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QUESTION: We are trying to understand if we can post a “prepayment” of an invoice that hasn’t been generated. There is a function in the deposit screen to post to unbilled disbursements to a matter, however when I flow it through and post the deposit this message comes up:
RESPONSE: We believe the issue stems from the use case. The option to deposit general receipts into unbilled disbursements is to capture invoice overpayments, allowing for a temporary place holder so the user can then transfer the overpayment to trust until a new invoice is posted in provinces where the law society permits it. If you need to make a pre-payment in full (there is no invoice and an overpayment), the best practice would be to deposit the funds in trust and once the work is done, apply the funds in trust during the invoice preparation process. This will trigger the invoice payment from trust workflow and supporting audit trail.
As a second option you can create a GL account for this purpose as a deposit into a GL account is not a client related controlled function. As this GL account would be like all others, you will need to describe the transaction in such a way that you could identify the funds when you need them, for example when you need to move them from the GL account to pay the invoice using a 0.00 deposit with the negative and positive transfer. We would also suggest that you include the GL account where the funds are deposited in the matter's invoice instruction field so when the matter's invoice is being prepared there is visibility of the funds in the invoice instruction launched when the invoice properties is created. Although this process is possible it is not favored as it does not have a clean audit and it requires as many steps as the first.