Receipt and payment vouchers move from the paper book to the system in a clear, uniform design: a sequential number, the payer’s name, the amount in figures and in words in Qatari riyals, the method of payment, and an original and a copy. The system adds what a book cannot: linking every voucher to the client, the agreement and the case, cancelling a wrong voucher with a written reason instead of crossing it out, and separating the office’s expenses from client expenses in statements and the financial summary.
8-minute readLast updated: The Murafe team
Key takeaways
Link the receipt voucher to the client and their agreement, so the client’s balance and the status of their instalments are updated from the voucher itself.
No voucher is deleted once issued: it is cancelled with a written reason, and stays in the list marked “Cancelled” and outside the balances.
A payment voucher is either “charged to the client’s account”, and goes into their statement, or one of the office’s expenses, such as rent, salaries and petty expenses.
An expense request goes through the finance department, then senior management, and the accountant issues the payment voucher from its approved page.
Vouchers are printed in Murafe’s design with the office’s identity: an original and an archive copy on A4, a single copy, or A5 landscape.
What the voucher book keeps… and what it loses
The paper voucher book served law firms for years: pre-printed numbers, a carbon copy that stays in the book, a signature and a stamp. But it cannot answer the questions the partner asks at the end of the month: how much have we received from this client against their agreement? Which of their instalments are still overdue? How much did we spend on rent and petty expenses? Answering means leafing through the copies and adding them up by hand, and every voucher lost or crossed out leaves a gap in the sequence that nobody can explain.
In the paper book
In the system
Pre-printed numbers; a lost sheet breaks the sequence
A sequential number generated by the system for each voucher when it is saved
The amount in words written by hand
The amount written out in words in Qatari riyals, automatically on printing
A wrong voucher is crossed out or torn up
It is cancelled with a written reason and stays visible with a “Cancelled” stamp
The carbon copy in a drawer
The original and the copy on a single A4 sheet, and a PDF when needed
The client’s balance added up by hand
A statement of account for any period, with opening and closing balances
Finding an old voucher means leafing through the copies
Receipt vouchers appear in the global search results from any screen
The move does not mean changing all of the accountant’s habits: a voucher in Murafe carries the details they are used to (the payer’s name, the amount in figures and in words, and the method of payment) and is printed in a clear design on the office’s letterhead. What is new is what happens after saving: the voucher goes straight into the client’s statement of account and the financial summary, and no one needs to copy it into another spreadsheet or add it up at the end of the month.
The receipt voucher: the details you cannot do without
A complete receipt voucher answers six questions: who paid? For which client’s account? How much? For what? By what method? Against which agreement and instalment? Every question left unanswered later turns into a long review: a cheque recorded without its number and bank is hard to trace months later, and a voucher not linked to its agreement leaves the agreement’s instalments on the overdue list even though they have been paid. A voucher is issued in the system in these steps:
From “Receipt vouchers”, click “New receipt voucher”, or choose it from the “New” button at the top of the screen.
Choose the client, then the agreement and the instalment, if there are any.
Enter the amount and a description the client will understand a year from now, such as “second instalment of the fees for the labour case”.
Specify how the amount was paid: in cash; by cheque, with its number, date and the bank’s name; by card; or by bank transfer, with its reference number.
Save, then print: the amount is written out in words in Qatari riyals automatically.
Writing amounts in words (tafqeet, تفقيط) was a source of small, embarrassing mistakes in paper books; here, entering the figure is enough. An amount of QAR 3,250.50, for example, is printed as “فقط ثلاثة آلاف ومائتان وخمسون ريالاً قطرياً وخمسون درهماً لا غير” (“only three thousand two hundred and fifty Qatari riyals and fifty dirhams, nothing more”). The voucher also prints the total, the amount paid and the balance remaining, calculated automatically from the agreement’s total when the voucher is linked to it, so the client can see from the voucher itself what they still owe.
Cancelling with a reason instead of deleting: why does a cancelled voucher stay visible?
The system has no way to delete an issued voucher; what it has is cancellation: the reason is written down, and the voucher stays in its place in the list with a “Cancelled” stamp. The number sequence thus stays complete, and an auditor finds an explanation for every number: a valid voucher, or a voucher cancelled for a written reason. This rule protects the accountant even before it protects the office: no one has to answer for a missing number or an amount that vanished from the books without a trace. Write the reason so that someone reading the voucher a year later understands it, for example:
Wrong amount; a correct voucher was issued in its place.
