Another Look at Clio

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Since my last review of Clio a couple of years ago, where my focus was mainly geared toward law firm apps that worked with QuickBooks Desktop, Clio has pretty well undergone a facelift.  In fact they now refer to it as 'the new Clio.'  (Does that remind you of any other software we know?) This time I'm looking at Clio with a QBO frame of mind.

If you are looking for a cloud based legal solution to integrate with QuickBooks Online, there are many choices. A quick search for Legal in the Intuit Apps Center shows several billing and practice management solutions and there are many more that are not listed. Clio is one of those listed and with 18 very positive reviews, it’s worth consideration.

The key benefits to Clio include powerful time-tracking and flexible billing, including Ledes support. It also offers practice management features to help small to medium size law firms run their practice more efficiently.

Clio offers three levels – Starter, Boutique and Elite – ranging in price from $39 per user/month to $99 per user/month. With all versions you get hourly and flat fee billing with custom invoices, case management, task management, time tracking, client portal and access to mobile apps for iPad, iPhone and Android devices. For accounting integration, including QBO sync, you need either the Boutique or Elite level. This also adds custom fields, advanced document automation, office 365 integration, trust requests, contingency fees and Ledes billing and more. The Elite level adds Court Calendaring Rules, Matter budgets, marketing tools, advanced reports and priority support.

Practice Management can mean different things and is often used in a very stripped down fashion. With Clio you get Contact Management, individual and firm calendars, unlimited document storage, task management templates and document automation. If you have a large volume of documents that are accessed frequently you may need to do so testing to make sure that access and speed will meet your needs.

I especially like the Firm Calendar which makes it easy to make events known to the firm members, without cluttering all calendars. You can set your system so that you automatically see both the firm and your own calendar by default. There can also be a separate calendar for statute of limitations. Events allow for inviting contacts via Clio Connect, repeating and reminders, as well as a quick way to add a time entry from the event. Tasks and events are easily assigned to matters by typing the name or the matter number, with the system looking up based on what you type. There are no “defaults” available by task type, it is just a categorization.

Clio includes a fully automated trust workflow that allows users to sync amounts in trust from Clio to QBO. I found that in many programs trust transactions do not synchronize, so this is a plus for Clio. While this works quite well, Clio does allow you to save a deposit to trust without a matter assigned. This is done to allow you to put “firm money” in the trust account in those jurisdictions where allowed. However, it makes it easy to forget to record the matter and therefore have incomplete reporting. I would prefer to setup an “internal matter” for the firm money and force a matter included.

Clio synchronizes with QuickBooks Desktop, QuickBooks Online and Xero, but I am focused on QBO. Just know that their support website offers lots of information on all the synchronizations.  There is a bi-directional sync of contact information and a one-way sync of bills and payments from Clio to QBO.

Clio gives you a choice of synchronizing bills, trust or both. If a bill is removed from QBO Clio knows and will allow you to resync. Only contacts with Approved invoices will be synched with QBO.

Contacts are matched between Clio and QBO based on name and email address. Contacts that are only in QBO do not sync over into Clio; however,  you can edit the information of contacts that are common in both Clio or QuickBooks Online and those edits will subsequently be reflected in the other after the next sync. Synching is automatic and generally happens within 5 minutes.

One of the nice features of the sync between Clio and QBO is the availability of a troubleshooting report concerning the sync. It provides details about each sync and specific information about any information that failed to sync.

Clio offers billing flexibility that will meet most firms needs. Note that partial payments are allocated within QuickBooks Online on a percentage basis, so if an invoice includes fees and costs the costs will not be paid first. This could possibly be an issue for some firms.

I mentioned that Clio offered a mobile experience, they have Apps for both iOS and Android.  After installing either, each will sync for the first time and bring in all of the matters and contacts associated with the user's Clio log-in.  From that time on the App will sync whenever the user logs-in and will update the latest information.  The Apps are pretty straight forward and offer tasks and timer functionality, they also work in either portrait or landscape mode.

While Clio has some limitations, for law firms looking to integrate their firm's Practice Management software with QuickBooks Online, Clio should definitely be on the list to be considered.