Transactions

The Transactions section is the money ledger for a case or lead. It records four kinds of movements:

• Payments (money in): funding a trust, paying from a trust to operating, or a client paying operating directly.
• Withdrawals (money out): refunding a trust or operating back to the client, or disbursing trust funds to someone else (a vendor, an expert).
• Transfers: moving money between trusts belonging to the same client.
• Adjustments: manual corrections, opening trust amounts, or a starting balance when a case migrates in from another system.

How Outlaw Thinks About Trust Money

Your IOLTA is one bank account holding many clients’ money. Inside it, Outlaw tracks a general trust per client and a trust per case, and their balances always sum to the IOLTA. Money can move between trusts of the same client (from the client’s general trust into one of their case trusts, or between two of their case trusts) and from trust to operating once it’s earned. (True escrow held in a separate trust account is supported as well.)

Recording a Transaction

The add menu offers the four kinds (Payment, Withdrawal, Transfer, Adjustment) and a fifth option: Help Me Decide, which walks you to the right type when you’re not sure what a movement should be called. (Getting the type right is what keeps the trust ledger trustworthy, so when in doubt, use it.) On a lead, and for clients in the portal, the only type offered is a client payment.

Funding a Trust

The most common payment you’ll record is funding a trust. Open the Case, find the Transactions section, click Payment, and choose Fund a Trust. The new-transaction form opens with much of the work already done for you:

• Payer: usually the client, but sometimes a benefactor. If a benefactor is set on the case, they appear first in the dropdown, followed by the client, then every other contact alphabetically.
• Amount and destination: enter the amount, then choose where it lands. There’s one entry per client trust (one per client on the case) plus the case trust, so you can apply the funds to a specific trust.
• Payment method and reference: pick the method and record any reference number that goes with it, such as a check number or a card verification number.
• Processing and availability dates (optional): note when the funds will process and when they’ll be available. If a check or another manually recorded payment is later refused or voided, you can mark it here, and it drops out of the balances. Refusals of Outlaw Payments transactions come from the processor, so you don’t mark those yourself.
• Notes: anything you add here shows up on the invoice for this transaction.

The same payment can also be recorded while invoicing (the usual path for evergreen-retainer payments), and the form behaves identically once it knows the client and case. The firm-wide Financials > Transactions list is for reviewing transactions; it has no Add button.

Two Views: Account and Reconcile

On a case, an Account | Reconcile toggle switches the ledger. Reconcile is the default. Other places that show transactions keep a fixed view and don’t offer the toggle.

• The Account view shows invoices and the payments against them: the quickest answer to “what’s the balance?” Trust-to-trust movements stay out of this view.
• The Reconcile view shows every transaction, grouped into columns: the transaction details, the Operating Account, the case trust (named with the case name and code, like 2022-A-0001), and each client’s general trust. The operating account and each trust have their own receipts, disbursements, and balance columns.

Each entry shows its payment method and, where it pays an invoice, the invoice number. If your firm uses Outlaw Payments, the Account view on a wide screen also has a status column for processed payments, such as Settled, Funded, Paid Out, or Refunded. A refused payment that the processor reports as returned shows Returned; any other refused processor payment shows Failed. Failed payments (voided or refused transactions) are hidden by default and excluded from every balance. When there are any, a Show Failed Payments toggle reveals them when you need the full history. On a lead, the toolbar with these toggles isn’t shown.

The Client File

Trust transactions are the client’s money, and the client is entitled to a full accounting of it. Treat this ledger as part of what the client can always see: the client portal shows clients the transactions on their cases.

Where You’ll See It

Transactions appears on a case and a lead (a lead can take money: a consult fee or an early retainer deposit). A new payment, including one taken on a lead, is dated when you record it, not with the consult date.