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Product / Billing

Money the firm can account for.

Client money held in trust sits in a ledger that cannot be rewritten or overdrawn. Time is recorded where the work happened, priced by a fixed ladder, and carried through to the invoice.

Trust accounting

A ledger that cannot be rewritten.

Thistle keeps trust money in a double-entry ledger.

Entries
Insert-only. An entry, once written, is not changed or removed.
Corrections
Recorded as reversals, not erased. The mistake and its correction both stay on the ledger.
Balances
Derived from the entries, never stored. There is no separate figure to drift out of step with the ledger.
Overdrawing
Refused. Overdrawing a matter would mean spending another client’s money.
A matter’s trust ledger and billing summary in Thistle.
A matter’s trust account. Every deposit, application, and refund, in order.
The limit

This is a record-keeping system. It is not a substitute for your firm’s own trust account reconciliation, or for its obligations under the trust-accounting rules that apply to it.

From the hour to the invoice

Time is recorded where it was worked.

An hour is recorded against the hearing, the task, or the call that took it, and carried forward from there.

  1. The work
    Time is recorded on the hearing, the task, or the call.
  2. The charge
    That time becomes a charge, priced by the rate ladder.
  3. The invoice
    Charges go onto invoices.
  4. The balance
    Payments are recorded, and Thistle shows what each client still owes.
The rate ladder

The deal somebody made holds.

A rate can sit in four places, and each overrides the one below it.

  1. The charge
    A rate set on one charge.
  2. The matter
    A rate negotiated for one matter.
  3. The person
    A person’s own rate.
  4. The firm
    The firm’s rate, used when a person has none.

A matter’s rate beats a person’s rate. A rate set on one matter is a deal somebody made, and it holds whoever does the work.

“Not billed” is not zero. Mark a person not billed and nothing below applies, so their time is never quietly charged at the firm’s default. A rate of zero is still a rate, and produces a line reading 2.0 h at $0.00. Not billed produces no rate at all.

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Billed monthly, automatically. Choose your seats at signup and change them whenever the firm does — a new paralegal in March costs you one click, not a phone call. Month to month. Cancel anytime. After canceling, your firm has 90 days to sign in and take a complete export.

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