| name | clio-billing |
| description | Work with Clio billing — list bills, check billing summaries, AR aging, draft/issue/void state transitions, and reconcile payments. Use when the user mentions "bill", "invoice", "outstanding balance", "AR aging", "accounts receivable", "send invoice", "draft bill", "credit memo", "write off", "what does client X owe", or asks for revenue or collection numbers. |
Clio billing
Clio's billing model: activities (time + expense) → bills (drafted,
approved, sent, paid) → payments (Clio Payments or external). Each
transition is auditable.
Bill states (Clio v4)
| State | Meaning |
|---|
draft | In progress, not visible to client |
pending_approval | Submitted, waiting on a reviewer |
awaiting_payment | Issued and sent to client |
paid | Fully paid |
void | Cancelled |
The MCP filters list_bills by state. Use exact lowercase strings.
Common asks
"What does Acme owe us?"
1. clio_search_contacts(query="Acme") → find client_id
2. clio_list_bills(client_id=<id>, state="awaiting_payment", fields="id,number,issued_at,due_at,total,balance,matter{id,display_number}")
3. Sum balances; show oldest first
"Show me AR aging"
1. clio_list_bills(state="awaiting_payment", limit=200)
2. Bucket by (today - due_at): 0-30, 31-60, 61-90, 90+
3. Report buckets + totals
If you need it firm-wide, page through; remind the user the call is
potentially heavy and confirm before pulling >1000 bills.
"Draft a bill for matter 4821"
The MCP doesn't expose POST /bills directly (Clio's bill creation is
multi-step: select activities, generate, then transition). Tell the user
this happens in the Clio UI today, or use clio_api_request with caution.
"What's outstanding on matter 4821?"
clio_get_billing_summary(matter_id=4821)
This returns: matter_id, bill_count, total_billed, total_paid,
outstanding_balance, and last_issued_at (plus a truncation warning if
the matter has more than 10,000 bills). It aggregates bills only —
trust balances and unbilled time/expenses are not included. For trust, see
clio-trust-accounting; for unbilled
activities, use clio_list_activities with billed=false.
"What got paid this month?"
clio_list_bills(state="paid", limit=200, fields="id,number,paid_at,total,matter{id,display_number}")
Filter client-side by paid_at month, since the API doesn't expose a
paid_since filter at this time. (Track if Clio adds one.)
State transitions
Most transitions happen in the Clio UI. The MCP wraps reads, not state
changes. If the user wants to mark a bill paid or void, route them to the
Clio web UI — or use clio_api_request with explicit confirmation.
Confirmation before any write
If the user asks for anything that mutates bill state, confirm twice:
- "I'm about to mark bill #1234 as void. This is irreversible from the
API. The client may already have received it. Confirm?"
- If yes: fire the request, echo the result.
Reconciliation patterns
For three-way reconciliation (operating + trust + ledger), see
clio-trust-accounting. Bills alone
don't tell the trust story.
For Clio Payments specifically (the integrated payments product),
/clio_payments/payments.json and /clio_payments/links.json are the
endpoints. Wrap via clio_api_request if needed.
Don't
- Don't auto-issue bills. Issuance is when the client sees the invoice.
- Don't write off balances without partner approval. "Write off" usually
means a credit memo (
/credit_memos.json).
- Don't sum balances across clients without confirming the user wants
firm-wide visibility (some users only see their own).
Reference
