LEDES 1998B without the Clio price tag: a small-firm legal-billing setup

If you do any insurance-defense work, LEDES 1998B e-billing is non-negotiable — the carrier rejects PDF invoices and demands the structured electronic format. The standard answer is to buy a full practice management suite (Clio, MyCase, Smokeball) that includes LEDES export as one feature among many. For a small firm whose primary need is the billing side, that's a lot of feature surface — and ongoing subscription cost — for one workflow. TimeTrack Pro's attorney module gives you LEDES + UTBMS + matters + tenths-rounding without the full PMS bill. Here's the minimum setup. ## The five building blocks LEDES isn't a single thing — it's a coordinated set of conventions: 1. **LEDES 1998B export format** — fixed-width pipe-delimited text file in the schema your carrier expects. TimeTrack Pro also supports LEDES 2000 (XML) for carriers that prefer it. 2. **UTBMS task codes** — L100s for case assessment, L200s for pre-trial pleadings, L300s for discovery, etc. Every billable time entry on a legal matter carries one. 3. **UTBMS activity codes** — A100 (Plan/Prepare), A104 (Review/Analyze), A107 (Communicate (other)), etc. Crossed with task codes per line. 4. **UTBMS expense codes** — E110 (Out-of-town travel), E112 (Court fees), E124 (Other). On reimbursable expense lines. 5. **Matter IDs** — your firm's `law_firm_matter_id` and the carrier's `client_matter_id`. Stamped onto every invoice header + line. Mismatched matter IDs are the #1 carrier-rejection reason. ## The setup, in order ### Step 1 — Enable the attorney module Settings → Modules → toggle on "Attorney". Available on every license tier with no per-feature gating. ### Step 2 — Firm LEDES identity Settings → Attorney → LEDES Identity. Enter your firm's LEDES law-firm ID and tax ID. These appear in every export file header. ### Step 3 — Client LEDES IDs On each insurance-carrier client, set `ledes_client_id`. This is the ID the carrier issued you, not a TimeTrack Pro internal ID. ### Step 4 — Per-client rounding Set the rounding rule per client. Most attorneys use **6-minute increments, round up** (the classic 0.1-hour tenths convention). Raw minutes stay on the time entry; rounding applies only at invoice generation, so the audit trail keeps the actual time worked. ### Step 5 — Flag projects as legal matters On each project under an insurance-defense client: `is_legal_matter = true`, then enter the two matter IDs. These get stamped onto every invoice automatically — no per-invoice typing. ### Step 6 — UTBMS codes on time entries When attorneys log time on a legal matter, the time entry surface shows a UTBMS task+activity picker. Required on legal matters; hidden on everything else. ## The "first run passes" check Settings → Attorney → Test Export tab. Pick any invoice on a legal matter, click Test Export. TimeTrack Pro runs the export through a portal-validation pre-flight that catches common errors before you send to the carrier: - Missing matter ID on header or line - Time entry without a UTBMS task+activity pair - Expense line without a UTBMS expense code - Rounding mismatch (line totals don't reconcile to the invoice total within carrier tolerance) - Date format issues (LEDES expects YYYYMMDD) If pre-flight passes, the file passes the carrier's validation too. ## What about retainers and IOLTA **Retainers are shipped** — Phase C, available to every tenant (not legal-only). Client + matter-scoped advance deposits with drawdown ledger, low-balance alerts, auto-flip to depleted on balance=0. The Record Payment dialog offers "Pay from retainer" with auto-ranked picker (matter > client, FIFO). **IOLTA trust accounting is on the roadmap (Phase E)** but not shipped. The retainer schema reserves a column for the eventual IOLTA distinction. If IOLTA is a hard requirement for you today, pair TimeTrack Pro with your existing trust accounting tool — or talk to us about anchoring Phase E. ## The honest scope TimeTrack Pro is the **AR side of legal billing** done well — LEDES + UTBMS + matters + rounding + retainers — without the full practice management surface that Clio and MyCase offer (no conflict checks, no court filings, no calendaring). Best fit for firms whose primary need is the billing pipeline. For firms that want an integrated PMS, pair us with a dedicated tool, or wait for the roadmap items we have planned (1:N matter→projects in Phase B, IOLTA in Phase E). ## Try it Sample seeded data includes one full LEDES-configured client (Pinnacle Health Insurance, matter `PINN-MATTER-001`). Walk through Generate Invoice on a Pinnacle matter in the [live demo](https://ttp-demo.quantumitpartners.com) — the LEDES export runs end-to-end and passes pre-flight against the carrier spec.