on the ID column.
To view only your Trust Requests or only revenue bills, click on the "Filters" menu then click on the "Type" field.
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To export a list of all of your open Trust Requests, filter your Awaiting Payment state to show only Trust Requests then click the "Export" button.
You can edit a Trust Request while it is still in the Draft state. To do so, view the request then click "Edit" at the top-right corner.
When editing a Trust Request, you can change the ID number, add a "Subject" (which will show on the request if enabled in your Bill Themes), issue & due date, and the line item details include the amount that you are requesting. Additionally, the "Trust Requests Notes" field allows you to enter details that will appear on the request footer.
When you are finished editing the request, scroll to the bottom of the screen and click "Save trust request".
Before a payment can be received on a Trust Request, the request must be approved. To approve a request, view it and then click
For information about receiving payments on a Trust Request, please see the "Recording Payments on a Trust Request" article.
Deleting or Voiding a Trust Request
Delete
While a Trust Request is still in the Draft state, it can be deleted by clicking the "Action" button then selecting "Delete".
Void
Once a Trust Request has been approved, but before a payment has been received, the request can be voided by clicking the "Action" button then selecting "Void".
Once a payment has been received, a Trust Request can no longer be voided.
You are able to change the wording for Trust Requests to "Retainer Request," "Client Funds Request," or any name of your choosing, by modifying your Bill Theme.
To do so, go to Settings -> Billing -> Bill Themes and click on the theme that you'd like to edit. On the "Edit Bill Theme" page, select Localizations > Trust Request Information. In these fields, type in the wording as you would like it to appear on your Trust Requests.
