The outcome.

In a fully powered firm, the first invoice on every new matter is right. The billing arrangement in the system matches the engagement letter, and the client’s e-billing rules are known before anyone records an hour. That is 10X what your setup team can do with the hours it has.

This capability prepares the matter-opening checklist from the acceptance record, the engagement letter and the intake packet. It fills in each system’s fields, pulls out the terms that drive billing, lists the documents on file and names an owner for everything still missing. A person opens the matter in the firm’s systems, in minutes instead of a week of follow-up emails. The checklist enters nothing, sends nothing and interprets nothing in the engagement letter.

Who starts the work, and when.

The firm administrator starts it once the responsible attorney has accepted the client through the firm’s own process and the engagement terms are agreed. If either record is missing, it stops and says which. The billing coordinator reruns it as open items close.

What they supply.

  • The acceptance record.Who accepted the client, for which matter.
  • The engagement letter as agreed.Billing arrangement, rates, retainer and any client billing requirements.
  • The intake packet.Client, contacts, parties and documents gathered at intake, with the firm’s conflict review record.
  • The matter-opening standard.Each system’s required fields, the numbering rule and the documents every matter must hold.

What comes out.

A checklist in four parts: matter fields ready to enter, billing terms with their source clause, documents on file, and open items with an owner and the step each blocks. The example continues Inquiry handoff at the same invented 40-person litigation and employment firm.

Illustrative example with invented data. The checklist for Matter 26-0412.

Matter-opening checklist: Matter 26-0412, Client A, contract dispute with Party B

Sources read
Acceptance record. Engagement letter, countersigned. Intake packet, latest version.
Matter fields
Client A. Contract dispute with Party B. Matter 26-0412. Litigation. Responsible attorney as named in the acceptance record. Ready to enter.
Billing terms
Hourly, at the rates in the engagement letter’s schedule. Retainer as the engagement letter states.
Documents on file
Intake packet, the firm’s conflict review record, acceptance record, engagement letter, supply contract.
Open item 1
Billing contact: still missing, requested at intake. Owner: responsible attorney, to raise with Client A’s operations director. Blocks billing setup.
Open item 2
E-billing preference: not recorded. Owner: billing coordinator, once the billing contact is named. Blocks billing setup.

Prepared for the firm administrator, who opens the matter. The billing coordinator sets up billing. Whether work starts before both items close is the firm administrator’s call under the firm’s own rule.

Good means the billing coordinator sets up billing without rereading the engagement letter, and sees the two answers that stand between Matter 26-0412 and a correct first invoice.

Where it fits.

What has to change for your company.

  1. Your systems and their fields.Which systems a new matter touches, what each requires and how a matter is numbered.
  2. The billing terms to capture.Arrangement, rates, retainer, budget caps, billing guidelines and e-billing format.
  3. Work with items still open.Whether work starts before billing setup is complete, and who can make the exception.

In professional services and engineering firms this is project or account opening. A signed statement of work starts it, milestone terms replace a retainer, and a project manager or finance lead owns it.

We map the path from acceptance to first invoice with the firm administrator, the billing coordinator and the responsible attorney, then land each field on the role that owns it. This capability template is written for ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot and Gemini, and your firm keeps control of how the work gets done.

What has been checked.

Fully Powered AI wrote this capability template. It was editorially reviewed on 9 November 2026. It has not yet been tested in a client environment. It has not yet been tested as a packaged version in ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or Gemini.

Testing in your firm means preparing checklists for recently opened matters and comparing them with what billing needed, including a fixed-fee matter and one with no agreed letter, which should stop. Pilot acceptance-test preparation builds that test set, and What we test before we call an AI workflow ready shows the record we keep.

Next step.

Bring the engagement letter and setup record from one recently opened matter, and we will map the checklist your systems need.

Book a 30-minute fit call.