Recording Payments & Case Credit

How do I log that I got paid — and what's the difference between a retainer and an advance?

Recording a Payment on an Invoice

From an invoice, record a payment with the amount received and the date. Payments can be partial or for the full balance — ExpertPractice tracks how much of the invoice is still outstanding as payments come in, and updates the invoice's status once it's paid in full.

Record Payment form with the Advance Payment / Retainer choice visible

Retainer vs. Advance — the Real Difference

These two are easy to mix up, and the distinction matters:

Retainer — secures the engagement itself. It's never applied to an invoice; it exists as a record that the client committed to the engagement, separate from whatever they're later billed for actual work.
Advance — drawable credit against future invoices. Money recorded as an advance sits as available balance that you can apply to reduce what a client owes on an invoice, now or later.

If you're not sure which one applies, ask: will this money ever be subtracted from a specific invoice? If yes, it's an advance. If it's just securing your commitment to take the case, it's a retainer.

Recording Money Before You've Even Sent an Invoice

You don't need an invoice to exist first. From the case detail page, you can record a case-level payment directly — useful for retainers collected up front or advances paid before any time has been logged. That money sits as unapplied case credit until there's an invoice to apply it to.

Payments & Retainer Credit panel on a case, showing an advance payment and total available credit

Applying Existing Credit to a New Invoice

When generating or viewing an invoice for a case with unapplied credit, you can apply that credit toward the balance due. On a split invoice, credit can be applied to one specific payer's share rather than the invoice as a whole — useful when only one of several payers has money on account.

Unassigned case credit with an Assign to picker open, listing each split payer

Fixing a Mistake

If a payment was recorded incorrectly — wrong amount, wrong case, applied to the wrong invoice — you can remove or un-apply it. The money doesn't disappear: un-applying a payment returns it to unapplied case credit, where it's available to apply correctly. This is the same mechanism that releases payments when you void an invoice — payments always land back as credit rather than being lost.