The partnership gives law firms a fully managed accounts payable automation solution built directly into Centerbase, eliminating manual payment workflows without leaving the platform they already use to run their practice.

DALLAS, TEXAS, May 19, 2026. Centerbase, the operating platform purpose-built for midsize law firms, today announced a partnership with AvidXchange, a leading provider of accounts payable automation and payment solutions for mid-market businesses, to embed full payment automation directly into the Centerbase platform through AvidXchange’s Accounts Payable as a Service solution.

Law firm finance teams have long managed vendor payments outside their core practice management systems—printing checks, manually entering account information, and tracking payment status across disconnected platforms. At the volume midsize firms operate, that workflow costs time, introduces errors, and creates fraud exposure. Automated payments have been one of the last remaining workflows that didn’t exist inside the system.

AvidXchange reduces the time finance teams spend on AP administration by up to 80%, giving firms back hours each month that can be redirected to higher-value work.

Through this integration, Centerbase customers can now view unpaid invoices, select and initiate payments, and complete the approval process without leaving the platform. Once approved, AvidXchange executes the payment on the firm’s behalf, leveraging a network of more than 1.5 million suppliers and delivering payments through the methods that best meet each vendor’s needs. Finance teams gain real-time visibility into payment status, a complete audit trail, and built-in fraud protections, including secure digital payment methods such as virtual credit cards and reduced manual touchpoints that limit the exposure law firms face when handling vendor payments at volume.

Centerbase selected AvidXchange as its embedded accounts payable automation partner for its depth of experience serving compliance-driven industries and the breadth of its supplier network. The integration is available to Centerbase customers now.

"Centerbase is built around automating the business of law, giving people the visibility and control they need without requiring them to manually execute routine tasks," said Michael Dunn, CEO of Centerbase. "Payments are a perfect example. Firms need governance over every transaction, but they shouldn’t have to print a check or log into a separate system to make one happen. AvidXchange closes that gap."

"Law firms operate in a uniquely high-stakes and strictly compliant financial environment while balancing the day-to-day demands of serving clients," said Michael Praeger, CEO and Co-Founder of AvidXchange. "By embedding accounts payable automation directly into Centerbase, we help law firms spend less time on back-office work and more time focused on client needs."

Centerbase customers interested in automating their payments through the AvidXchange integration can contact their Centerbase account representative or visit https://www.centerbase.com/payments for more information.

About Centerbase
Centerbase is the operating platform purpose-built for midsize law firms. It unifies matter management, billing, financial operations, and the AI tools firms are adopting into a single governed system, eliminating the operational drag that costs firms time, revenue, and client confidence. The result is a practice that runs tighter, bills what it earns, and turns its operations into a competitive advantage. To learn more, visit https://www.centerbase.com.

Centerbase Media Contact:
Trish Stromberg
Chief Marketing Officer
Centerbase
trish.stromberg@centerbase.com

About AvidXchange®
AvidXchange is a leading provider in accounts payable (AP) automation, offering intelligent AP software and payment solutions specifically designed for mid-market businesses and their suppliers. With 25 years of industry experience, AvidXchange modernizes the way businesses manage their expenses and payments by offering AI-enhanced software coupled with support from experts. Empowering over 8,000 growth-driven businesses, AvidXchange increases efficiency, control, and visibility in financial operations and has securely processed payments to more than 1.5 million suppliers through its proprietary payment network over the past five years. Additionally, AvidXchange is a licensed money transmitter for B2B payments in the United States, licensed as a Money Transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services, as well as all other states that require AvidXchange to have a license. For more information, visit https://avidxchange.com.

AvidXchange Media Contact:
Alexis Riddick
Public Relations Manager
AvidXchange
pr@avidxchange.com

Multi-Payor Billing is live in Centerbase. Here's what it means for your firm — and why it matters at the partner level.

There's a version of this conversation that happens in law firms everywhere. A managing partner discusses with the billing director how to improve the process for multi-payor matters, and the answer involves a spreadsheet. Maybe a few spreadsheets. There's a process in place and it works but it's fragile, it depends on one or two people who know how it all fits together, and the AR report you pull at month end never quite tells the whole story without someone doing additional reconciliation first.

If that sounds familiar, it's not a reflection of how your firm is run. It's a reflection of how practice management software has handled multi-payor billing for the past decade which is to say, it mostly hasn't. Firms built workarounds, the workarounds became process, and the process became invisible overhead that everyone accepted as the cost of handling complex matters.

We are changing that. Multi-Payor Billing is now live in Centerbase, and it's worth understanding what it actually does at the feature level and the firm level. What does it mean for your billing team's capacity? What does it mean for your AR? What does it mean for your ability to review a matter's financial status before a client call, without asking someone to pull a report first?

Multi-payor billing complexity isn't going away. The question is whether your system absorbs it — or your billing team does.

What Was Actually Happening Before This

To understand the value here, it helps to be clear about what the old process actually looked like at the operational level because from a managing partner's vantage point, it may have been invisible.

When a matter had two or three payors a carrier covering 60%, a client covering the balance, perhaps a co-defendant carrying a share your billing team needed some manual steps to define those payors and have the system handle the split automatically. So they maintained the allocation logic externally. A spreadsheet tracked who owed what percentage. When a bill was generated, someone calculated the split manually. When a bill was edited before posting, which happens routinely, someone recalculated. When payments came in, someone updated the spreadsheet and made sure the AR entries reflected the correct payor.

Every one of those steps was a manual task performed by a skilled person who could have been doing something more valuable. And every one of those steps was an opportunity for an error that could delay collections, create a discrepancy in AR, or surface during an audit.

The AR Aging report, meanwhile, reflected what was in Centerbase, not what was in the spreadsheet. For multi-payor matters, those two things were often different. Finance teams knew this, and they factored it into how much they trusted the report. Which is another way of saying: your AR data for your most complex matters was, at best, approximate.

What Changes Now — and Why It Matters to You

Multi-Payor Billing puts the payor configuration inside Centerbase, connected to the billing engine, the payment workflow, and AR reporting. Here is what that means in practice.

Your billing team defines payors and percentage splits once, directly inside the matter. Centerbase handles every split from that point forward automatically, at the invoice level, for every billing run. When a bill is edited before posting, splits recalculate without any manual step. When a payment is posted, it's allocated to the correct payor immediately. The spreadsheet that lived alongside your complex matters is no longer necessary.

There are two specific tools that make the setup fast.

• Distribute Evenly assigns equal percentages across all payors in a single click useful for co-defendant matters.
• Match Remaining automatically corrects the allocation when percentages don't add up to exactly 100%, so there's no manual adjustment for rounding errors.
• A designated Primary Payor absorbs any fractional remainder at the invoice level. Once that configuration is saved, it applies to every billing run for the life of the matter.

The financial visibility change is significant from a partner's perspective. Every matter with a multi-payor configuration has a dedicated Multi-Payor tab that shows billed, paid, and balance for each payor in real time. Before a client call, you can pull up that tab and see exactly where each party stands, what's been billed, what's been paid, what's outstanding without asking billing for a summary. That's not a minor convenience. For partners managing complex matters with carrier relationships and reporting obligations, it's a material improvement in how you access information about your own matters.

• Up to 70 payors per matter — define every funding source in a single matter record
• Automatic splits at the invoice level — no manual calculation, no spreadsheet update required
• Dynamic recalculation — if a bill is edited before posting, splits adjust automatically
• Primary Payor designation — rounding remainders handled cleanly on every invoice
• Multi-Payor tab — real-time billed, paid, and balance per payor, visible to anyone with matter access
• AR Aging with payor-level detail — each payor treated as a client in reporting, no reconciliation step

The AR Picture Your Finance Team Has Been Missing

For firms that manage insurance defense matters at volume, AR accuracy is both a financial and operational priority. When AR data for multi-payor matters requires manual reconciliation before it can be trusted, that's not just an inconvenience, it's a reporting gap that affects how confidently you can speak to your firm's financial position.

Each payor on a multi-payor matter is treated as a client in AR Aging. Payor-level balances, what's owed, what's been collected, what's outstanding, appear in the AR report without any additional reconciliation. Your finance team gets audit-ready data that reflects the actual state of every payor relationship, not an approximation based on what's in the system plus what's in someone's spreadsheet.

One operational note worth knowing: if your team groups the Aged AR report by Invoice, it will display the client assigned to the matter rather than individual payors. Grouping by Payor gives you the full payor-level breakdown. It's a simple setting, but it's worth flagging for teams that are configuring their reporting workflows for the first time with this feature.

For partners and firm leaders who review AR in management meetings or prepare for lender reporting, carrier audits, or year-end review, this is meaningful. The report you pull reflects what's actually owed by every party, on every matter, without a qualification attached.

For Firms Doing Insurance Defense Work: The LEDES Connection

Insurance carriers require LEDES-formatted electronic billing, and each carrier typically has their own Client Matter ID, a reference number that must appear on every submission. In the past, managing those IDs required maintaining a separate record and manually cross-walking them into your LEDES template setup. It was another step that existed only because the systems weren't connected.

