Honorarrechnung für Rechtsanwälte erstellen

What should a legal invoice include?

Beyond the standard invoice basics — invoice number, date, firm and client details, line items and total — a legal invoice needs to match how matters are opened, staffed and billed: a matter or case number tied to the file, the responsible attorney's name, a bar or professional registration number, the billing period the fees cover, the fee arrangement (hourly, fixed fee, retainer or contingency), and a clear separation between professional fees and disbursements.

• Matter/case number matching the file — the single most consistent field across every legal billing system studied
• Matter name / re: line, with any court or docket number folded in
• Responsible attorney name and bar/registration number
• Billing period covered by this invoice
• Fee arrangement: hourly, fixed fee, retainer or contingency
• Professional fees kept separate from disbursements (court fees, courier, expert reports)

Fees vs. disbursements: why the split matters for tax

This is the structural signature of a legal bill in every market studied. Court filing fees, land-registry fees and process-server costs that you pay strictly as the client's agent are disbursements — outside the scope of VAT/GST in most jurisdictions, because you're passing on a cost, not supplying a service. Expenses you consume yourself to do the work (travel time, searches you use to advise the client, photocopying) are normally recharged with VAT/GST at your standard rate, because you're acting as principal. Mark each line item's taxable flag accordingly — the default line items below demonstrate both the disbursement case (court filing fee, courier) and the taxable-recharge case (photocopying).

How do I show a retainer or trust payment on an invoice?

This tool has no separate trust-ledger feature, so the recommended pattern — mathematically correct, and consistent with how the sibling consulting/freelance tools handle it — is: bill the full professional fees and disbursements as normal (tax is computed correctly on the full fee), then record any amount already held in trust or paid as a retainer using the Amount Paid field, and note the trust or retainer balance in the Notes/matter-summary field (e.g. "Applied from trust: $X — remaining trust balance $Y"). US firms operating IOLTA accounts, and any jurisdiction with client-money rules, should keep this note consistent with their trust-ledger records.