Matter lifecycle and status tracking
A single matter record spanning instruction, active work, billing and closure, with status visible to fee earners, supervising partners and, where a client portal is in scope, the client themselves.
Professional services
Matter management software
The matter — or the engagement, in accountancy terms — is the unit everything else in a professional services firm hangs off: time, cost, correspondence, billing, and the regulatory record that has to survive a file review years later. Clio, LEAP, Actionstep, Practice Evolve, Xero, Sage, IRIS and CCH all model this reasonably well for their core purpose, but firms running multiple practice groups, a legacy system inherited from a merger, or a bespoke workflow their software was never built to express, end up patching the gap with spreadsheets that nobody fully trusts by month end.
We build matter management systems, and matter management modules that sit alongside existing practice management software, covering the full lifecycle from instruction and conflict check through time recording, work in progress (WIP) and disbursement tracking, client account reconciliation under the SRA Accounts Rules, to billing and archive. The separation of client account and office account is treated as a structural property of the data model, not a configuration choice, because that separation is what the regulator actually inspects.
The workflow this replaces
The matter lifecycle a firm runs by hand today
Before a matter management system is built around it, a typical matter at a mid-sized firm moves through this sequence, much of it reconstructed manually from separate systems and files.
Step 01
A new instruction arrives and a conflict check is run
A fee earner or the risk team searches the practice management system, and any second system left over from a merger or acquisition, for the new client's name, related parties and any counterparties named in the instruction, looking for a match that would prevent the firm acting.
Step 02
AML and source-of-funds checks are completed and filed
Identity verification and, for higher-risk matters, source-of-funds evidence are gathered and recorded, often in a separate compliance tool or a scanned document saved to the matter file, disconnected from the matter record a fee earner will actually be working from day to day.
Step 03
The matter is opened and time recording begins
A matter number is created in Clio, LEAP or the firm's chosen system, budget and fee arrangement are set, and fee earners begin logging time against it, typically by manual timer entry or end-of-day reconstruction from memory and calendar entries.
Step 04
WIP and disbursements accumulate through the matter
Time recorded and disbursements incurred — court fees, counsel's fees, search fees, courier costs — build up against the matter as work in progress, visible to the fee earner in the practice management system but rarely surfaced as a running total the client or a supervising partner checks in real time.
Step 05
Client account transactions are kept strictly separate
Any money received on account, or held for a client purpose such as a property completion, is recorded in the client account ledger, distinct from the firm's office account, with every transaction reconciled against the client account bank statement — a process the SRA expects to be current, not caught up retrospectively.
Step 06
Billing is prepared and WIP is written down or billed
At an agreed billing point, WIP is reviewed, written down where appropriate, and converted into an invoice, drawing down client account funds where the client has money on account, with the transfer from client to office account recorded as a discrete, auditable entry.
Step 07
The matter closes and moves into the retention schedule
On completion, the file is closed, outstanding disbursements and balances are reconciled to zero or refunded, and the file enters the firm's retention schedule for eventual destruction, a step that in practice often gets missed because nothing prompts it.
Each step above is a normal part of professional practice; the friction is that the systems recording each step rarely talk to each other, so a supervising partner checking a matter's status has to open three systems and a scanned document folder to answer a question the matter management system should answer directly.
What we build
Modules in a typical matter management build
Time recording with pre-population
Time entry pre-populated from calendar events, call activity or document edits where the source system exposes it, presented to the fee earner for confirmation rather than requiring entry from a blank timer.
WIP and disbursement tracking
Running work in progress and disbursement totals per matter, visible in real time rather than reconstructed at the billing run, with alerts where a matter's WIP crosses an agreed budget threshold.
Client account reconciliation
Client account ledgers held structurally separate from office account ledgers, reconciled against bank statements, with every client-to-office transfer recorded as an explicit, auditable entry aligned with the SRA Accounts Rules.
Conflict checking across the client base
A structured search across client names, matter parties, related parties and former clients, including known name variants, returning candidate matches for a risk team member to assess before a new instruction is accepted.
AML and onboarding record
Identity verification and source-of-funds evidence captured against the matter at onboarding, with risk scoring and refresh triggers where risk indicators change during the matter's life, retrievable at file review without opening a separate system.
Billing and write-down workflow
WIP review, write-down and invoice generation, with client account drawdown handled as a distinct step from office account billing, and a full history of what was billed against what was recorded.
Retention and closure automation
Automatic flagging of matters approaching their retention expiry per the firm's schedule, with a defined secure destruction workflow rather than relying on someone remembering to check.
Integrations
Named systems and interfaces
Legal practice management
ClioLEAPActionstepPractice Evolve
Accountancy practice management
XeroSageIRISCCH
Statutory and government data
Companies House APIHMRC Making Tax Digital APIs
Identity and signature
identity verification providersDocuSignAdobe Sign
Where a firm's existing practice management system already handles time recording and billing well, we build the matter management layer to read and write against it via API, rather than duplicating functionality that already works.
