Hello Derek Bradford . 

Your question leaves me with more questions, but I am going to try and provide an answer based on some assumptions below. If any of the assumptions are incorrect, then answer will differ.

Derek Bradford said:

All retainer funds go into the client fund account when received. Those funds are then entered into timeslips as well.

I am assuming that you enter them into Timeslips as a Payment to Account into Client Funds, and not as an A/R payment.

Derek Bradford said:

At the end of each month I review all of the bills to see how much billing has occurred against all funds held on account for each client (sometimes the funds on account satisfy the whole invoice, sometimes they do not).

This is a big one. HOW are you using the $$$ to pay the bill? Are you issuing a Payment from Account to take the $$$ from Client Funds and apply it to the new invoice? I will assume that you are.

Derek Bradford said:

I then total the amount up form reviewing the bills and transfer that money from the client funds account to the operating account as fees earned during representation.

Yes, usually called the Monthly Draw from the Trust account to the Operating Account. Can be a lump sum transfer, but you need to know who it all belongs to.

You 'can' do this by hand calculation, but yes, why? Timeslips should be able to help you with that.

The report you want to run is a Funds Transaction Listing (found under the Reports menu at the very top, then Funds Transactions, then Funds Transaction Listing).

Now, if you run that straight out of the box, it is going to show you every transaction you have in your database since you started using it, and that is TOO MUCH information. So you will want to modify the report to have at least two filters. One for date range (typically this month), and one for Transaction Type - only Payments from Account. This should tell you how much you can draw from Trust and transfer to Operating and should list each client's amount and the total.

If you would like, you can create a copy of the plain Funds Transaction Listing with those two filters saved in it, and rename it the Monthly Draw report for future use so that you don't have to keep tweaking it every month. If you would like assistance doing this in your database, I can be engaged for a quick remote desktop session to make that happen.  (Yep, that's how I make my living.)

Thanks so much for trusting your instincts that there must be a better way and finding this online community to ask. Hope my response helps.

Nancy Duhon, Esq.
Duhon Technology Solutions, LLC
Master Certified Consultant for Sage Timeslips
LawPay Partnered Consultant
Providing individual Consultations and Third Party Remote Desktop Support - including older/unsupported versions.
404-325-9779
[email protected]

Hello Derek Bradford ,

There is a Funds Transaction Listing report that you can run by Funds Transaction Date. If you are making automatic payments from funds, you will be able to run that report as of the Invoice Date to view all Funds Transactions for that date and the clients associated with them.