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Legal

Expense management for law firms

Fee earners submit court travel, client entertaining and disbursements against matters. Partners approve on the move. Finance gets clean records that stand up to audit and SRA scrutiny.

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Approval queue
Stage 1 Stage 2 Finance

Jonny Dowell

Claim 145

£199.39

11 February 2025

  • Meeting

    Mileage

    Modified 6%450 miCO2 124 kg

    £112.50

    VAT £0.00

  • M&S

    Meals and drinks

    Duplicate expenseIncomplete

    £26.80

    VAT £0.00

  • 2 Knives Bar and Kitchen

    Meals and drinks

    Approval 1 of 2Event to London, 191 mi

    £48.10

    VAT £8.01

  • Tamworth Burger King

    Missing category

    IncompleteWeekend

    £11.99

    VAT £0.00

Smart Audit

Rejected Duplicate expense

2 Knives Bar and Kitchen

Event and client meet, 307 mi, 9 hrs

£20.00

VAT £8.01

  • Receipt read and matched to the card line
  • VAT receipt present, £8.01 reclaimable
  • Same merchant, date and amount as claim 145, line 3

Sound familiar?

The problems we hear most often

  • Paper expense forms and lost receipts from fee earners on the road
  • Disbursements recorded late, so they are missed off client bills
  • Partners chasing approvals between hearings
  • Audit requests answered from email chains and filing cabinets

How Capture Expense helps

What changes

Matter and fee earner tagging

Every expense carries the matter reference and fee earner, ready for recharge and for practice management exports.

Everything on mobile and chat

Receipts by photo, WhatsApp or Teams between hearings, with mileage calculated from the court's postcode.

Partner approval, properly

Route by department, matter type or category, with out-of-office delegation so nothing waits for a trial.

Audit trail as standard

Receipts, approvals and changes timestamped and exportable, with a read-only auditor role for external review.

Policy without friction

Entertaining, alcohol and gift rules enforced by Smart Audit rather than argued about after the event.

Finance system integration

Posting into Xero, Sage, Business Central, NetSuite, Access and other practice finance systems.

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See how legal teams use it, in 30 minutes

Bring a couple of real claims and your finance system. We will show you how each one flows from receipt to ledger.

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Rated 4.9 out of 5 on Capterra No credit card for the trial Reply within one working day

“Greenwoods put an end to manual expense forms, saving more than three hours a week.”
Finance team, Greenwoods Legal LLP

Customer stories

Organisations like yours

Greenwoods case study: 3+ hours saved a week 3+ hours saved every week

Legal

Greenwoods put an end to manual expense forms

Discover how Capture Expense streamlined Greenwoods' expense process, leading to faster approvals, reimbursements and greater efficiency.

Read Greenwoods Legal LLP's story

The parts that matter most

Capabilities to explore

Approvals and policy

Multi-stage Approval Records, line manager routing, category overrides, spend limits and alerts.

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Smart Audit

AI checks every claim against policy, VAT rules and history, then approves, rejects or escalates with the reasons attached.

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Mobile app

Native iOS and Android apps with full parity: capture, claim, approve and administer on the move.

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75%
time saved by replacing manual processes
44%
reduction in spend through policy controls
60%
fewer repetitive finance admin tasks
34%
increase in VAT reclaimed

From the blog

Further reading

Questions

Frequently asked questions

Can't find what you're looking for? Talk to us and we'll answer within a working day.

Can we post disbursements to our practice management system?
Yes. Client disbursements carry the matter reference and fee earner and post separately from firm overheads, so each lands on the right ledger account and recharges correctly. Native connectors cover Xero, QuickBooks, Business Central and NetSuite, and the export library includes formats for Access, Sage and other practice finance systems.
How do fee earners tag an expense to a matter?
They pick the matter from a list in the app, on the web or in WhatsApp and Teams, so there is nothing to type. Matters are held as projects in Capture Expense and maintained from your finance system, and finance can require a matter on disbursement categories with a validation rule.
Does it help with SRA Accounts Rules and audit?
Every receipt, approval, change and comment is timestamped and kept, and a read-only Auditor role gives your external accountant access to claims, receipts and approval history without the ability to change anything. Disbursements and office costs are separated at source, which supports the reconciliations your reporting accountant asks for.
Can partners approve from court or on the move?
Yes. Approvals work in the mobile app, by email and in Microsoft Teams. Routing follows department, matter type or category, and out-of-office delegation means a claim never waits for a partner who is in a hearing.
How is VAT on disbursements and client entertaining handled?
VAT rules are set per category, so disbursements and client entertaining can each carry the treatment your policy requires, and Smart Audit flags any line where the VAT treatment or the receipt looks wrong before it reaches finance.
Will it work for barristers' chambers and multi-office firms?
Yes. Chambers can run each member as a separate cost centre, and multi-office firms run one organisation with office-level approvals and reporting, or several linked entities on one bill.

See how simple expenses can be

Book a 30 minute demo with one of our team, or start a free trial and explore a ready-made workspace with your own data.

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Rated 4.9 out of 5 on Capterra No credit card for the trial Reply within one working day

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