When you assign a Client Matter ID to a payor in your Multi-Payor setup, that ID flows automatically into the LEDES template mapping table. You set it up once. It's available when you map your LEDES fields, no duplicate entry, no crosswalk. For matters with multiple carriers, each one can have its own LEDES template and delivery address, configured from a single screen.

The LEDES Template Builder extends this further. When a carrier changes their format requirements, which happens more often than anyone would like, your e-billing coordinators can now build and publish an updated LEDES 1998B template themselves, directly from System Settings, without filing a support ticket. Templates are validated before they're published, so configuration errors are caught before they reach production. Your existing templates are completely untouched.

For managing partners whose firms depend on consistent, timely LEDES submissions to maintain carrier relationships, this removes a recurring point of friction that previously required staff time and support dependency every time a carrier updated their specifications.

When a carrier changes their LEDES requirements, your e-billing coordinator handles it the same day. No ticket. No billing hold. No delay.

What This Means for Your Team's Capacity

Managing partners don't always see the downstream effect of billing process inefficiency, because the billing team absorbs it quietly. Multi-payor matter management, the spreadsheets, the manual splits, the LEDES crosswalks, the AR reconciliation, represents a meaningful amount of skilled staff time spent on tasks that exist only because the system didn't handle them natively.

That time doesn't disappear when billing teams are overwhelmed. It shows up in slower billing cycles, in delayed collections, in staff overtime during busy periods, and in the occasional error that reaches a posted bill or an AR report. It also shows up in turnover risk, billing professionals who spend significant time on manual reconciliation work are more likely to seek roles where the work is more substantive.

Multi-Payor Billing returns that time to your team. The step-by-step math disappears. The spreadsheet maintenance disappears. The LEDES crosswalk disappears. The AR reconciliation step disappears. What remains is the judgment work that actually requires experienced billing professionals: reviewing complex matters, managing carrier relationships, handling exceptions, and supporting partners who need financial clarity quickly.

That's a meaningful change in what your billing team is doing with its time — and in what it's possible for them to take on as your firm grows.

Getting Started — What It Actually Takes

One of the things worth being direct about: this is not an implementation project. There is no migration, no data cleanup, no risk to your active matters. This is already live in Centerbase if you have an account. Everything your firm has built in Centerbase, your matter records, your templates, your billing history stays exactly as it is.

Adopting Multi-Payor Billing is a configuration step, not a deployment. Navigate to any matter, open Matter → Cog → Split Billing, and you'll find Multi-Payor Settings there. You can start with one matter. Your Customer Success Manager can walk your billing team through the first setup in a single call, most teams are billing their first multi-payor matter with the new engine within the same week.

For managing partners thinking about rollout: the practical path is to identify three to five matters where your billing team is currently maintaining the most manual overhead, and start there. Seeing the feature perform on real matters, with your actual payor configurations, your actual carriers, your actual billing complexity is more valuable than any demo. Your CSM can help you identify the right starting point.

• No migration required — existing matters, templates, and settings are untouched
• Available today — Multi Payor is live in your account now
• One CSM session to configure — most firms are billing their first multi-payor matter in the same week
• Adopt matter by matter — start where the manual overhead is highest and expand from there

The Bottom Line for Your Firm

The billing complexity that comes with multi-payor matters isn't going away. Insurance defense work, co-defendant arrangements, shared-fee structures – these are part of how law firms operate, and the firms that do them well are the ones that have the infrastructure to handle them efficiently.

For a long time, that infrastructure meant spreadsheets and workarounds that your billing team learned to manage. Centerbase replaces that infrastructure with something better: a billing engine that handles the splits, the AR, and the LEDES configuration natively, inside the system your firm already uses, without requiring a change in how your timekeepers work or a migration of what you've already built.

The result is a billing team that spends its time on judgment work instead of manual calculation. An AR report that reflects every payor's balance without reconciliation. Partners who can review matter financials directly, without waiting on a summary from billing. And an e-billing workflow that responds to carrier changes the same day they happen, not a week later.

That's not a feature update. That's a change in how your firm handles some of its most complex work — and it's available now.

Talk to your Customer Success Manager

Your CSM can walk your billing team through setup and show you what Multi-Payor Billing looks like on your actual matters. Reach out directly or visit centerbase.com.

About Centerbase

Centerbase provides cloud-based legal software that centralizes all aspects of law firm management, including billing, accounting, timekeeping, matter and document management, automated workflows, and profitability reporting. Designed for mid-size law firms, Centerbase helps firms modernize operations, optimize productivity, and improve client service. For more information, visit centerbase.com.

Media Contact:
Trish Stromberg
trish.stromberg@centerbase.com

If your firm is already on Centerbase for practice management but still running collections through a separate payments tool, there's a quiet cost to that setup. It doesn't show up on an invoice. It shows up in the reconciliation steps your team runs at month end. It shows up in trust accounting pieced together from two systems that were never built to share a ledger. It shows up in the retainer you couldn't collect at intake because the invoice didn't exist yet, or the refund that took two workflows to finish.

Centerbase Payments closes that gap. Because it's built into the platform your firm already uses, turning it on doesn't mean a migration, a new vendor, or a long implementation. Most firms finish onboarding in a single call of 20 to 30 minutes. After that, billing and payments run from the same place.

When a client pays, the rest takes care of itself

When a client pays through an invoice link, the invoice marks as paid, a payment record is created, and a bank deposit record is generated. All at the same time. No one on your team logs into a second system. No one posts the deposit at month end. The payment event *is* the accounting event.

For your billing staff, that turns collections work into confirmation work instead of data entry. For your CFO, the numbers are current without waiting for a reporting cycle. For the firm as a whole, the manual steps that currently connect your payment processor to your billing system simply stop existing.

Seven manual tasks off your team's plate.

1. Invoices close and deposits post without anyone in the middle

In most split-system setups, a payment arrives in your processor, someone notes it, the invoice gets updated by hand, and the deposit gets posted later that day, or that week, or at month-end close.

With Centerbase Payments, all of that collapses into one event. The client pays. The invoice closes. The bank deposit record generates on its own once the payout confirms. The only transactions that still need a manual deposit entry are paper checks. Everything else moves through the ledger automatically.

This isn't a faster version of the manual process. It's a different process. The gap between cash received and cash recognized goes away.

2. Trust and operating funds route correctly before they reach the bank

Trust accounting errors at midsize firms usually aren't the result of carelessness. They come from moving funds manually across two systems that don't share a ledger. The processor records the collection. The billing system records the matter. Someone on your team reconciles the two, which means someone on your team can get it wrong.

Centerbase Payments handles the routing at the transaction level. When a payment includes a client principal and a convenience fee, the system separates them before the funds arrive. Principal goes to trust, the convenience fee goes to operating, and journal entries are created automatically.

Your trust ledger reflects reality from the moment the payment processes, not from the moment someone finishes a month-end review. IOLTA and PCI compliance are built in, with both accounts verified independently.

3. Retainers get collected at intake, before any invoice or matter exists

If your intake process ends with a verbal commitment and "an invoice to follow," there's a collections gap between the moment a client agrees to work with you and the moment they pay.

Centerbase closes that gap. Your team can share a payment link at intake, before any matter is opened or any invoice is generated. The client pays by card or ACH, the funds route correctly, and the matter is opened when it's ready.

The retainer is collected at the point of commitment, not after the work begins. For anyone managing cash flow across a practice, that shift changes the financial profile of every new engagement.

4. Clients see what they owe, including any fees, before they confirm

Fee disputes slow collections, and they almost always start the same way: a client sees a charge they didn't expect. Centerbase Payments shows clients a fee preview before they confirm any payment, so what they see is what they pay.

The fee setup is flexible. Card fees are percentage-based, ACH fees are flat-rate, and either can be applied across the firm or scoped to specific clients or matters. That means existing arrangements can be honored without creating manual exceptions. Clients don't need a portal login either. They can pay through the invoice email or a firm-branded page.

When clients know what to expect, disputes drop. When disputes drop, your billing staff spends less time resolving exceptions and more time on collections that actually move forward.

5. Your team sees what happened in real time, inside Centerbase

In a split-system setup, finding out whether a payment came in means logging into the processor or waiting for someone who did. That lag is small on any single transaction. Across a busy week, it adds up. It delays follow-up, blurs your cash position, and slows the firm's response on collections.

Centerbase Payments supports per-transaction notification emails and a daily digest of the previous day's activity, sent to whoever needs it. Your billing staff sees the activity in the system they already work in. No second dashboard, no separate login, no waiting.

For firms managing collections across a heavy matter load, the speed of that notification loop has a direct effect on days to payment.

6. Refunds finish in one workflow, not two

In a split system, every refund takes two separate actions. Someone initiates the refund in the payment processor, then reflects the accounting update in the billing system. Both steps have to happen, both have to be accurate, and both are an opportunity for the numbers to drift apart.

The Begin Refund workflow in Centerbase Payments handles the Stripe refund and the accounting update in one operation. Full and partial refunds both work the same way. When the workflow is done, the refund is done. No second step, no reconciliation required.

For your accounting team, that removes a category of exception work that currently takes coordination across systems.