Data and compliance
Requirements written into the build
- Client account separation
- Client account and office account held as structurally distinct ledgers in the data model, reconciled independently against bank statements per the SRA Accounts Rules.
- AML and source-of-funds record
- Identity verification outcome, risk score and, where applicable, source-of-funds evidence recorded against the matter at onboarding and refreshed on defined risk triggers.
- Conflict check log
- Every conflict check run, its search parameters and its outcome recorded against the matter, retrievable if the check is later questioned.
- WIP write-down history
- Any write-down applied to work in progress recorded with the reason and the approving partner, distinct from the original time recorded.
- Retention schedule
- Matter type mapped to a retention period per firm policy, with automatic flagging ahead of expiry and a logged destruction event.
- Companies House and HMRC data
- Company officer and filing data drawn from the Companies House API, and submission status for VAT and Income Tax obligations drawn from HMRC's Making Tax Digital APIs, both linked to the relevant matter or engagement.
Architecture note
How the system is put together
The matter is the primary entity in the data model, with time entries, disbursements, client account transactions and documents all attaching to it as child records, so a matter's full financial and activity history is always a single query rather than a join across systems.
Client account and office account are modelled as separate ledger types from the outset, with the transfer between them implemented as its own transaction type rather than a status flag on a single ledger entry, which is what makes the SRA Accounts Rules separation structurally enforced rather than procedurally hoped for.
Where the system integrates with an existing practice management system rather than replacing it, synchronisation runs through that system's API on a defined interval or webhook trigger, with conflict resolution rules defined for the rare case both systems are edited before a sync completes.
Conflict checking runs against an indexed store of client, matter and party names built from one or more source systems, kept current by the same synchronisation layer that feeds the rest of the platform, so a firm with two practice management systems after a merger still gets a single conflict check.
Timeline
Build phases in weeks
Discovery
Weeks 1-3
Mapping of current practice management system usage, billing model, conflict checking process and AML workflow, and a phased build plan.
Data model and integration design
Weeks 4-6
Matter data model, client account ledger design, and API integration plan against Clio, LEAP, Xero or the firm's existing systems.
Matter lifecycle and time recording
Weeks 7-11
Matter creation, status tracking, time recording with pre-population, and WIP and disbursement tracking.
Client account and conflict modules
Weeks 12-16
Client account reconciliation, conflict checking index and search, and AML onboarding record.
Billing and retention
Weeks 17-19
Billing and write-down workflow, retention schedule automation, and reporting for supervising partners.
Migration and parallel run
Weeks 20-23
Data migration from the legacy system, ledger reconciliation sign-off, and parallel running before cutover.
Go-live and stabilisation
Weeks 24-26
Cutover, monitoring of reconciliation accuracy, and a defined period of prioritised fixes before the retainer phase begins.
Indicative cost
Budget bands, not quotes
- Discovery and scoping
- £15,000 to £30,000, credited against the build.
- Matter management module integrated with an existing system
- £250,000 to £400,000.
- Full matter management platform, standalone or replacing an existing system
- £450,000 to £750,000.
- Data migration from a legacy practice management system
- £30,000 to £100,000 depending on data quality and ledger history.
- Managed run
- Monthly retainer against an agreed service level, priced after go-live scope is confirmed.
Bands assume a UK-based firm with an established practice management system and a defined billing model. A firm consolidating two systems after a merger typically sits at the upper end.
Where this sits
Related pages
Questions
Frequently asked
Do you build a full replacement for Clio, LEAP, Actionstep or Practice Evolve?
Sometimes, where the existing system is genuinely the constraint — usually because a firm has outgrown its billing model, needs a data structure the incumbent system cannot express, or is consolidating two practice management systems after a merger. More often we build the specific module missing from the existing system, such as real-time WIP visibility or conflict checking, and integrate it via API rather than replacing a system that otherwise works.
How does the system keep client account and office account genuinely separate?
The data model treats client account transactions and office account transactions as distinct entities from the outset, each with its own ledger and its own reconciliation against bank statements, and no feature allows a single transaction to write to both without the explicit transfer entry the SRA Accounts Rules require. This is enforced structurally rather than through a permissions setting a user could bypass.
How is conflict checking actually run — is it a keyword search?
It starts as a structured search across client names, matter parties, related parties and former clients held in the matter database, including name variants and known aliases where the firm records them, and returns candidate matches for a fee earner or risk team member to assess rather than an automatic block. Where a firm has more than one practice management system, we index both so a conflict check is not limited to whichever system the new matter happens to sit in.
Can time recording feed directly from a fee earner's calendar or document activity?
Yes, where the underlying system exposes it. Time entries can be pre-populated from calendar events, call logs or document edit activity and presented to the fee earner for confirmation rather than requiring entry from a blank timer, which measurably improves capture rates without removing the fee earner's final say over what is billed.
What happens to WIP and disbursement data during a migration from an existing system?
Open matters are migrated with their full WIP and disbursement history intact, matched against the source system's ledger totals before cutover so nothing is lost or duplicated, and a reconciliation report is produced comparing pre- and post-migration balances per matter. We do not consider a migration complete until that reconciliation is signed off.
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