Deep Dive Recap: Get Paid During Intake

Chasing down payments? Not exactly the dream when you started your law firm. Whether it’s prospects who never paid their consultation fee or leads dragging their feet on a retainer, the early stages of client onboarding can get bogged down fast. And when payment isn’t built into your intake process, it usually falls on someone’s shoulders to follow up, again and again.

In this month’s Deep Dive, Lawmatics Product Manager Devon Butler walked through how to make payments a seamless part of your intake process. Joined by Sr. Director of Customer Success Johnny Bissell, she demoed how to add fees to forms, automate retainer collection, send receipts without lifting a finger, and keep tabs on every transaction along the way.

Time stamps of key takeaways

8:45 — Add consultation fees directly to your intake forms

Devon shows how easy it is to drag and drop a payment block onto your intake form using LMPay. You can set a flat fee, pick the bank account, and even use conditional logic to adjust pricing based on client responses. Johnny points out that this flexibility makes it simple to create one form that works for multiple appointment types.

15:41 — Collect retainers as part of your intake process

Need to collect a retainer before officially taking on a client? Devon walks through how to build that right into your automations — so once someone signs an agreement, the invoice goes out automatically. Johnny jumps in with ideas for customizing this based on package types or service tiers, making the process feel personal and polished.

32:43 — Automatically generate and send payment receipts

As soon as a payment is processed, Lawmatics can immediately send out a receipt. Devon shows how to tailor what’s included, like attaching the original invoice or just the receipt. It’s all handled behind the scenes, and yes, it waits until ACH payments actually clear.

35:07 — Monitor payments received from prospective matters

Keeping tabs on payments is simple with the invoices and activity views. Devon demos how to track what’s been paid, what’s still processing, and what might’ve failed. You can even issue refunds, if needed. Johnny notes that with the Time & Billing add-on, you can go even deeper, slicing your data by team member, payment method, or client type.

Webinar slide deck