Invoicing for law practices
Matter billing, retainers & hard cost disbursements
Bill partner, associate, and paralegal time by matter, show the retainer applied on each invoice, and pass hard court costs through at cost.
- Industry Terminology
- Matter · Scope change · Client
- Priced for Lines
- Attorney time · Paralegal time · Flat fee
- Standard Settlement
- Net 30 days
A workspace that starts with the words, fields and terms your firm already uses.
Billing, not trust accounting
BillingMart can show a retainer amount you recorded as applied to an invoice. It does not hold or reconcile IOLTA or client trust funds. BillingMart is a billing and payment workflow platform. It does not hold or manage client trust funds and is not a substitute for legal practice management, IOLTA/trust accounting, conflict checking, or jurisdiction-specific professional responsibility requirements. It does not decide what is billable.
A sample document
How an invoice looks in the real world
An illustrative invoice with Legal line items and terms. The names, amounts and notes on it are made up; the notes are the business’s own wording, not BillingMart’s.
INV-2026-0418
Apex Innovations Corp.
Matter: Apex v. Cybersoft Intellectual Property Litigation
MAT-2026-0418 / Sep 1 – Sep 30, 2026
A field printed on the invoice
Net 30 Days (Retainer Applied)
Cadence: +7d, +21d, +45d
How it bills
The legal billing flow
From the estimate to the payment, the steps this kind of work usually follows.
Engagement & Retainer Invoice
Send an engagement estimate the client accepts in one click from their portal, then invoice the upfront retainer for the matter.
Billable Hour Tracking & Hard Cost Disbursements
Log partner, associate, and paralegal time to the minute, each entry at its own rate. Record hard costs (court filing fees, deposition transcripts) as dollar-for-dollar pass-throughs.
Monthly Matter Invoice
Rebill the period’s time and disbursements onto the matter invoice, and record the retainer applied in its own field.
Built for this trade
Purpose-Built for Law Firms, Solo Practitioners & Corporate Counsel
Matter-by-matter billing of time, disbursements, and retainers
Law firms bill by the matter: hours at different rates for partners, associates, and paralegals, hard costs passed through at cost, and a retainer applied against the bill.
BillingMart does not hold client funds. Your trust account and its accounting stay where they are; the invoice records the retainer applied in its own field, so the client sees it on the statement.
Time entries carry their own hourly rate, so partners, associates, and paralegals bill at distinct rates, alongside itemized hard cost disbursements.
What it does for this trade
- Matter #, matter name, and billing period fields on every invoice
- Partner, associate, and paralegal rates on each time entry
- Dollar-for-dollar hard cost disbursement pass-throughs (court fees, stenography)
- A retainer-applied field on the invoice; BillingMart holds no trust funds
Instant Configuration
Selecting this industry profile pre-populates all terminology, custom fields, and dunning cadences in your workspace. You retain complete control to edit or expand any setting at any time.
The preset
It already knows the words
Pick this trade when you sign up and everything below is pre-filled. Every value is fully customizable in your settings.
What things are called
- job
- Matter
- change order
- Scope change
- client
- Client
- invoice
- Invoice
- estimate
- Engagement estimate
On every invoice
- Matter #
- Matter
- Retainer applied
- Billing period
First-class structured fields rather than an unstructured notes box, printed on the invoice and its PDF.
Terms it starts with
- Payment terms
- Net 30 days
- Numbering
- INV-2026-0001
- Deposit
- 50% up front
- Reminders
- day 7, day 21, day 45 after the due date
Deposits, progress draws and retainage are part of jobs: included in the trial, then on the plans that list jobs.
Common Line Item Presets
Frequently billed items for legal work. Click-to-add on any invoice to save repetitive typing.
- + Attorney time
- + Paralegal time
- + Flat fee
- + Disbursement
Questions
Frequently asked questions about legal invoicing
What people ask before they bill this way, answered from what the product does.
Does BillingMart hold client trust funds?
No. BillingMart does not hold, move, or account for trust funds; keep IOLTA accounting in your trust account and accounting system. Invoices record the retainer applied in a dedicated field.
Can invoices show the retainer applied?
Yes. The legal model has a "Retainer applied" field printed on every matter invoice, beside the matter # and billing period.
How are hard court costs and filing fees distinguished from legal fees?
Disbursements (court filing fees, expert witnesses, deposition transcripts) bill as their own lines at cost, and each line carries its own tax treatment.
Can law firms bill by the tenth of an hour (0.1 hr)?
Time is recorded in minutes, so a 6-minute (0.1 hr) entry bills exactly, at the rate set on that entry for the attorney, associate, or paralegal.
Start billing your firm
Start on the free plan, with no credit card required to sign up. Every plan and its monthly send limit are on the pricing page.