How to automate expense management in Actionstep

Key takeaways

• Actionstep is practice management and legal accounting for midsize law firms.
• Client costs are disbursements (called expenses in the U.S.), recorded against a matter with an income account and tax code.
• Firm withdrawals can create billable expense records on a matter, with UTBMS or LEDES expense codes.
• Vergo proposes the matter and account, texts for receipts and records disbursements or bills through the API.

Where should you go next?

• Vergo's Actionstep integration
• What expense management software integrates with Actionstep?
• Get started with Vergo

How do you automate expense management in Actionstep, step by step?

1. Enable API access. Your IT enables it once; Vergo does the rest.
2. Keep the firm's cards. Connecting your existing cards involves no card applications, no re-issuing and no banking change.
3. Collect receipts by text. Lawyers and paralegals reply with a photo from court or the client's office. Employees handle everything by text message — no app to download, no portal login — and Vergo chases missing receipts itself instead of waiting for a report.
4. Code to matter and account. Vergo proposes the matter, account and billable status for each line, with the reason.
5. Record in Actionstep. Once API access is enabled, Vergo records coded card spend in Actionstep as disbursements against the matter, or as bills, through Actionstep's API.

What does Actionstep need on each card charge?

• Matter: so the cost can be billed.
• Account: income account for disbursements, GL account for firm costs.
• Tax code.
• Expense code: UTBMS or LEDES where clients require it.
• Receipt: backup for the client bill.

Where does Actionstep stop and automation start?

Actionstep handles disbursements well once they are entered: hard and soft costs, billing to the matter, trust accounting. Its mobile app covers time, not expenses, so a card charge for a filing fee waits until someone matches the statement and works out which matter it was for. Vergo reads the receipt itself, line by line, and predicts the coding from what was actually bought, not just the vendor name on the header. The matter comes from who spent and what they were working on.

A practical example

A litigation associate at a midsize firm on Actionstep pays a court filing fee and a courier on the firm card. Vergo texts for both receipts, proposes the client matter with the disbursement income account for each, and the billing coordinator confirms. Both disbursements are on the matter before the next bill run.

How Vergo handles this

Vergo proposes the coding by inference from your own accounting structure and history — no rule library to build, no keyword lists to maintain, and new vendors are coded on first sight. In a law firm, that history is matter-level. Card spend, employee reimbursements and AP invoices run through one coding model — same coding, same review, one reconciliation — and payment stays on the rails you already use.