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Does immigration case management software include billing and trust accounting?

✓ Verified Last reviewed by AnswerStack Next review due Jan 9, 2027

Some of it does, and the plan you buy decides whether you get it. eImmigration sells Billing & Trust Accounting as one of 17 premium features, and every one of its plans includes at least one premium feature of the firm's choice. Docketwise and LollyLaw each document a trust ledger and a way to pay an invoice from trust. Card and ACH processing is a separate piece in all three, with its own fees.

Billing and trust accounting keep two different records

Billing tracks money the client owes the firm. An invoice lists the fees and costs charged to a matter. A payment plan splits the balance into dated installments, and each payment is applied to the invoice until nothing is due. eImmigration's practice management page describes this side in some detail: emailed invoices, payment plans, expense tracking, applied payments and overdue notices on the client profile.

Trust accounting tracks money the firm holds that still belongs to the client. The client ledger shows every receipt and disbursement of one client's funds. The account journal does the same for a whole trust bank account, across all clients, and a monthly reconciliation matches both against the bank statement.

California shows how much detail a state bar can ask for. The standards under its Rule 1.15 require a ledger for each client with the date, amount and source of every receipt and the date, amount, payee and purpose of every disbursement. They also require a journal for each bank account and a monthly reconciliation, and the records have to be kept for at least five years after the funds are distributed. Your own state's rule sets the list for your firm.

Docketwise's help center shows what that looks like on screen. Its trust ledger displays a balance for each trust bank account, a balance for each client and each matter, and transactions with a date, type, description, amount and payment ID. A product can handle invoices well and say little about the ledger, so we'd judge the two as separate features.

Product Billing Trust accounting Plan or price
eImmigration Invoices, payment plans, expense tracking and applied payments. Portal payments through Braintree or LawPay Applying credits, charging payments and automatic payment plans. Ledger fields and reconciliation aren't described on its public pages Premium feature. Starter includes one, Essentials four, Complete all 17
Docketwise Invoices, with a LawPay integration Firm, client and matter balances, and invoice payment by trust transfer Invoicing and Trust Accounting appears in the plan comparison. Plans run $80 to $140 per user per month
LollyLaw QuickBill invoices in each matter's Billing tab. LollyPayments charges 2.95% on cards and 1% on eCheck A trust balance per matter, with full or partial transfers to an invoice Subscription price isn't published
INSZoom Invoice generation, with QuickBooks Online, LawPay and Authorize.net integrations Not mentioned on the product page Quoted after a demo request
Clio Manage Time, expenses and payments Trust and operating account reconciliation Starter from $49 per user, billing term not stated. Immigration forms come from Clio Draft or a connected tool

One flat-fee matter, from trust deposit to paid invoice

Suppose a firm charges a $3,000 flat fee for an adjustment of status packet. The fee agreement puts a $1,500 advance in trust and collects the other $1,500 in three $500 card installments. Assume the agreement and the firm's state rule let it transfer each invoiced amount once the work is done.

The advance arrives first and goes into the matter's trust balance. LollyLaw's deposit screen records the amount, the payment source and the method. At this point the trust balance is $1,500 and nothing has been invoiced.

When the packet is drafted, the firm issues a $1,500 invoice and pays it from trust. In LollyLaw, staff open the matter's Billing tab, find the invoice, choose Apply Funds from Trust, confirm the source and destination accounts, and enter a full or partial amount. Docketwise records the same event as an invoice payment by trust transfer, and staff pick the client-level or matter-level balance and the source trust account. Afterward the trust balance is $0 and the first invoice is paid.

That transfer is a ledger entry. On its own it doesn't show that money left the trust bank account, so someone still confirms the movement at the bank. A transfer that hasn't posted by month end is carried into the reconciliation as an outstanding item.

The second $1,500 is invoiced at filing and paid in three $500 card payments through the client portal. Here the processor matters more than the case software. LawPay, one of the two processors eImmigration connects to, says it deposits the full payment and debits its fees once a month from the operating account. It also says it doesn't debit trust accounts for fees, disputes or chargebacks. So a $500 installment arrives as $500, and the fee shows up later as an operating expense. eImmigration's other processor is Braintree, and its public pages don't describe how Braintree routes fees or chargebacks. A firm that takes card payments into trust should have that in writing.

At month end, suppose this is the only matter in the trust account, the transfer has posted and the bank charged no fees. The client ledger shows $1,500 in and $1,500 out. The journal shows the same two entries, and the bank statement shows a $0 balance. With other clients' money in the account, this matter adds $0 to the total of all client ledgers. That total has to equal the statement balance after adjusting for deposits and payments that haven't cleared.

eImmigration's public pages describe applying credits, charging payments and automatic payment plans. They don't list the ledger fields or describe a journal or a reconciliation report. Running this one matter in a demo shows whether each of the three exists, and you can compare the ledger with the fields your state rule names.

What billing, trust and card payments cost on eImmigration

eImmigration's pricing page lists 48 standard features in every plan and 17 premium features to choose from. Billing & Trust Accounting is one of the 17. Credit Card & ACH Processing is another, so a firm that wants invoices, trust balances and portal payments uses two premium choices.

Starter costs $55 per user per month on an annual term and includes one premium feature. A Starter firm can take billing as that one feature and add card processing for $15 per feature, per user, per month. Suppose the firm has four users and all four need card processing. The add-on is 4 x $15 = $60 a month. If the $15 applies unchanged on annual billing, Starter comes to $70 per user. Essentials is $82 and includes four premium features and unlimited storage. Complete is $100 and includes all 17. The page doesn't say whether an add-on can be licensed for only the users who need it, and that answer changes the total on the quote.

The accounting connection is narrower than the word integration suggests. The pricing page says the billing feature connects to QuickBooks. The integrations page describes expense items generated in eImmigration being sent to QuickBooks, and it doesn't name invoices, payments or trust transactions. Your bookkeeper will want to know which of those arrive without retyping.

The exit terms count as well, because trust records can outlive a subscription. eImmigration charges no cancellation fee and provides one copy of all your data at no charge. Under California's standard, a ledger has to stay readable for five years after the funds are distributed, so the format of that export is worth seeing before the ledger moves in. Billing records also sit beside client files, and the account's permission and export controls decide who can see or change them.

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