7. All your transaction data sits in one place, ready to export when you need it

The Transaction Details report gives your finance team exportable transaction data with configurable columns and date range filters. Each payment has a PDF receipt stored automatically. Payouts are tracked, with full drill-down to individual transactions.

Bank reconciliation and audit prep stop being a question of pulling data from multiple sources. Everything is in Centerbase, sourced from the same system that processed the transaction. The report your finance team runs is the same record the platform created when the payment cleared.

Turning Payments on is easy. Really.

Activating Centerbase Payments is simple. Onboarding takes one call, typically 20 to 30 minutes. Invoice payment links stay the same after the switch. Clients won't notice any change in how they pay. Your team gets the fully integrated workflow from day one.

What you get back is every manual reconciliation step your team stops running, every trust accounting error your firm stops risking, and every retainer collected at intake instead of chased after the work begins.

If Centerbase Payments isn't turned on at your firm yet, it's worth taking a look. Your CSM can walk you through what activation would look like for your firm specifically: what the current workflow looks like, where the manual steps are, and what changes on the other side. Half an hour of your time, and your team stops doing seven things by hand.

See it in action: Contact your Customer Success Manager or visit centerbase.com to schedule a walkthrough of Multi-Payor Billing in Centerbase.

About Centerbase

Centerbase provides cloud-based legal software that centralizes all aspects of law firm management, including billing, accounting, timekeeping, matter and document management, automated workflows, and profitability reporting. Designed for mid-size law firms, Centerbase helps firms modernize operations, optimize productivity, and improve client service. For more information, visit centerbase.com.

Media Contact:
Trish Stromberg
trish.stromberg@centerbase.com

There's a particular kind of frustration that billing professionals at law firms know well. It's the moment you open a multi-payor matter and realize you're about to spend the next hour doing something that should take five minutes.

You've got one matter. Three payors. An insurance carrier at 60%, a client paying the remaining 35%, and a co-defendant handling 5%. You've generated the invoice. Now you need to split it correctly, make sure the numbers add up, route the right bill to the right party, update the spreadsheet that tracks it all, make sure the LEDES submission goes to the right carrier with the right Client Matter ID, and then — once payments start coming in — make sure each one posts to the right payor so AR doesn't fall apart.

That's not a billing problem. That's a process problem. And it's a process problem that most practice management systems have never actually solved — they've just left firms to work around it.

Centerbase changes that with Multi-Payor Billing: a purpose-built billing engine that takes every manual step in that process and handles it automatically, inside a single matter record. Let's walk through what that actually looks like in practice — from the moment you set up a matter to the day it closes.

The Setup: One Configuration, Saved for the Life of the Matter

The old way of handling multi-payor matters usually started the same way: someone set up a matter in the system, then opened a spreadsheet alongside it. The spreadsheet became the source of truth for payor allocations — who owes what, what percentage they carry, what's been billed, what's been paid. Every billing cycle required someone to update it. Every new person on the billing team had to learn where it lived and how it worked.

In Centerbase, the setup starts inside the matter itself. Navigate to Matter → Cog → Split Billing → Multi-Payor, click Edit, and you're in the Multi-Payor configuration screen. Add your payors — as many as the matter requires, up to 70 or more — and assign each one a billing percentage. That configuration is saved as a multi-payor record attached to the matter, and it stays there for the life of the case.

The system gives you two tools to make percentage setup fast. If your payors split equally, hit Distribute Evenly and the system assigns identical percentages across all parties in one click. If you're working with custom allocations and the numbers come out slightly off — 99.9% instead of 100%, or 100.1% due to rounding in your mental math — Match Remaining automatically corrects the last payor's share so the total balances. No calculator, no manual correction.

You also designate a Primary Payor for the matter. This is the party that receives any rounding remainder when invoice amounts don't divide evenly across payor percentages. It's a small but important detail: without it, those fractions of a cent create ongoing reconciliation issues. With a designated Primary Payor, every invoice closes clean.

If the matter involves insurance carriers who require LEDES billing, you can assign a unique Client Matter ID to each payor right here in the setup screen. That ID will flow automatically into the LEDES mapping table later — which we'll come back to — so there's no duplicate entry required.

One configuration. Every payor, every percentage, every LEDES ID — set up once and tracked automatically from first invoice through final AR close.

Once you save the configuration, the matter is ready. The spreadsheet stays in the drawer. The system holds the record now.

Billing: The Math Happens Automatically, Every Time

Here's something that surprises people when they first see Multi-Payor Billing in action: time and expense entry doesn't change at all. Attorneys and timekeepers enter time and expenses exactly the way they always have. The matter handles the split on the back end, at the invoice level.

When you run a bill, Centerbase takes the total invoice amount and divides it among your payors according to the percentages you defined in the setup. If the matter has a 60/35/5 split, the $10,000 invoice becomes a $6,000 charge to the carrier, a $3,500 charge to the client, and a $500 charge to the co-defendant — automatically, without anyone doing arithmetic. The Primary Payor absorbs any rounding remainder.

The bill's financial summary gives you immediate visibility into how the split landed. The first five payors and their billing percentages appear on the bill itself. Click through and you'll see the full payor breakdown: each party's previous balance, current charges, payments applied to date, and any credits on account. It's a complete financial snapshot of where each payor stands on that invoice.

Now here's the part that billing managers tend to appreciate most: if the bill gets edited before it's posted — and bills get edited all the time, for all kinds of legitimate reasons — the splits recalculate automatically. You don't need to go back to the spreadsheet, redo the math, and make sure the updated numbers made it into the right column. The payor schedule stays intact. The system handles the recalculation. You review, approve, and post.

When a bill is edited before posting, splits recalculate automatically. The payor schedule stays intact. No manual correction required.

For matters with many payors — insurance defense cases sometimes involve a dozen or more funding sources — this automation isn't just convenient. It's the difference between a billing process that scales and one that breaks under its own weight.

LEDES Billing: One Setup, No Duplicate Entry

If multi-payor billing is complex on its own, adding LEDES e-billing requirements to the mix has historically made it significantly more so. Insurance carriers don't all use the same LEDES format. They each have their own Client Matter ID requirements. And they change their specifications with enough regularity that e-billing coordinators have spent years managing a queue of support tickets just to keep LEDES templates current.

Centerbase addresses both parts of this problem.

First, the connection between Multi-Payor setup and LEDES configuration. The Client Matter ID you assign to each payor in your Multi-Payor setup flows directly into the LEDES template mapping table. When you go to map your LEDES fields, those IDs are already there — no crosswalk, no manual re-entry, no copying between screens. Set it up once in Multi-Payor and the LEDES side of the house already has what it needs.

Each payor can also have their own LEDES template and delivery address. In the gear icon settings next to any payor, you can uncheck Use Client Settings and configure that payor independently. A matter with four insurance carriers can run four different LEDES 1998B formats, each mapped to the right Client Matter ID and delivered to the right address. That's a configuration that used to require careful manual coordination — and that's now handled in one screen.

Second, the template management problem. When a carrier updates their LEDES format requirements, the answer used to be: open a support ticket and wait. E-billing coordinators would submit the ticket, the carrier's deadline would approach, and billing would sit on hold while someone else made the change.

Centerbase's self-serve LEDES Template Builder puts that control directly in your team's hands. Navigate to System Settings → Electronic Billing → Self-Serve Templates, build your LEDES 1998B template, map the fields, and publish. Templates are validated before they go live, so misconfigured templates are caught before they reach production. Existing system-provided templates are untouched — you can adopt self-serve templates at your own pace, for the carriers where you need the flexibility, without any impact on your current setup.

E-billing coordinators can build, validate, and publish an updated LEDES template the same day a carrier changes their requirements. No ticket. No wait. No billing hold.

For firms that do substantial insurance defense work, this combination — per-payor LEDES templates, automatic Client Matter ID mapping, and self-serve template management — removes more friction from the e-billing process than any single feature has in a long time.

Payments and Credits: The Right Balance in the Right Place

Posting payments on multi-payor matters is one of those tasks that looks simple and isn't. The question isn't just "who paid?" — it's "which payor's balance should this payment reduce, and on which matter?" Get that wrong and AR stops making sense. Get it wrong consistently and reconciliation becomes a monthly project.

Centerbase makes the allocation explicit and immediate. When you record a payment, you select the client as usual — all bills for that client appear, including multi-payor ones. If you're working from the Multi-Payor Matter record directly and need to apply the payment to a specific payor, you select that individual payor. The balance updates immediately. There's no ambiguity about where the payment went, and no additional step required to reflect it in AR.

Credits work at two levels, and the distinction is useful. Credits assigned at the matter level stay on that matter — they're available to offset charges on that matter and nothing else. Credits assigned at the client level are available across all of that client's matters. In a multi-payor context, this means you can apply a credit from a specific carrier's overpayment directly to the matter where it belongs, without it flowing into other matters where it doesn't apply.

It's a small distinction, but it's the kind of precision that finance and accounting teams depend on when they're producing reports that need to be right. Not approximately right. Actually right.

AR Reporting: The Full Picture, Without the Reconciliation Step

One of the most common frustrations in law firm finance is pulling an AR Aging report on a multi-payor matter and knowing that what you're looking at isn't complete. Payor-level detail lives somewhere else. The numbers you're seeing don't include the full picture. Before you can trust the report, you have to reconcile it against another source.

