01
Services
Legal work performed on your matter, including who performed the work and the amount of time recorded.
CLIENT BILLING GUIDE
How to Read Your Bill
Your Knauf Santos Law bill is designed to show what work was performed, what expenses were incurred, how payments or trust funds were applied, and what—if anything—is currently due.
This guide explains the most common sections you may see on an invoice or statement. If you have a question about your individual account, contact our team and we’ll walk through it with you.
Invoices
Trust Funds
Statements
THE BASICS
Three Parts of Your Invoice
02
Expenses
Case-related costs paid or incurred on your behalf, such as filing fees, experts, records, or other third-party charges.
03
Current Invoice
The summary of new charges, prior balances, credits, trust funds applied, and the amount currently due.
CLIENT TRUST ACCOUNT
Understanding Your Trust Balance
Funds held in trust are not the same as payments already earned by the firm. As work is performed and invoices are issued, eligible amounts may be transferred from trust and applied toward your balance.
Your invoice or statement shows those transactions so you can see how funds moved into and out of the trust account.
UNDERSTANDING YOUR INVOICE
An invoice is your monthly bill for work done during a specific period, plus any case‑related expenses. It has three main parts: Services, Expenses, and the Current Invoice summary. “Services” lists the legal work performed (what was done, by whom, and for how long). “Expenses” lists out‑of‑pocket costs paid on your behalf, such as filing fees, experts, or records.
The Current Invoice section shows what is due for that billing period. It includes:
- Services subtotal (total for legal work)
- Expenses subtotal (total for costs)
- Subtotal (services + expenses)
- Outstanding Balance (any unpaid amounts from prior invoices)
- Amount in Trust (how much is currently in your trust account)
- Total Credit (how much of your trust funds will be applied)
Below that, the Statement of Account shows how everything fits together over time. It lists any Outstanding Balances carried over from prior periods, the New Charges for this invoice, and how trust funds or payments reduce what you owe. The Detailed Statement of Account then breaks this down with the same key numbers—Outstanding Balance, Amount in Trust, and Total Credit, so you can see clearly what has been paid and what, if anything, remains due.
Finally, the IOLTA section shows the actual trust account (client trust) transactions: money in (retainers or deposits you or a third party paid) and money out (funds applied to your invoices). This lets you see, in one place, how your payments move from trust to pay for services and expenses, and helps you confirm that every dollar is accounted for.
Statements
On your account, an invoice is a request for payment for work recently performed, while a statement is a snapshot of how your account stands over time. When no new work was done in a given month, you receive a statement instead of an invoice; it summarizes your prior balance, your current trust balance, and any amount still owed from past invoices.
- The easiest way to tell whether you have an INVOICE or a STATEMENT is at the right side of the first page of the document it will either say “INVOICE” or “Statement of Account”.
- Any surplus in trust simply remains on your account and will be applied automatically when work resumes.
- If a statement shows an unpaid balance from earlier invoices, that balance is still due, even if there are no new charges that month.
QUESTIONS?
Need Help Reading Your Bill?
If something on your invoice or statement is unclear, contact our team. We would rather walk through the account with you than have you guess what a line item or balance means.