Invoicing and trust accounting for migration agents

Each line on an invoice has a type: professional fee, government or authority fee, disbursement or discount, with GST set line by line. Government fees and disbursements are GST-free by default and are treated as money passing through your hands, not as revenue.

Invoices are emailed from your own connected mailbox with the PDF attached, and recording a payment issues a numbered receipt.

Set a payment plan on the matter with a stage for each instalment and a trigger for each stage: the agreement being signed, the matter being lodged, the visa being granted, a fixed date, or your own say-so. Each stage becomes its own draft invoice when its moment arrives.

Connect your Stripe account and each invoice you send carries a Pay Now link. The money goes directly to your account. Stripe deducts its own processing fee, and LodgeHQ adds no fee of its own.

Money paid before the work is done is tracked on its own ledger, matter by matter. Send a numbered deposit request, record the deposit by hand or from your bank statement file, and a numbered trust receipt is issued.

Money leaves the clients' account for a stated purpose: applying it to an invoice, paying the Department, paying a disbursement, refunding the client or transferring it to another of their matters.

When a stage of the work is done, issue the statement of services for it, as section 313 of the Migration Act requires before you are entitled to the fee. The statement belongs to the completed work and to drawing the fee from the money you hold. Sending an invoice does not send one.

The monthly reconciliation compares the ledger with the closing balance on your bank statement. It cannot be signed off until any difference is explained, and a signed reconciliation cannot be edited afterwards.

Each matter has a statement of the money held for it, on your letterhead. For the firm as a whole, the audit pack exports the register, the fee withdrawals, a trial balance and the signed reconciliations in one download.

Send a quote the client can accept online and convert it to an invoice. Track time with a timer and turn unbilled time into a draft invoice. With Xero connected, invoices, credit notes, payments and contacts copy across, and payment status comes back.