Centerbase brings that data into Centerbase, where it belongs. Each payor in a multi-payor matter is treated as a client for AR reporting purposes. That means the AR Aging report breaks out balances at the payor level — what each party owes, what's been collected from each party, and where each payor's account currently stands. The report reflects the full financial picture of the matter without any additional reconciliation work.

The Multi-Payor tab on each matter is the real-time view for anyone who needs payor-level detail on a specific case. Billing managers can pull it up mid-cycle. Partners can check it before a client call. Finance leads can use it to answer questions from management without making calls to the billing team first.

One thing worth knowing about the AR Aging report: if your team groups it by Invoice, it will display the client assigned to the matter rather than the individual payors. Grouping by payor gives you the full payor-level breakdown. It's a simple setting change, but it's worth flagging for teams that are setting up their reporting workflows for the first time.

AR Aging reflects every payor's balance accurately — what's owed, what's collected, and what's outstanding — without a manual reconciliation step.

The Point Isn't the Features. It's the Time You Get Back.

It's easy to describe Multi-Payor Billing as a set of features: payor schedules, automatic splits, LEDES integration, self-serve templates, real-time AR. And those features are real and useful. But the actual value of the feature set isn't best measured in capabilities — it's best measured in what your billing team stops doing.

They stop maintaining the spreadsheet. They stop recalculating splits when bills are edited. They stop opening support tickets when a carrier updates their LEDES format. They stop reconciling AR reports against external records. They stop manually cross-walking Client Matter IDs between the billing system and the LEDES mapping screen.

All of that time goes somewhere else — to higher-value work, to matters that actually need human judgment, to the kind of proactive billing management that helps firms get paid faster and maintain better client relationships.

That's what it means to move from manual to manageable. Not that multi-payor billing becomes simple, because the underlying complexity is real and it doesn't disappear. It means the system absorbs that complexity instead of passing it to your billing team as manual work.

Multi-Payor Billing is available now in Centerbase. No migration required. Setup starts at Matter → Cog → Split Billing → Multi-Payor. If you're an existing Centerbase customer, your Customer Success Manager can walk your team through configuration in a single session. If you're evaluating Centerbase, we're happy to walk you through the full workflow in a live demonstration — including the specific scenarios your billing team deals with today.

See it in action: Contact your Customer Success Manager or visit centerbase.com to schedule a walkthrough of Multi-Payor Billing in Centerbase.

About Centerbase

Centerbase provides cloud-based legal software that centralizes all aspects of law firm management, including billing, accounting, timekeeping, matter and document management, automated workflows, and profitability reporting. Designed for mid-size law firms, Centerbase helps firms modernize operations, optimize productivity, and improve client service. For more information, visit centerbase.com.

Media Contact:
Trish Stromberg
trish.stromberg@centerbase.com

If your law firm handles insurance defense, co-defendant matters, or any case where more than one party shares financial responsibility for fees, you've probably built a system for managing it. Maybe it's a spreadsheet that lives alongside every multi-payor matter. Maybe it's a manual allocation process your billing manager runs at the end of every billing cycle. Maybe it's a combination of both, stitched together with follow-up emails and a lot of double-checking.

It works, until it doesn't. An invoice gets edited after the split was calculated. A payor's balance doesn't reconcile with AR. A LEDES submission goes to the wrong carrier. The workarounds that keep multi-payor billing functional are also the reason it takes so much time and generates so many errors.

Multi-Payor Billing in Centerbase was built to change that. It's a purpose-built billing engine that handles split invoicing, payor-level AR tracking, and LEDES submissions for matters with multiple funding sources — automatically, inside a single matter record. No spreadsheets. No sub-matters. No off-system reconciliation.

Here are five specific ways it helps law firms operate more efficiently and accurately.

1. Eliminate the Spreadsheet That Lives Next to Every Multi-Payor Matter

Ask any billing manager at a firm that handles insurance defense, and they'll tell you the same thing: every multi-payor matter comes with a shadow document. A spreadsheet, a shared notes file, a column in a billing tracker — something that lives outside the practice management system and tries to answer the question the system can't: who owes what?

The reason that shadow document exists is simple. Most billing systems weren't designed to handle matters where the financial obligation is split among multiple parties. So firms build workarounds. The workarounds become standard operating procedure. And the standard operating procedure becomes a time sink that billing teams accept as unavoidable.

Multi-Payor Billing removes the need for that external document entirely. In Centerbase, you define your payor schedule directly inside the matter record — navigate to Matter → Cog → Split Billing → Multi-Payor, add your payors, assign percentage splits, and save. Every payor's obligation is tracked in Centerbase from that point forward, through every billing cycle, payment, and AR close. The system holds the record. Your billing team doesn't have to.

Define your payors once. The system tracks every allocation, every payment, and every balance from first invoice through final AR close.

The practical effect is significant. Billing managers spend less time maintaining parallel records and more time on work that requires their judgment. And the risk of discrepancy between what's in the system and what's in the spreadsheet — which is a common source of billing errors on complex matters — drops to zero.

2. Automate Billing Splits So the Math Is Never Wrong

Manual allocation is one of the most error-prone tasks in legal billing. When an invoice needs to be split among four payors — one carrying 60%, one at 25%, one at 10%, and one holding the remainder — someone has to do that math. Then someone has to check it. And if the bill gets edited before posting (which happens constantly), someone has to do it again.

Centerbase takes that work off the table completely. Once you've set up your payor schedule, Centerbase handles every split automatically at the invoice level. When a bill generates, the system divides the total among your payors according to their assigned percentages. No calculator required. No manual entry. No second-check.

Two tools in the Multi-Payor setup make configuration fast and accurate. Distribute Evenly assigns equal percentages across all payors with a single click — useful for co-defendant matters where each party carries the same share. Match Remaining automatically adjusts the last payor's percentage when allocations are slightly over or under 100%, so everything balances without manual correction.

You also designate a Primary Payor to receive rounding remainders — those fractions of a cent that don't divide evenly across payors. It's a small detail, but it's the kind of detail that creates reconciliation headaches when it's handled inconsistently. With a designated Primary Payor, every invoice closes clean.

And if a bill is edited before it's posted — a line item is adjusted, a write-down is applied — the splits recalculate automatically. The payor schedule stays intact. Your billing team doesn't need to do anything.

• Distribute Evenly — one click for equal splits
• Match Remaining — automatic correction when percentages are off
• Primary Payor — designated recipient for rounding remainders
• Dynamic recalculation — splits update automatically if a bill is edited before posting

3. Give Every Role a Complete View of Matter Financials

Multi-payor matters create visibility problems that go well beyond the billing team. When financial data is split across a practice management system, a spreadsheet, and whatever someone's memory holds about a carrier's payment history, it's hard for anyone — billing manager, attorney, partner, finance lead — to get a clear picture of where a matter actually stands.

Centerbase's Multi-Payor tab addresses this directly. Every matter with a multi-payor configuration gets a dedicated tab that functions as a real-time financial ledger. It shows what's been billed to each payor, what's been paid, and what the current balance is — updated automatically with every billing run and every payment posted.

When a bill is generated, the financial summary on the bill itself shows the first five payors and their billing percentages. A link from that summary goes directly to the full Multi-Payor tab for the complete payor breakdown, including previous balances, current charges, payments applied, and credits. Attorneys reviewing a matter before a client meeting can pull up the tab and see the actual financial picture — not an estimate, not a number from a two-week-old spreadsheet.

Every payor's balance, payment history, and billing percentage — visible in a single tab, updated in real time.

For finance and accounting teams, the AR Aging report reflects multi-payor matters accurately. Each payor is treated as a client for reporting purposes, so payor-level balances appear in full — what's owed, what's been collected, and what's outstanding. The result is audit-ready AR data that doesn't require a manual reconciliation step before it can be trusted.

One nuance worth noting: if your team groups the Aged AR report by Invoice, it will display the client assigned to the matter rather than individual payors. Grouping by payor or by matter gives you the full payor-level breakdown.

4. Manage LEDES Submissions Per Payor Without Duplicate Setup

For firms that do insurance defense work, LEDES e-billing adds another layer of complexity to multi-payor matters. Each carrier may require a different LEDES format. Each carrier has its own Client Matter ID. And historically, getting all of that configured correctly has required either extensive manual coordination or opening support tickets every time a carrier changes their requirements.

Centerbase connects Multi-Payor Billing and LEDES configuration in a way that eliminates most of that friction.

When you set up a payor in your Multi-Payor configuration, you can assign a unique Client Matter ID directly to that payor. That ID flows automatically into the LEDES template mapping table — no separate entry, no crosswalk between systems. Set it up once in Multi-Payor and it's available when you're mapping LEDES fields.

Each payor can also be assigned their own LEDES template and delivery address. In the gear icon settings next to any payor, you can uncheck Use Client Settings and configure that payor independently. A matter with four insurance carriers can run four different LEDES formats, each mapped to the correct Client Matter ID — all from a single configuration screen.

