Legal billing software, with a clear line between ready and in testing

Billing is where a small firm’s cash comes from, so it is the part of any practice management system you should trust least until you have seen it work. A wrong rate, a time entry that drops off an invoice, a payment applied to the wrong bill: each one costs money, and some cost a client. Coil keeps its billing tools in two groups for that reason, and this page tells you which group each one is in.

What the rules ask of a bill

ABA Model Rule 1.5 says a fee must be reasonable, and that the basis or rate of the fee and the expenses the client will pay should be communicated to the client, preferably in writing, before or within a reasonable time after the representation starts. Changes to the rate have to be communicated too. A contingent fee agreement must be in a writing signed by the client that explains how the fee is worked out and how expenses are treated. Your state’s version of the rule is the one that governs, and some states ask for more.

In software terms, the rate on a time entry has to be the rate the client agreed to, and every expense has to trace back to the matter it was spent on.

What works today

• Time entries and a timer. Record time in hours or minutes, or run a timer that rounds to six minutes. A browser extension suggests entries from the tabs you had open, each with a guessed matter that you accept or dismiss.
• UTBMS codes. Activity and task codes on time entries, for clients whose billing guidelines ask for them.
• Expenses with categories, recorded against the matter.
• Rates and splits. Rates can differ by office, and each matter can carry originating, working and referral fee splits.
• Reports. WIP, receivables aging, realization, productivity and compensation, each reconciled against its own rows and each downloadable as CSV.
• Exports. Time, matters, contacts, invoices and payments as CSV, the QuickBooks import layouts, and a LEDES 1998B file.
• Trust. Retainers sit in a per-client trust ledger that refuses to go below zero.

What is in testing

These are built but have not yet been held to the same standard as the tools above. A firm that needs them from the first day should know that before it moves.

• Invoicing. Hourly, flat, contingency and hybrid billing. Draft, approve, send, resend and remind. Split-payer groups, interest on overdue balances, a template editor for your logo, colours, columns and wording, and client statements with a running balance.
• Payments and payment plans. Cards and ACH through your own Stripe account, cards on file, and payment plans you can pause, resume or cancel, with surcharge handling. A firm without Stripe set up shows a mailing address instead.
• Multi-currency matters in CAD, GBP, EUR, AUD and MXN, end to end.
• Invoices drafted by an AI agent through the API and MCP.

What Coil does not do

Coil is not a payment processor and never holds your money. When online payments launch, they go through your own Stripe account. Credit notes and refunds, the accounting-correct way to reverse a paid invoice, are designed but not built. A live two-way QuickBooks sync is in a later phase; today you get CSV files laid out for the QuickBooks importer. Deeper LEDES support for insurance defense, past the 1998B export, is in the next phase.

How a beta firm bills today

Record time and expenses in Coil, against the matter and at the rates you set, and run your reports there. Until Coil’s invoicing launches, the exports carry that work into whatever you send bills from now. When invoicing does launch, the time is already where it needs to be, and the trust ledger that will pay those invoices is already reconciled.

Last checked October 28, 2026.