Contingency Billing Report / Settlement Report Follow

*This guide only applies to the Law Ruler Version of Legal CRM 

Contingency Billing Report / Contingency Settlement Report

⏱️ Looking to track contingency settlement billing at your firm? The Legal CRM Contingency Billing Report (aka Settlement ReÏport or Contingency Settlement Report) allows your firm to view any contingency settlements entered in the system and apply filters to it.  You may also export and schedule this report for automated delivery to your email inbox. 

💡 The process of disbursing settlements can differ significantly between companies, so this report is intended to serve as a sample settlement inventory and should not be treated as an official settlement ledger report. As many firms make settlement payments through third-party accounting or other software outside of Legal CRM, the results presented in this report may depict approved or planned settlements but may not always align with the actual disbursement of settlements recorded in the accounting ledger.

If you are looking to export or backup your contingency settlements, then you may also use the report for that purpose.

To access the report, click on the Reports menu in the left menu, then click on Contingency Billing Report 

⚠️ NOTE: This report does require administrative or reports access, so if you do not have that level of access and need it, then contact your firm administrator or IToh 

Contingency Billing Report - Options and Filters

After you are in the Contingency Billing Report, you have several options to choose from to get the information that you need on your report. 

Click the "Run Report" button to run the instant report based on your filters/options selected.  If you would like to change the results, then press the "Cancel" button and it will allow you to change the filters/options and run the report again. Rinse and repeat as needed.

• Report Period - this dropdown filter will allow you to select a predefined date range or select "Custom" to enter a custom value for "Start Date" and "End Date"  This will display all settlements per the report filters and the selected date range in the reporting period.
• Defendants - this will allow you to specify defendants based on which contact was included in any linked settlement deposits on the included settlements. In contingency settlements, the defendant is defined as the contact that is added as the "Paid By" contact for any included deposits in any of the settlements included in the report, based on selected filters. Default = All.
• Case Types - select from 1 or more practice areas to filter the report by case type. Default = All.
• Specific Cases - search for 1 or more cases to filter the report by specific cases. Default = All.
• Specific Clients - search for 1 or more clients to filter the report by. Default = All.  

About the Contingency Settlement Report

The report results for the Contingency Settlement Report will look similar to this screenshot
(you may need to zoom in your web browser to see the individual columns):

The Contingency Settlement Report contains all of these metrics and sort filters in each column to allow sorting A to Z (Ascending) or Z to A (Descending) by pressing the arrow icons:

• Date - the settlement date when the settlement was first created in the system.
• Payee - the contact that has settlement funds allocated to be paid to them.  This is determined by the Settlement Distribution screen within the case in the system. Scroll down in case details screen for any contingency case in the system to add, edit or remove settlement payees.  Once a settlement has been approved and finalized, the payees may not be edited any further. This is a clickable link if you want to download a copy of the closing statement. 
• Defendant - the contact or contacts that paid money to the client in the settlement.
• Total Recovery - the total amount recovered in the settlement that is being disbursed in this settlement, less deductions.  If there were partial settlements with money held in trust or payment requests to pay other expenses from the settlement recovery then this amount will be less those deductions.
• Total Attorney Fees - the total amount of attorney fees paid in the settlement.
• Total Expenses - the total amount of expenses that are included in the settlement.  Also, if your firm charged interest or tax on a settlement expense then it is included in the total.
• Total Deductions - the total amount that was deducted from the settlement recovery for the firm and third-party expenses.  This does not include the client settlement payment amount.
• Excluded Expenses - the total amount of expenses in the case that was excluded from the settlement.
• Net Client Amount - the net settlement amount due to the client for each payee.
• Total Disbursement - the total amount of settlement deductions that are being disbursed to all parties.  Any funds held in trust will not be included in this total.
• Held in Trust - the total amount held back in trust in the settlement.  This is done sometimes in partial settlements or if you are still negotiating with certain third-party vendors, but the client needs to be paid in an expedited fashion while negotiations are still ongoing.

Also, if there is more than one payee on a settlement, then the totals row at the bottom will show the total for all payees in the settlement.  Otherwise, it will match the payee row, if only one payee.

Exporting the Contingency Billing Report

Need to export a report? Legal CRM's Contingency Billing Report includes an Export button that will use your on-screen/current report filters and export the results onto your device.  To run an exported report, click the "Export/Schedule Report" button after first running the report.

Automated Delivery of the Contingency Billing Report

Need a weekly or monthly report sent to you?  Legal CRM has you covered.  There is no need to run the report daily, weekly, or monthly if you want to get it delivered to your email inbox automatically each day, week, or month.  

💡 Scheduled reports always have an exported Excel version of the report attached to the email delivery.

To begin creating a scheduled report, select your report options/filters, and then click "Export/Schedule Report" to preview the results. Then, click "Schedule Report" and select daily, weekly, or monthly as shown below.

Scheduled Report Options:

• Schedule Name - name this report, for example, Monthly Trust Report, or Weekly Billing Activity Report, or any name of your choosing.  This name will appear in the email subject line of the report delivery.
• Schedule Frequency - choose from daily, weekly, monthly, or biweekly.
• Recipients - select from any active users in your system for report delivery.  If you need to add a recipient that is not a user, then type their email address in, and then press the comma or enter key.

Support/Assistance

If you need further assistance, then please contact Legal CRM Support to assist you further. 

🤗 Thank you very much for choosing Legal CRM!