Reviewing and Approving Invoices in LeanLaw
How to move invoices through the Review and Approve stages in LeanLaw — including assigning reviewers, bulk approval, submitting to QuickBooks, and sending to clients.
After building a draft invoice, it needs to be reviewed, approved, and submitted to QuickBooks before it can be delivered to the client. This article covers every step from Draft to delivery.
Moving a Draft to Review (if Review Stage is Enabled)
If your firm uses the Draft → Review → Approve workflow:
- Open the draft invoice in the Draft tab.
- Optionally assign a reviewer by selecting them in the top-right corner of the invoice. The reviewer's initials display on the invoice.
- Click Move to Review (or the equivalent action button). The invoice moves to the Review tab.
- The reviewer can open the invoice, make any final edits, and then move it to Approved.
|
📋 Note: Even without a designated reviewer, invoices can progress through the Review stage. Filtering invoices by reviewer in the Review tab helps teams manage who is responsible for which invoices. |
Approving Invoices
To approve a single invoice:
- Open the invoice from the Draft or Review tab.
- Click Approve. The invoice moves to the Approved tab and is locked against further editing.
To bulk-approve multiple invoices:
- In the Draft or Review tab, check the checkbox next to each invoice you want to approve.
- Click Approve Only from the bulk action options at the top or bottom of the screen.
- All selected invoices move to Approved.
|
⚠️ Approved invoices are locked: Once approved, an invoice cannot be edited in LeanLaw. To make changes, you must undo it back to Draft status. See Article 6: Voiding & Adjusting Invoices. |
Submitting to QuickBooks Online
After approval, invoices are ready to be synced to QuickBooks Online:
- Go to the Approved tab in Billing.
- Select the invoices you want to submit (individually or in bulk).
- Click Submit to QuickBooks. LeanLaw syncs the invoices to QuickBooks Online.
- Submitted invoices move to the Manage Invoices tab.
|
💡 Tip: Submit all invoices for a billing cycle at once using bulk select — check the top checkbox to select all, then click Submit to QuickBooks. This is faster than submitting one at a time. |
Delivering Invoices to Clients
After invoices are in QuickBooks, you can email or print them from the Manage Invoices tab in LeanLaw:
Email Delivery
- In Manage Invoices, find the invoice(s) to email.
- For a single invoice: click the three-dot menu (⋮) → Email.
- For multiple invoices: check their checkboxes, then click Email from the bulk delivery menu at the bottom.
- A delivery pop-up lets you customize the email addresses, subject line, body text, and payment links.
- Click Send. The invoice is delivered and status updates to Delivered.
Print / PDF Delivery
- In Manage Invoices, use the Delivery filter to show invoices marked 'Ready to Print'.
- Select all, then click Deliver → Combined PDF to generate a single PDF of all selected invoices.
- Print and mail as needed.
|
📋 Payment links: Invoice emails can include payment links (via Confido Legal) so clients can pay online. Payment links require LeanLaw Payments to be active. |