The LEDES Template Builder in Centerbase takes this further. When a carrier changes their format requirements — which happens with regularity in insurance defense work — your e-billing coordinators can build and publish an updated LEDES 1998B template themselves, directly from System Settings → Electronic Billing → Self-Serve Templates. No support ticket. No billing hold while you wait. Templates are validated before publishing, so configuration errors are caught before they reach production. Existing system-provided templates are untouched.

• Unique Client Matter IDs per payor — assigned in Multi-Payor setup, auto-populated in LEDES mapping
• Per-payor LEDES template and delivery address — configurable independently for each payor
• Self-serve Template Builder — build and publish LEDES 1998B templates without a support ticket
• Smart validation — templates are checked before save, preventing production errors

5. Simplify Payment Posting and Credit Application Across Payors

Receiving and applying payments on multi-payor matters has always required careful attention. Post a payment to the wrong payor and the AR won't reconcile. Apply a credit at the wrong level and it either disappears or shows up where it shouldn't. In a system that wasn't built for multi-payor billing, these are manual checks that happen every time.

Centerbase handles payment allocation with straightforward, explicit controls. When recording a payment, you select the client as usual — all bills, including multi-payor ones, appear in the payment screen. If you're working directly from the Multi-Payor Matter record and need to allocate to a specific payor, you select that individual payor. The selected payor's balance updates immediately. There's no ambiguity about where the payment went.

Credits work at two distinct levels, and the distinction matters for multi-payor matters. Credits assigned at the matter level apply only to that matter. Credits assigned to the client are available across all of that client's matters. This means a billing manager can apply a credit from one payor to a specific matter without it affecting other matters, or apply a client-level credit that flows wherever it's needed.

Post a payment, select the payor, and the balance updates immediately. No manual ledger step. No reconciliation required.

The result is a payment workflow that's faster and less prone to error. And because every payment is recorded against the correct payor in Centerbase, the AR Aging report stays accurate without any additional reconciliation work from your team.

The Bottom Line

Multi-payor billing is genuinely complex work. Multiple funding sources, dynamic splits, payor-specific LEDES requirements, and AR reporting that needs to reflect every obligation accurately — the underlying complexity isn't going away. The question is whether your practice management system is absorbing that complexity or passing it back to your billing team as manual work.

Centerbase's Multi-Payor Billing is built to absorb it. Payor schedules are defined once and tracked automatically. Splits calculate at the invoice level without manual intervention. AR reporting reflects every payor's balance without reconciliation. LEDES configuration flows from Multi-Payor setup without duplicate entry. And payments post to the right payor with immediate balance updates.

For billing managers, that means fewer manual steps and fewer opportunities for error. For finance and accounting teams, it means AR data that can be trusted without a second pass. For partners and attorneys, it means matter financials that are visible and complete. And for e-billing coordinators handling insurance carrier requirements, it means LEDES templates they can update themselves the same day a carrier changes their format.

Multi-Payor Billing is available now in Centerbase. No migration required. Setup starts at Matter → Cog → Split Billing → Multi-Payor. Your Customer Success Manager can walk your team through configuration in a single session.

Ready to see it in action?

Contact your Customer Success Manager or visit centerbase.com to schedule a walkthrough.

About Centerbase

Centerbase provides cloud-based legal software that centralizes all aspects of law firm management, including billing, accounting, timekeeping, matter and document management, automated workflows, and profitability reporting. Designed for mid-size law firms, Centerbase helps firms modernize operations, optimize productivity, and improve client service. For more information, visit centerbase.com.

Media Contact:
Trish Stromberg
trish.stromberg@centerbase.com

Law firms are under more pressure than ever to operate like modern businesses while still preserving the professional and regulatory structure that makes the legal industry unique. That tension is one reason Managed Services Organizations, or MSOs, are drawing so much attention right now.

In a recent webinar, Cecy Graf, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Federate Legal, broke down what MSOs are, how they differ from alternative business structures, and why firms of all sizes are beginning to explore them as a way to create more flexibility on the business side of law.

Here are the key takeaways.

What is a Managed Services Organization?

At its core, a Managed Services Organization is a separate entity that provides business services to a law firm. Those services can include functions like finance, billing, IT, HR, and operations. What an MSO does not do is provide legal services.

That distinction matters.

Rather than embedding all business operations inside the partnership itself, an MSO separates those operational functions into a dedicated structure designed to run more consistently and scale more effectively. The law firm continues practicing law. The MSO supports the business side.

As Cecy explained during the webinar, this is not about replacing the law firm model. It is about creating a structure around the law firm that can better support the growing operational demands firms face today.

Why law firms are structurally different from other businesses

To understand why MSOs are gaining traction, it helps to start with the law firm model itself.

Law firms do not operate like most other businesses. Because of professional and regulatory constraints, non-lawyers generally cannot own law firms. That means most firms operate as partnerships, with profits distributed to partners rather than retained and reinvested in the business the way they might be in a traditional corporation.

That structure has worked for a long time, but it also creates limitations.

Decision-making is often decentralized. Capital does not accumulate in the same way it does in other industries. Revenue stays closely tied to billable work. And investments in infrastructure, systems, and business operations often compete directly with partner distributions.

The result is that firms can be highly successful, but still face structural friction when it comes to scaling, standardizing, and making sustained long-term investments.

Why the traditional model is feeling pressure now

Those structural limits are becoming harder to ignore because the business environment around law firms has changed.

Clients expect greater efficiency, transparency, and consistency. Technology costs continue to rise. Cybersecurity, data management, and talent strategy are now core business needs, not optional enhancements. Firms are managing more offices, more systems, and more complexity, often without the centralized operating model needed to support them.

At the same time, law firms are no longer competing only with other firms. Alternative legal service providers and technology companies are entering the space with different ownership models, more centralized operations, and greater freedom to invest in infrastructure.

According to Cecy, the issue is not that firms are incapable of improving operations internally. They can and they do. The issue is whether those improvements can be sustained over time and at scale within the traditional partnership model.

That is where MSOs come in.

MSO vs. shared services: what is the difference?

Many firms already use some form of shared services. Finance, IT, HR, and other functions may be centralized across offices or business units. That can create real efficiencies, but it is still happening inside the same law firm structure.

An MSO goes further.

While shared services consolidate work, an MSO changes how that work is governed, funded, and managed. Those functions move into a separate business entity with its own operating structure and defined service relationship with the law firm.

That structural distinction gives firms the opportunity for more centralized accountability, more consistent investment, and greater long-term scalability.

In other words, shared services can improve how a firm runs. An MSO can change how the business side is built.

Why MSOs create more flexibility for firms

One of the major themes from the webinar was that MSOs are not just about efficiency. They also open up options that are difficult or impossible to create within the traditional law firm model.

For example, ownership in a law firm is typically tied to active partners. As partners retire or leave, ownership changes. That can affect continuity, leadership stability, and long-term planning.

An MSO can create a different kind of continuity. Because it is separate from the law firm itself, ownership can persist beyond someone’s active role in legal practice. It can also include non-lawyer leadership, creating opportunities to better align operations professionals with the long-term success of the business.

That does not change ownership of the legal practice. But it can change how the business side is built, incentivized, and sustained.

MSOs are not the same as alternative business structures

One of the clearest points Cecy made was that MSOs and alternative business structures are not the same thing.

That distinction is critical.

An Alternative Business Structure (ABS) allows non-lawyers to own or hold a stake in the entity that delivers legal services. That is a regulatory shift and is only permitted in certain jurisdictions, such as Arizona.

An MSO, by contrast, does not practice law. It provides business support services to the law firm while operating within existing ownership rules.

The two models can coexist. In some cases, firms operating under an ABS may also establish an MSO to manage the business side. But they are fundamentally different structures.

As Cecy noted, while ABSs generated significant attention over the past few years, much of that excitement is beginning to shift toward MSOs because they are often a more practical option with fewer regulatory complications.

What different MSO models can look like

There is no one-size-fits-all MSO model. Firms can structure them in several ways depending on size, goals, and appetite for complexity.

A single-firm MSO is created by one firm to support its own operations. It is intended to serve only that firm and its related entities.

A multi-firm MSO supports several firms through one shared managed services platform. This is the model Federate Legal uses. It can create economies of scale and give smaller firms access to resources they might not be able to afford or build on their own.

A private equity-backed MSO introduces outside capital to help fund growth, technology, and operational investment.

There are also hybrid approaches, depending on what the firm is trying to achieve.

According to Cecy, many firms are starting with the simplest version: a single-firm MSO.

Why private equity is interested in MSOs

MSOs have become closely associated with private equity, largely because they offer a path for outside investors to participate in the legal industry without directly investing in the practice of law.

Private equity firms are drawn to the legal market for several reasons. It is highly fragmented. Many firms are independently building the same back-office infrastructure over and over again. Operational performance varies widely across billing, collections, IT, and data management. And many of these functions are recurring, routine, and ripe for optimization.

From a private equity perspective, that looks less like a traditional law firm challenge and more like a platform opportunity.

Private equity brings capital, operational discipline, and experience building scalable businesses. That can help firms invest in infrastructure, technology, and talent without relying entirely on partner contributions.

But those benefits come with trade-offs.

