Switching to Fylely

What comes across

Estates

The decedent, date of death, your role, case number, court, county, the date the estate was opened and your notes. An estate already in Fylely is left out rather than added twice.

Guardianships and conservatorships

The protected person, the kind of matter, date of birth, appointment date, case number, court, county, and whether a bond is required and for how much.

Other matters

Name, area of law, court, docket number, county, state, opposing party, the date it was opened and your notes. The client on each row is matched to a contact you already have, or created.

Contacts

Name, email, phone, address, referral source and notes.

Time entries

Date, hours or minutes, description, rate, and whether it was billable. Time your old system already billed is kept for the record and never billed again.

Deadlines

What is due, when, and whether it is already done — attached to the matter it belongs to.

Hearings

The court date, its time, the courtroom and the judge, on the matter it belongs to. One already held comes across as held.

Documents

By the folder. Choose the folder that holds one folder per matter; each is matched to a matter by its exact name or case number, or you pick the matter, and every file inside is filed on it. Up to 25MB a file.

Invoices still unpaid

What is left to pay on each, as an invoice here that ages and takes payments like any other. Your client is not emailed about it until you send it.

Trust balances

What you hold for each client on the day you cut over, as one opening deposit each. Reconcile against your bank statement afterwards.

What does not

Invoices already paid stay in the system that issued them: keep a PDF of each, which can come across with the matter's documents. Appointments that are not court dates are not imported, and notes come across only as the one notes column on a matter. Fylely does not e-file, has no library of court forms, and does not calculate state or court deadlines — if you rely on your current system for those, it will not replace them. It does fill a fillable PDF form you supply from the matter's records, and on an estate it works out the federal tax dates from the date of death for you to add.

How the move goes

1. 1

   Export from the system you use now

   Every practice system can save its lists as a CSV file. In Clio, the Matters, Contacts and Activities pages each have an export. From a spreadsheet, save the sheet as CSV.

2. 2

   Open Settings, then Import

   Choose the file. Fylely reads the column headings and suggests which is which — the headings in a Clio matters export (Description, Client Name, Practice Area, Open Date) are recognised. Change any that are wrong; a column you do not map is listed as ignored, not silently dropped.

3. 3

   Say how the file writes its dates

   03/04/2026 is 4 March in one office and 3 April in another, and the file cannot say which. So you are asked once — month first or day first — and a date that cannot be read that way is refused rather than guessed. A wrong date here becomes a missed court date.

4. 4

   Look at the preview, then import

   You see every row as it would land, and every row that would be skipped with the reason. Nothing is saved until you press the button. Bring matters in first; time, deadlines, hearings, unpaid invoices and documents attach to matters that are already here.

You do not have to move everything at once

Most firms never switch in one go, and you do not need to. Open your next new estate in Fylely and leave every running matter where it is. Nothing here needs your old system to be turned off, and an estate takes months, which is long enough to find out whether this suits how you work before anything else moves.

Client money held in trust

Each client has their own trust ledger, and a payment that would take a client below zero is refused. To reconcile, you enter the statement date and the bank's closing balance and tick the entries the statement shows. What is left is listed as deposits and payments not yet through the bank, and the report prints with each client's balance on that date. An entry that has been reconciled cannot be changed or deleted while that reconciliation stands. Fylely keeps one trust account per firm; if you run several, keep reconciling the others where you do now. Your bar or law society sets what a reconciliation must contain, so check the report against its rules.

Why firms doing estates move

General practice systems treat an estate as one more matter. Fylely is built around the file itself: the inventory, the estate ledger and the accounting that starts from it, creditor claims, the guardianship contact log, and a private thread with each family member. Other matters — litigation, family, real estate — open as general matters with the same deadlines, documents, time and billing.

What it works with

A short list, and this is all of it. Your calendar: a private subscription link shows deadlines and hearings in Outlook, Google Calendar or Apple Calendar, and a Microsoft 365 account can be connected so they are placed on your Outlook calendar. Your accountant: invoices, payments and the trust ledger download as spreadsheets, and invoices and the trust ledger also download in the column layout QuickBooks Online imports. Clients who require e-billing: an invoice downloads as a LEDES 1998B file. Your bank: a statement downloaded as OFX or QFX can be read in to check recurring payments on an estate. Signatures are built in rather than connected. Those are files you upload: there is no live QuickBooks or Xero sync. For anything else, the firm owner can make an API key so your own software can read matters, deadlines, contacts and invoices, and webhooks that tell another tool when a matter opens or closes, an enquiry arrives, a deadline is added or done, an invoice is sent, a payment is recorded or a document is signed. There is no ready-made Zapier app.

What it costs

One price for the firm, not a price per person. Every plan has every feature; they differ by open matters, team members and support.

• Solo — $75/mo, up to 10 open matters
• Practice — $149/mo, up to 30 open matters, up to 3 team members
• Firm — $249/mo, up to 100 open matters, unlimited team members

See the plans in full

If you change your mind

The firm owner can download every record as one file and every uploaded document as a ZIP, from Settings, at any time. Those exports do not need a paid plan, and when a trial ends your matters stay readable. If we ever stop offering Fylely, our terms commit us to at least 30 days' notice by email with those exports working throughout. See security and your data and refunds and cancellation.