Fixing a Client Hard Cost Credit in ProLaw^®

Even with the most meticulous bookkeeping, sometimes things go awry. A common scenario for legal practices is a hard cost credit that results from voiding a check. This can happen if a duplicate payment was made, and now you have an outstanding credit that needs to be properly applied to a client's account.

Step 1: Research the Duplicate Cost

Before you do anything else, you need to understand the situation. Look into the matter's hard costs to see which have been billed and paid.

Scenario A: Client was billed for both costs and paid both.

This is the most straightforward situation. Your goal is to issue a refund check to the client and then bill a net $0 bill.

1. Create a hard cost check payable to the client.
2. Open your Transactions and then Statements/Prebills.
3. Bill the matter for both the credit from the voided check and the new hard cost you just created. This results in a net $0 bill.

Scenario B: Client was billed for both costs, but has only paid one.

1. Open your Transactions and go to Statements/Prebills.
2. Bill the matter for the credit from the voided check.
3. Open your Journals, and for your general checking account, create a $0 deposit.
4. Apply the negative bill to the outstanding one, which will bring the balance to zero.

Scenario C: Only one of the duplicate costs has been billed; the other is still in WIP.

1. Go to your Transactions and then Statements/Prebills.
2. Bill the matter for both the credit from the voided check and the new hard cost you just created.
3. The books are now balanced.

How to Create a Refund Check

• Look at the original voided check to see which general ledger account and component were used.
• Go to Journals and enter a hard cost check.
• The payee is the billing party on the matter.
• The offsetting GL account should be the same as the voided check's.
• The transaction uses the same component as the voided check's transaction.