How to Enter a Disbursement

Enter Disbursements is used to enter client expenses, for example photocopies, postage or courier charges to clients/matters or to general ledger accounts. Entering disbursements on clients/matters increases the unbilled (work-in-progress) fees on the file.

Using Vendor Invoices and General Cheques to enter disbursements

When you receive an invoice from a third-party vendor (e.g. Medical Report) and you want to bill it as a disbursement to a client/matter, we strongly recommend to enter it through Vendors menu.

This will allow you to pay for the expense easily by using Pay Invoices feature in Vendors and automatically post it for the appropriate client/matter. This way you will have a better ability to track and analyse your firm’s expenses.

If you write a check to a client/matter using Write General Checks, you do not have to enter the disbursement on the client/matter re-enter that disbursement again. Checks update clients’ unbilled (work in progress) disbursements the same as disbursement entries.

When you view Disbursements in Clients & Matters, the “Type” field will reference the method used to enter a particular transaction, e.g. “Vendor Invoice” if entered through Vendors or “Gen Cheque/Check” if entered through Write General Checks.

Steps:

1. Click on Clients and Matters and select client,
2. Click on the disbursements tab > enter disbursements
3. Select or enter transaction date.
4. Select Client or General Ledger in the column C/G. The default value is client.
5. Select or Enter the client number in case of Client and G/L number in case of the General Ledger.
6. Enter the reference. This field is optional.
7. Select or Enter the disbursement code.
8. Enter the G/L expense account where the disbursement will be charged to. In case you have assigned a default expense account when setting up your disbursement codes it will appear automatically. You can change that G/L Account manually.
9. In case the disbursement code has a unit rate, enter the quantity and the amount will show up automatically.
10. Taxes will appear if they are selected as yes in the disbursement codes.
11. You can move on to the next row by pressing tab or by clicking on “Click here to add disbursement entry”.
12. You can continue to repeat the above steps to enter multiple transactions as long as they are in the same month.
13. When you are finished entering transaction, click Post and Close.