Outside capital is not neutral. Investors expect returns, timelines, and performance. That can create tension in an industry where decision-making has traditionally been driven by partner relationships, autonomy, and professional judgment rather than centralized operational metrics.

Do firms need private equity to benefit from an MSO?

No.

That was one of the most important takeaways from the webinar.

A firm does not need private equity to benefit from an MSO structure. The real value of an MSO comes from the structure itself, not necessarily from outside funding.

A firm can use an MSO to create more disciplined operations, better technology decisions, stronger billing processes, and a more scalable business model without bringing in external investors.

Private equity may accelerate the process, but it is not required.

As Cecy emphasized, one of the biggest misconceptions in the market today is the idea that MSO automatically means outside investment. It does not. A firm’s MSO can remain wholly owned by the partnership if that is the right fit.

Which firms are most likely to benefit?

While firms of many sizes are exploring the concept, Cecy said the strongest traction right now is among firms in the roughly 30 to 200 attorney range.

These firms are often large enough to feel the strain of operational complexity, but still nimble enough to rethink their structure and adopt new models. For very small firms, a dedicated MSO may not make sense, though shared-service or multi-firm models can still be attractive. At the very largest firms, the conversation is often more complex and may take a different form.

What should firms do first?

For firms hearing about MSOs for the first time, the first step is not to jump into a new structure.

It is to look inward.

Cecy recommended starting with an internal diagnostic. Where is the firm struggling to stay ahead? Where does it want to invest but cannot? Where are there persistent challenges around technology, implementation, billing, HR, or operations? Where is performance inconsistent in ways that should be predictable?

Those questions help identify whether the current structure is still sufficient and where an MSO model might create the most value.

The bottom line

Managed Services Organizations are gaining momentum because they offer law firms something they increasingly need: a more flexible, sustainable way to build and manage the business side of law.

They are not the same as private equity. They are not the same as alternative business structures. And they are not a magic fix for every operational challenge.

But for firms facing growing pressure to invest, standardize, and scale, they may offer a powerful new option.

As Cecy put it, the real question is not whether firms can improve operations inside the traditional law firm model. It is whether they can do it consistently, at scale, and over time.

That is the distinction that matters.

Want to keep the conversation going?

If your firm is beginning to think about operational structure, investment strategy, or how to support long-term growth, understanding the MSO model is a smart place to start.

About Centerbase

Centerbase provides cloud-based legal software that centralizes all aspects of law firm management, including billing, accounting, timekeeping, matter and document management, automated workflows, and profitability reporting. Designed for mid-size law firms, Centerbase helps firms modernize operations, optimize productivity, and improve client service. For more information, visit centerbase.com.

Media Contact:
Trish Stromberg
trish.stromberg@centerbase.com

Multi-Payor Billing is now live in Centerbase.

You can now add multiple payors directly to a single matter.  You assign each payor a percentage of the bill, designate a remainder payor to handle any rounding, and that's it. When you generate an invoice, Centerbase automatically routes the right amount to each payor. No manual splits. No off-system spreadsheet. Bills go to the right place the first time.

The AR side is just as important. AR Aging now shows you exactly what each payor owes, what's been collected, and where balances stand — all in one view. If you've been running AR reports that only told part of the story because your multi-payor work lived outside the system, that problem is gone.

For firms doing a lot of insurance work, there's one more thing worth knowing. The Payor's Client Matter ID — the reference number carriers require on LEDES submissions — flows directly from your Multi-Payor setup into your LEDES template. You set it up once. No duplicate entry.

Getting started is straightforward. Go to any matter, open the billing settings, select Split Billing, and you'll find Multi-Payor Settings right there. Your Centerbase Customer Success Manager can walk you through the first setup in one short call if you'd like a hand.

No migration. No data cleanup. Everything you've already built in Centerbase stays exactly as it is — this just adds new capability on top of it.

We know billing is where a lot of daily friction lives for firm administrators and billing teams. Multi-Payor Billing is an exciting enhancement and it came directly from conversations with firms like yours. If you've been managing matters with sub-matter workarounds, this one's for you.

Learn more about multi-payor billing >

Centerbase IQ™ brings natural language business intelligence directly to law firm leaders. No report requests, no waiting, no guesswork.

Dallas, TX, April 13, 2026 —

If you've ever needed to know how your firm was really performing: collection rates by practice group, which attorneys have WIP aging past 60 days, which matters have deadlines creeping up, you know the drill. Submit a report request. Wait for it to be built. Receive information that may already be out of date.

That experience is about to change.

Centerbase has just announced Centerbase IQ™, an AI-powered natural language decision support capability embedded directly within the Centerbase platform. Debuting at the 2026 Association of Legal Administrators Annual Conference & Expo, IQ gives firm leaders (managing partners, firm administrators, and practice group heads) fast, visual, citation-backed answers drawn from the billing, financial, matter, and productivity data already living inside Centerbase.

In short: you ask a question in plain English, and you get an answer. Right now. From your own firm's data.

What Is Centerbase IQ™?

Centerbase IQ™ is a purpose-built AI intelligence layer on top of the Centerbase legal operating platform. Instead of running static reports or digging through dashboards, firm leaders simply type a question ("Who are our top 10 clients by revenue?" or "Show me AR aging over 90 days") and IQ responds with interactive charts, filterable data tables, narrative analysis, and cited sources.

The technology draws from four data sources simultaneously: your live SQL database, narrative embeddings, document search, and built-in legal research through CourtListener. Every answer cites exactly where the information came from, so the managing partner in the boardroom knows they can trust the number in front of them.

Key Benefits at a Glance

Here's what Centerbase IQ™ delivers to your firm, from day one:

• Natural Language Queries: Ask questions in plain English. No SQL, no report builder, no help ticket required. IQ understands what you're asking and fetches the answer instantly.
• Visual Outputs: Answers aren't just text. IQ returns interactive bar charts, pie charts, and data tables formatted for executive-level decision making. Copy it, share it, act on it.
• Citation-Backed Responses: Every answer shows its work. Users see exactly which source records, documents, or data points were used to generate the response. Transparency is built in, not bolted on.
• Real-Time Data: Data syncs directly from your live Centerbase instance. Matters, billing entries, contacts, trust accounts, and payments are always current. No more waiting on last month's report.
• Document Intelligence: Connect your DMS and IQ searches across PDFs, contracts, and filings alongside structured billing and matter data. Find the clause you need without leaving the platform.
• Built-in Legal Research: Search judges, dockets, and case law via CourtListener directly from the IQ chat. Get judicial history and court opinions without switching systems.
• Pre-Built Question Categories: Ready-to-go queries covering Firm Health, Matters, Financials, WIP & Billing, and more mean your team gets value from minute one. No configuration required.
• Enterprise-Grade Security: AES-256-GCM encryption, tenant-isolated databases, and full audit trails. Your data never touches another firm's, and it is never used to train AI models.

The Value Proposition: Intelligence, Not Just Data

Most legal practice management systems were built before AI existed. Their "analytics" features are canned reports and pivot tables. They tell you what happened, but they can't tell you what it means.

Centerbase IQ™ is different. It understands your question, queries your live data, generates interactive visualizations, and cites every source. The result is answers you can act on, not data you have to interpret.

As Michael Dunn, CEO of Centerbase, put it: "Managing partners should not need a help ticket to understand how their firm is performing."

That philosophy is central to everything IQ does. It also reflects a broader commitment to trust. Scott Cormier, Centerbase's Chief Product Officer, noted: "With Centerbase IQ™, we are not asking firm leaders to trust a black box. We are showing them both the answer and the source."

For midsize firms especially, that trust matters. These firms are expected to operate with the same strategic visibility as large firms, but with leaner administrative teams. When questions go unanswered or critical data is buried in a report queue, decisions get made with incomplete information. Centerbase IQ™ was purpose-built to close that gap.

Why Your Firm Will Want This

Think about the questions your firm wrestles with week to week. Which practice groups are most profitable? Which clients represent the highest concentration of WIP risk? Which attorneys are exceeding realization targets, and which need a conversation? Which matters have deadlines sneaking up in the next 30 days?

Today, getting answers to those questions might take days. With Centerbase IQ™, it takes seconds.

Beyond speed, consider the confidence factor. When you walk into a partner meeting or board session, you want to know your numbers are right. Centerbase IQ™'s citation-backed approach means you're not just presenting a figure; you're presenting a figure with a source. That's a different kind of credibility.

And for firm administrators, IQ reduces the administrative burden of building one-off reports for leadership. Instead of responding to ad-hoc data requests, administrators can focus on higher-value work while managing partners get their answers directly.

This is also just the beginning. Centerbase plans to expand Centerbase IQ™ with proactive insights, deeper agentic AI to power automated workflows, and additional data sources over time. What launches today is already a meaningful leap forward, and the roadmap points toward even greater capability.

Ready to See It for Yourself?

Centerbase IQ™ is available now for a demonstration. If you're a midsize law firm that wants to move from reactive reporting to real-time intelligence, this is worth a look.

🔗 Explore the Centerbase IQ™ Product Page: centerbase.com/IQ

📄 Read the Full Press Release: Centerbase IQ Press Release

Centerbase IQ™ debuted at the 2026 ALA Annual Conference & Expo (Booth 231) in National Harbor, Maryland, April 12–15, 2026.

