How do you import credit card transactions into Unity Practice Management?

What is the practical route for card transactions into Unity?

Unity Practice Management, formerly Quill, has no published public API, so the route is a file import. The question that actually matters is where the coding comes from. If it comes from an accounts assistant reading a card statement in arrears, the import is only the last step of a long manual process. If it comes from the fee earner at the point of spend, the import is the whole process.

Step one: capture the matter at the moment of spend

Vergo prompts the cardholder as soon as the charge lands. They select the client and matter, choose the expense type, and photograph the receipt. A courier fee paid on a Tuesday is coded on Tuesday, by the person who knows which matter it belongs to.

Step two: run approvals during the period

Approvals sit inside Vergo and follow the firm's own rules — a supervising partner, the practice manager, or a threshold-based mix. Because the review happens while the spend is recent, queries resolve quickly instead of stalling the month-end.

Step three: generate the matched CSV export

At close, Vergo builds a custom CSV export laid out for the import format Unity Practice Management expects. Each row carries client, matter, expense type, date, amount and merchant, with the approval trail and the stored receipt linked behind it.

Step four: import and reconcile

The accounts team reviews the file and loads it into Unity. Reconciliation against the card statement is straightforward because every line was approved and the batch total is known in advance. Corrections are made in Vergo and the file is regenerated — nothing is edited blind in a spreadsheet.

What does the firm get out of the change?

Disbursements stop leaking. Recharcheable card costs reach the matter ledger with documentation attached, rather than being written off because nobody could say which client they belonged to. Receipts stop being chased. And month-end stops being the place where a month of card activity is decoded.

There is no API sync with Unity Practice Management to claim. What Vergo claims is a file import that carries coding, receipts and approvals already done.

What about VAT and expense types?

UK firms need the expense type and VAT treatment right on card spend, because disbursements and firm overheads are recharged and reported differently. Capturing the expense type at the point of spend, from a list the firm controls, means the treatment is decided by rule rather than by whoever is keying the statement. The export carries that classification through to the import file.

How should a firm compare this with its current process?

Count the touches. The manual route touches each transaction at least three times: once when it appears on the statement, once when someone asks the fee earner what it was, and once when it is keyed into Unity. The Vergo route touches it once, at the point of spend, and then handles it in bulk. The saving is not the import step — that was always quick — it is everything the accounts team currently does before the import step is possible.

What if the firm runs multiple offices?

Card limits, approval routes and coding structures can differ by office or department while still producing a single export for the accounts team. That keeps local control over spend without splitting the month-end process into several parallel ones.