Retainer to be applied to multiple matters

Situation:  Client has multiple matters with the firm.  Client sends a deposit/retainer to be held in trust account until first invoice for any client matter (i.e. it is not earmarked for any particular matter).  We enter it as a "pay to funds" under the client's general consultations matter number.  We then send an invoice for another matter and need to apply the retainer to that matter.  Both the general consultations invoices use the same fund account for retainers. 

We have not been able to figure out how to apply the retainer to the matter being invoiced without deleting the pay to funds transaction to the general consultations matter and re-entering it under the matter being invoiced.

Is there any way to enter the pay to funds transaction so that it can be applied to any matter for that client?

Damon Neagle

Design IP

Allentown, PA

 

There is no way to pay the bill of matter A from the funds account of matter B without what you are doing now (moving the money from the funds trust account of matter A t the funds account of matter B).

However, new in v. 8 is the addition of a fund-to-fund transaction, so at least you can enter one transaction instead of two.

 

I know your post is from a few months ago, but I just now began using this site.

We have the same situation (ClientA has several Matters and ClientA's retainer is to be used for any/all of his Matters).  So far, thankfully, there are not many of these so I keep a list and watch for them when we do our monthly invoices.  At that time, if a Matter other than the one the retainer is associated with has charges, I undo the invoices, enter a Withdrawal from the Matter the retainer is associated with and a Payment to the Matter(s) with amounts due then reprint their invoices.  Another way to do this is to divide up the retainer funds between the Matters, assigning a specified amount to each Matter.

I understand, though, that this is more easily handled in Ver8 which we will be upgrading to soon.

RobinCB

Original poster here.  We have upgraded to Version 9.  Aside from fund-to-fund transaction, is there any way to have a single trust deposit automatically applied to invoices for multiple matters?

Damon Neagle

Design IP, Allentown, PA

There is not. What I suggest to my clients is this; enter trust balance on one 'main' matter for the client. Using the BillFlow, determine how much will be billed to the various matters for that client. Do Fund to Fund trust transfer from the 'main' matter, allocating the appropriate amount to each matter. As the billing goes forward, those amounts will then be applied. The remaining trust balance, if any, will remain in the 'main' matter. If you choose to print bills for matters with 'fund activity', the 'main' matter will display the trust transactions.