About Centerbase

Centerbase provides cloud-based legal software that centralizes all aspects of law firm management, including billing, accounting, timekeeping, matter and document management, automated workflows, and profitability reporting. Designed for mid-size law firms, Centerbase helps firms modernize operations, optimize productivity, and improve client service. For more information, visit centerbase.com.

Media Contact:
Trish Stromberg
trish.stromberg@centerbase.com

You scope a matter, assign the team, and start work. Then month-end arrives, and the budget has blown up. Scope creep surfaced too late, and time entries trickled in after the fact. Now you're writing down hours you can't defend to the client.

Legal project management gives you a matter-by-matter system for scoping, tracking, and billing work.
Mid-sized firms don't need another explanation of why project discipline matters. They need a playbook with predictable budgets, documented change control, and billing discipline that catches overruns early. That’s what you’ll get in this guide.

Main Takeaways

• Legal project management standardizes how you scope, track, and bill matters to prevent budget overruns and scope creep.
• Only 20% of matters sent to outside counsel finish within budget, making proactive matter management non-negotiable for profitability.
• Every matter should move through four phases—scope, plan, execute, review—with documented deliverables and named owners at each stage.
• Paralegals own the operational core of legal project management by maintaining work plans, tracking deadlines, and flagging scope-change triggers before they become budget problems.
• A matter-centric system of record eliminates duplicate entries and gives leadership real-time, budget-to-actuals visibility without manual reconciliation.

Make the Case for Legal Project Management Internally Build partner buy-in with a clear rationale for tighter scoping, budgeting, and matter discipline—before you standardize templates and cadences across the firm. Read the Legal Project Management Business Case

What Is Legal Project Management?

Legal project management (LPM) brings core project disciplines to individual legal matters. These are:

Instead of treating each engagement as open-ended, LPM defines what "done" looks like before work begins.

• Scoping
• Budgeting
• Scheduling
• Structured communication

That distinction matters because legal work carries unique risks: outcomes are uncertain, court deadlines shift, opposing counsel forces pivots, and clients push harder on fees every year. Project management for lawyers must handle all of that without becoming too rigid.
LPM addresses scope creep, including blown budgets, late time entries, and client disputes over invoices. While legal process improvement focuses on improving workflows across the firm, LPM governs a single matter, from engagement to close.

Why LPM Matters Now

The pressure on firms to manage matters proactively has moved from "nice to have" to non-negotiable. A 2025 Gartner survey found that only 20% of outside counsel matters finish within the planned budget. Clients now treat those budgets as hard caps, not rough estimates.

In 2024, 59% of firms billed flat fees (alone or alongside hourly), per the Clio Legal Trends Report. When your fee is fixed, every undocumented scope change eats directly into margin. Without active matter management, write-downs chip away at your profit.

The 4 Phases of Legal Project Management

A well-run matter moves through four phases:

• Scope of Work (SOW)
• Plan
• Execute
• Review

Each has its own definition of done, a set of deliverables, and a named owner. When every phase produces a documented output, nothing falls through the gap between engagement and final invoice.

The table below maps each phase to its deliverables, the responsible role, and where that data should live in your firm's system of record. Storing everything in one place eliminates duplicate entry. Your budget-to-actuals reporting then draws from the same data as time and billing.

Legal Project Management Phases Overview

Phase	Key Deliverables	Primary Owner	System of Record
Scope	Matter SOW (goals, assumptions, in/out of scope, deliverables)	Partner / lead attorney	Matter management record; document repository
Plan	Budget and staffing assumptions; matter work plan; communication protocol	LPM lead or practice manager	Matter management record; document repository
Execute	Weekly status updates; change log; time entries; pre-bill reviews	Paralegal (status / tracking); attorneys (time); billing manager (pre-bills)	Timekeeping; billing workflow; document repository
Review	Post-matter review (estimated vs. actual; lessons learned)	LPM lead or firm administrator	Reporting; matter management record

Phase 1: Scope

This phase is complete when the following are documented in a matter SOW approved by the client:

• In-scope work
• Out-of-scope work
• Key assumptions
• Expected deliverables

This is the single most important artifact in the entire lifecycle. Point to it when a client asks why something wasn't included or why the budget changed. Any expansion triggers a formal change request, not a quiet assumption.

Phase 2: Plan

Planning is done when the matter has a task-level budget with staffing assumptions, a contingency reserve, and a documented communication protocol.
You translate legal strategy into a work plan with milestones your team and client can track against. This plan should include:

• Task
• Estimated hours
• Timekeeper level
• Blended rate
• Estimated cost
• Contingency percentage

Clients treat the matter budget as a cap. That's why building in a 10%–15% contingency with documented triggers is essential. If the contingency is visible and the triggers are defined (e.g., "applies if discovery exceeds 5,000 documents"), you can defend the number when it matters.

Phase 3: Execute

Execution is on track when work follows the plan, time is captured daily, and status goes out on a set cadence. Any scope changes must be documented and approved before new work begins. This is where discipline holds or collapses. Most budget overruns start here.

Firms carry roughly 93 days of total lockup—unbilled and unpaid work combined. Enforcing daily time entry with a regular pre-bill review cadence is one of the fastest ways to shorten that cycle. Centralized timekeeping and billing workflows keep budget-to-actuals visible in real time, so overruns surface before month-end.

Phase 4: Review

This phase is complete when you've compared estimated hours and fees against actuals, documented what drove any variances, and shared findings with the team. This is where LPM compounds. Every completed review sharpens your scoping accuracy on the next similar matter and reduces write-downs over time.

Legal Project Management for Paralegals: Workflows and Ownership

Legal project management for paralegals is the operational core of the framework. Paralegals maintain work plans, track deadlines, and flag budget problems before attorneys step in.

A simple RACI model makes ownership clear:

• R: Responsible (the person doing the work)
• A: Accountable (the person who signs off)
• C: Consulted (someone who provides input)
• I: Informed (kept in the loop)

Legal Project Management Duties RACI Chart

LPM Task	Paralegal	Lead Attorney	LPM Lead / Admin
Draft matter kickoff notes	R	A	I
Maintain matter work plan and milestones	R	C	I
Track deadlines and calendar dates	R	I	C
Document control (versions, filing)	R	I	I
Collect internal status from team	R	C	I
Draft weekly client status update	R	A	I
Flag scope-change triggers	R	A	C
Prepare post-matter review data	R	C	A

The weekly cycle looks like this:

This cadence replaces scattered email check-ins and makes sure problems surface weekly, not at month-end when the pre-bill lands. Formalizing this role turns reactive status chasing into a structured protocol.

• On Monday, the paralegal reviews the matter plan for upcoming milestones and deadlines.
• By Wednesday, they’ve collected status from assigned attorneys and flagged any scope-change triggers for escalation.
• On Friday, they draft client status updates—a short summary covering milestone progress, budget burn, upcoming deadlines, and open risks. The lead attorney approves it before it goes out.

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How to Choose the Right Tools

LPM sticks when your tools, staffing model, and adoption plan match your firm's size and complexity. Firms weigh two broad categories of tools for LPM.

The first is generic project and task apps—Kanban boards, standalone to-do lists, and lightweight collaboration tools. These help with visibility but don't connect to matter data, time entries, or billing.

The second is a matter-centric system of record like Centerbase. It unifies matter management, document management, timekeeping, billing, and advanced reporting into one platform.

You can run the scope, plan, and review phases manually. But unless timekeeping, billing, and matter data share a system of record, the execute phase will need duplicate entry and reconciliation.

Without integration, paralegals and billing managers spend hours exporting time data and matching it to budgets in spreadsheets. That delays invoices and increases lockup.

30/60/90 Rollout Plan

For most mid-sized firms, the fastest path to results is standardizing templates and cadences now. Here's a practical 30-, 60-, and 90-day rollout:

Days 1–30

• Select 3–5 pilot matters. Prioritize engagements that already need budgets, involve alternative fee arrangements (AFAs), or follow repeatable phases.
• Build your standard SOW, budget, change request, and status templates.
• Assign a paralegal LPM lead for each pilot.

Days 31–60

• Launch a weekly status cadence on pilot matters.
• Set the expectation for daily time entry and start a pre-bill review schedule.
• Collect feedback from attorneys and paralegals on what's working and what creates friction.

Days 61–90

• Run the first post-matter review on any completed pilots.
• Refine templates based on lessons learned.
• Present results—budget accuracy, billing cycle time, write-down reduction—to firm leadership.
• Expand to more matter types.

How to Prove the Value

Track three metrics before and after your pilot:

• Budget variance (estimated vs. actual fees)
• Realization rate (billed vs. worked rates)
• Billing cycle time (days from matter close to invoice sent)

Run a post-matter review on every pilot and compare the original budget to final fees. If variance narrows over 3–6 months, your scoping and change control are working.

LPM should reduce write-downs on matters with documented scope and approved change requests, lifting realization to the 91.8% mid-law benchmark reported by Thomson Reuters.

When you pair a matter-centric system of record with the right team structure and a phased adoption plan, LPM becomes an operating discipline.

