Disbursements

The Disbursements tab in a matter is where you manage third-party costs connected to legal work, such as court fees, search fees, and other out-of-pocket expenses.

What You Can Do in This Tab

• View disbursement values and current status.
• Track billed and unbilled disbursements.
• Mark eligible disbursements as unrecoverable.

Unrecoverable Slide-Out Panel

The Unrecoverable action opens a slide-out panel used to write off the remaining recoverable value on a disbursement.

Key Behavior

• The Amount field is intentionally read-only in this panel.
• The amount is system-driven and based on the disbursement’s remaining balance.
• The feature is designed as a full remaining-balance write-off, not partial write-off entry.

Why Paid Disbursements Show a Greyed-Out Amount

If a disbursement is already fully paid, the remaining amount due is zero. In that case:

• The panel can still be opened in current behavior.
• The Amount field appears disabled (greyed out).
• There is no editable value because there is nothing left to write off.

Important Validation Rules

• A disbursement that has been billed cannot be marked unrecoverable.
• The unrecoverable amount must match the full amount due at time of update.
• Draft or awaiting-approval disbursements are not eligible for the unrecoverable update flow.

When to Use Unrecoverable

Use this action when you need to write off the full outstanding value of a disbursement that will not be recovered from the client.

Related How-To

For step-by-step instructions, see How to mark a disbursement as unrecoverable.