LeanLaw provides default settings for retainer memos but you may see fit to edit the memo to fit your law firm's needs. What is a Retainer Memo? A Retainer Memo is a customizable area that you can add to your client's invoice that have variable fields in relation to your trust account. There are two ways to modify the retainer memo. The first is at the Firm Level and the second is at the Invoice Level. Read on to find out how to edit the Retainer Information Memo.

The Settings button is the gear shift in the top toolbar:

Once you are in Settings, scroll down the menu to the Trust Accounting section:

Under the Invoice Trust Notice box, where you will see the Memo information, press the gray Customize button:

Now you can edit the retainer information by clicking in the Edit Full Payment Notice box:

You can edit the wording or add values from the menu from the fields outlined in the Fields to use when customizing trust notices box, as seen above. You cannot drag and drop those fields, but you can copy and paste them in to the Edit Full Payment Notice box. You can also utilize the Edit Partial Payment Notice box as well.

Once you have made your edits and changes, click the green Save button to preserve your work:

Now you have edited the retainer memo firm-wide.

In the toolbar, go to the Billing tab and click on it:

From the Billing Page, now you will click on the Drafts tab:

Select the appropriate Draft invoice and approve and send it to QuickBooks Online by clicking the Approve button and using the drop down menu to choose Approve and Submit to QuickBooks Online:

Click on the QuickBooks tab. Then filter your invoices by With Trust or Without Trust:

Once you've filtered your invoices, click the three dots to the right of the invoice so the menu of options pops up:

Click the option to Open in QuickBooks so you will quickly get to QuickBooks Online. This will take you directly to Quickbooks, thus saving you a step!

Scroll down the invoice page to the Message on the Invoice box, where you can now edit the Retainer Information:

Once you have completed the changes, go to Save and Close to save your work:

Now you have edited the retainer memo at the invoice level.

Q "Hello, For some reason the Retainer information is not showing up on QBO invoices for a client. I'm just looking for clarification on settings in QBO or Lean Law to get this information to populate. I'm not sure if anything needs to be added to the memo field in QBO."

A Generally this happens if the Trust Deposit was created after the Invoice was sent to Draft, but it has to go all the way back to show on the Invoice. For this particular invoice, you can send the Invoice all the way back to Ready to Bill and re-create it. In the future, make sure to send the invoice to draft first, before utilizing the Trust Deposit.

Q "I billed a client and applied a payment from Trust toward their bill. Then I went into QB and deleted the payment because it was not showing correctly on the invoice. How do I go back into the memo section of the bill and change the balances? i.e. It still has the old data in the memo section and did not recognize that I brought an invoice back from QBO. The memo section shows a payment from retainer, but that was deleted and the invoice was sent back to LL. So, the payment from retainer should not be $632.25. It should be-0-. I am trying to pay $150 from retainer for a beginning balance at conversion and then I want to pay $632.25 from retainer for this bill, but the invoice still shows that the $150 is still due."

A Okay, keep in mind that the memo is cosmetic and will display the data based on having Trust that will cover some or all of the Invoice. That data can be manually adjusted when you need to, but by default will apply all available Trust in the memo. Because the memo is only cosmetic, it needs to be changed if you are not going to apply all available Trust prior to the Payment. The amounts in the Memo do not automatically change based on the payments that come after the fact. Trust changes in the Memo need to be made during the Ready to Bill stage. You will need to drill into the Matter and go to the second stage of the invoice in Ready to Bill to edit the Retainer amounts.

You actually cannot edit the information that the "Include Trust" checkbox provides, but you can copy and paste it into the notes and then uncheck the "Include Trust".