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Run Your Next Matter with Budget Predictability Using Centerbase

Centerbase connects this playbook to your firm's daily operations by centralizing matter data, time, billing, and reporting in one system.

Budget-to-actuals tracking won't depend on manual handoffs or exported spreadsheets. Overruns will surface in real time. Status reporting will pull from the same data as billing, so there's no duplicate entry and no delays between what the team reports and what the invoice reflects.

Get a free demo and see how mid-sized firms run matters with budget predictability they can defend.

FAQs about Legal Project Management

What happens when a client rejects a change request?

If the client rejects the change request, stop the out-of-scope work right away and document the decision. Continuing without approval turns a scope issue into a realization problem you can't defend. Present the request with a clear budget impact and timeline.

If the client declines, update the matter plan to reflect the revised scope and notify your team. If the work is already done before the request surfaces, that's a process failure. The post-matter review should capture it as a lesson and tighten your trigger list next time.

What's the fastest way to get attorneys to adopt the weekly status cadence without it feeling like extra admin work?

Frame the weekly update as "what keeps the client from calling you with questions." Tie it to faster approvals—clients who see progress weekly are less likely to dispute invoices or delay payment.

Use a standard template covering milestone status, budget burn, upcoming deadlines, and risks. The paralegal can complete it in 10–15 minutes per matter, and the attorney approves in under five.

Tax season is stressful when your expenses are scattered across receipts, cards, and spreadsheets. Small mistakes can add up fast. You might miss deductions you earned or claim something you cannot support.

What counts as a real business expense? Which costs are off-limits? Knowing the rules about lawyer tax deductions helps you avoid trouble with the IRS and puts more money back into your practice.

Main Takeaways

• Lawyer tax deductions can lower your tax bill, but only if you track expenses well. Poor records can lead to missed deductions or denied claims.
• Office and home office costs are common tax deductions for lawyers. Home office claims need strict “regular and exclusive use” proof and strong documentation.
• Many professional costs are deductible, including bar dues, required memberships, and CLE. Education must maintain or improve legal skills, not support a new career.
• Travel, mileage, and meals can be deductible when the purpose is business. Meals are usually only 50% deductible, and you must document who attended and why.
• Strong habits make deductions easier to claim and defend. Keep clean records, use legal-specific tools, work with a legal-focused CPA, and review expenses quarterly.

10 Essential Lawyer Tax Deductions in 2026

Tax deductions for lawyers can significantly reduce your tax burden if you track and document them properly. Here are the most common deductions for law firms.

1. Office Expenses

Office expenses are some of the most common law firm tax deductions. Keep receipts and clear notes so each cost ties back to firm operations. Common deductible office expenses may include:

• Interest costs for rent or mortgage on the law office building or buildings.
• Office furniture and equipment, which may be deductible as first-year expenses, regular depreciation, or under a safe harbor rule.
• Normal office supplies, which may be deducted in full during the year of purchase when they are reasonably expected to be used within the year.
• Office maintenance and certain repairs.
• Software and subscriptions used to operate the firm, such as case management tools, billing tools, and secure document storage.
• Credit card processing and transaction fees charged for accepting client payments.

If you work from a dedicated space at home, separate rules apply. See the home office deduction section below.

2. Home Office Deduction

You may claim the home office deduction if you use a dedicated area of your home regularly and exclusively for legal work. This lets you deduct a portion of your rent or mortgage, utilities, and insurance.

Use the simplified (square footage) option for home office deduction or actual expense method, but keep detailed records. The IRS requires proof that the space is used only for business, so save items like photos, a basic floor plan, and utility bills to support the claim.

3. Professional Fees and Dues

Bar dues and licensing fees are generally deductible. Dues paid by the firm to professional associations on behalf of attorneys and staff may also qualify as business expenses. This can include trade association dues and chamber of commerce fees. Some public service organizations may qualify as well when their main purpose is providing community services.

4. Accounting and Tax Preparation Fees

Fees you pay to an accountant or tax professional for business tax prep are usually deductible. Keep invoices and payment records. Ask your accountant to separate business charges from personal charges if the bill includes both. Only the business portion counts. This deduction usually applies to business owners and self-employed lawyers. W-2 employees usually cannot deduct unreimbursed work expenses under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).

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5. Travel and Business Meals

Business travel can be deductible. Travel must be for work, not personal reasons. Deductible costs can include airfare, hotels, and ground transportation for out-of-town hearings or conferences.

Local transportation can also be deductible when you travel between offices, courts, and client meetings. You can use the standard mileage rate or actual expenses. Meals are usually only 50% deductible. Keep the date, location, attendees, and business purpose for each meal.

6. Continuing Legal Education (CLE)

Courses and conferences that maintain or improve your legal skills are deductible. Training unrelated to your current practice, or aimed at starting a new career, does not qualify. Keep receipts and course descriptions so you can show the education was tied to your legal work. These records help support that the training maintained or improved your existing skills.

7. Legal Research and Subscriptions

Legal research tools and subscriptions are often deductible when they support your legal work. This can include online research platforms, legal journals, and practice-specific publications. These costs should be paid by the firm and used for business purposes. Keep invoices and subscription terms for your records. A CPA can help with special cases, such as long-term subscriptions or mixed personal use.

8. Marketing and Advertising

Most law firm marketing expenses are deductible when they are used to promote the business. This can include website costs, print ads, website hosting, content creation, and lead tracking tools. CRM or intake software may also be deductible when it supports marketing and client acquisition. Networking meals or events may be partly deductible when the main purpose is business.

9. Insurance Premiums

Some insurance premiums may be deductible. Malpractice insurance is a common example. Property insurance for the office may also qualify. Deductibility can depend on the policy type and who is covered. A CPA can help with special cases, especially when personal coverage is involved.

10. Retirement and Pension Plan Contributions

Contributions to SEP IRAs, SIMPLE IRAs, or Solo 401(k)s are deductible, up to annual limits set by the IRS. The amount you can deduct depends on your plan type and income, so work with a tax advisor to maximize this benefit.

11. Legal Fees Paid by the Lawyer

Legal fees tied to running the firm are generally deductible. These may include lease negotiations, debt collection, or employment-related claims. The expense must relate directly to business operations. Legal fees for personal matters are usually not deductible. Personal matters include divorce, wills, and other personal disputes.

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Limits on Lawyer Tax Deductions

Certain expenses are never deductible, even if you are a practicing attorney. Let's explore what these include.

Personal Legal Expenses
You cannot deduct legal fees for personal matters. Divorce, child custody, and estate planning are common examples. Personal legal fees do not qualify. Only legal fees tied to your business may be deductible.

Pro Bono Work
You cannot deduct the value of your time spent on pro bono work. The IRS does not allow a deduction for donated services. Some out-of-pocket costs may qualify in certain cases. Court filing fees may be deductible as a charitable contribution if the case meets the rules.

TCJA Impacts
The TCJA removed most unreimbursed work expense deductions for W-2 employees. Your employment status affects what you can deduct. W-2 attorneys usually cannot deduct work expenses. Employer reimbursement is required in most cases. The reimbursement should be under an accountable plan.

How to Track & Claim Law Firm Tax Deductions

Proper tracking is key to claiming law firm tax deductions without stress or surprises. These best practices help you stay organized and ready for tax time.

1. Maintain Detailed Records
   Accurate records make claiming deductions much easier. Keep receipts, invoices, payroll records, bank statements, and prior tax returns organized in one system. Disorganized files can lead to missed deductions or filing errors.
   
   Categorize expenses consistently throughout the year instead of waiting until year-end. Attach receipts to each transaction when possible. Pay extra attention to home office, meals, and travel expenses, since these deductions require more documentation and face closer IRS review.
   
2. Use Legal-Specific Accounting Tools
   Legal-specific accounting tools make it easier to track deductions correctly. Matter-based expense tracking helps connect costs to a clear business purpose. Trust accounting features also help firms stay compliant.
   
   Tools designed for law firms reduce manual work and errors. Matter-level tracking strengthens audit readiness, especially for travel, meals, and reimbursable client costs where documentation matters most.
   
3. Work With a Legal-Focused CPA
   A CPA who understands law firm accounting can help you avoid costly mistakes. Some deductions are allowed only when classified correctly. Others can increase audit risk if handled improperly.
   
   A legal-focused CPA can also help set up accountable reimbursement plans. These plans protect deductibility and reduce confusion for attorneys and staff who incur business expenses.
   
4. Run Quarterly Reviews
   Quarterly reviews help you stay ahead of tax surprises. Use these check-ins to review deduction totals, reconcile accounts, and confirm documentation for higher-risk expense categories.
   
   Quarterly reviews also support estimated tax planning for self-employed lawyers. Regular check-ins make it easier to adjust payments as income changes and avoid penalties at year-end.

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Reduce Tax Burden With Better Tools From Centerbase

Carefully tracking and claiming all eligible lawyer deductions can substantially reduce your law firm's tax liability. A system that supports matter-based billing, trust accounting, and precise expense tracking gives you control over deductions.

Centerbase streamlines accounting and keeps law firms audit-ready. Our platform replaces manual spreadsheets with automated tools that free you from paperwork.

Get a free demo to see how Centerbase can make your next tax season simpler.