From your hours to a paid invoice.

An attorney needs invoicing software that starts where their work is recorded: the time entry. The software should capture hours without losing them, price them under the matter's fee arrangement, let the attorney review and adjust the bill before it goes out, and show whether the client has opened and paid it. It should also handle the awkward cases, such as a bill shared between two payers or a correction after an invoice has been issued.

The fee arrangement matters as much as the time. Hourly matters, flat fees, contingency matters and retainers each produce a different invoice, and a lawyer's billing software has to know which one applies before it builds the bill.

In LawAOS, each matter carries its fee arrangement, timers run on the server so hours survive a closed laptop, and invoices are built from approved time with a pre-bill review step before they are finalized and sent.

LawAOS lets each matter carry one of seven fee arrangements, and the invoice follows it. The choice is set on the matter, so an attorney working across several matters does not have to remember how each one is billed.

Hourly

Time is priced at the matter rate, or else the timekeeper's hourly rate, or else a rate entered by hand.

Flat fee and fixed retainer

The agreed amount is billed regardless of hours, and time can still be recorded against the matter.

Contingency

The fee is a percentage of the recovery, recorded on the matter.

Evergreen retainer

The matter shows the client's trust balance and the top-up amount that is due.

Hybrid and pro bono

Hybrid combines a base fee with hourly billing; pro bono matters are marked as such.

Split billing

When an insurer and a client, or two co-defendants, share a bill, the invoice can name several payers with allocation percentages.

Credit notes

If an issued invoice is wrong, you void it or raise a numbered credit note. The original stays on the record and the credit posts to the ledger.

Write-downs

In pre-bill review you can reduce time before it is billed. The write-down is recorded and appears in realization figures, so the reduction is visible later.

Milestones

Fee milestones on a matter let you bill at agreed points in the work rather than only at month end.

A sole attorney is usually the timekeeper, the approver and the biller at once, so the approval step is a quick check. Inside a firm the same flow has more hands: associates submit time, a partner approves or rejects it, and a billing coordinator builds and sends the invoice. LawAOS uses the same statuses in both cases (Draft, Submitted, Approved, Rejected, Billed, Void for time), so the flow scales from one person to a team without changing tools.