Voucher recorded against another client by mistake.
Cheque returned unpaid.
Voucher issued twice for the same instalment.
A cancelled voucher is not counted in the client’s statement or in any balance: cancelling a receipt voucher against an agreement puts its instalment back on the due or overdue list until a correct voucher is issued. The cancellation permission is separate under “Roles and permissions”, for receipt vouchers and for payment vouchers each on its own, so the office can limit it to people it trusts, and every action is recorded in the audit log with the user’s name, the time and the device.
A book with torn-out pages raises questions; a voucher cancelled with its written reason answers them.
The payment voucher: charged to the client, or an office expense?
The first question on every payment voucher is: who bears this amount? If the office paid it on a client’s behalf, such as court fees, expert fees or document translation, link the voucher to the case or service and tick “Expense charged to the client’s account”, so the amount appears on their statement as a debt they owe. If the voucher is not linked to a client, case or service, it counts as one of the “Office expenses”, such as rent, salaries, electricity and petty expenses. Every voucher has an “expense item” chosen from the office’s list of items.
Type of voucher
Examples
Where it appears
Linked to a client or case and charged to them
Court fees, expert fees, translation
The client’s statement of account, and case and client expenses in the financial summary
Linked to a case and borne by the office
An expense on a file that the client is not asked to pay
Case and client expenses, without entering the client’s statement
Not linked to a client, case or service
Rent, salaries, electricity, petty expenses
The “Office expenses” page and its totals by item
The “Office expenses” page shows the internal expense vouchers for the period and their totals by item, including “Petty expenses”, with export to Excel. Viewing this page is a permission in its own right: for an employee who has not been granted “View office expenses”, the payment vouchers they see are limited to what was spent on cases and on behalf of clients, and internal expenses are left out of every figure they see. This suits offices that do not want salaries and rent visible to everyone who issues a payment voucher for a case fee.
The expense request before the payment voucher: approval in two stages
When a lawyer needs money for a file, such as filing fees or an expert’s fees, the cleanest route is for the amount to go through a request, then an approval, then a voucher, rather than being paid in cash from the cash box and settled later. The cycle starts with an “expense request form”, opened from the case or client file so that their details come in ready, with a sequential form number for reference, and it runs like this:
The employee fills in the request and saves it, and the finance department receives an alert.
The finance department reviews the request, approving it or not with a note, and fills in the expense balance fields (the balance, the amount deducted and the remainder), with the client’s account in front of it for reference.
Senior management approves or rejects the request, stating the reason.
The accountant issues the payment voucher from the approved request’s page; the request is recorded as carried out, and the voucher number is printed on it.
This cycle prevents familiar office mistakes: a payment voucher cannot be issued twice for the same expense request, and if the request’s amount or client changes after the finance department’s review, it goes back to the finance department again. The “Awaiting your action” tab in the list of requests gathers whatever is waiting for your review or approval, so no request is left hanging because the decision-maker did not notice it.
From vouchers to the full picture: the statement of account and the financial summary
The value of issuing every voucher inside the system shows on the day you are asked for a client’s statement of account or an overview of the office’s figures. The statement and the summary are not prepared by hand; they are read from the vouchers and agreements themselves, so they match the vouchers issued as long as every amount has been recorded with its correct voucher. This is what law firm management software provides at this stage:
The client’s statement of account: choose the client and the period, and the opening balance, debit and credit transactions, closing balance and a summary of the agreements appear.
Fees for services and consultations not linked to an agreement are included in the statement and the outstanding balances too.
The financial summary: income and expenses for the period, office expenses separate from case and client expenses, and instalments overdue or due within 30 days.
Printing: the statement is printed on the office’s letterhead, or saved as a PDF to send.
Printing vouchers: A4, A5 and the letterhead
Receipt and payment vouchers are printed in Murafe’s clear design, with three paper options, showing the total value, the amount paid and the balance remaining. Every printout opens in a preview page on white paper, exactly as it will come out of the printer, and from there it is sent to the printer or saved as a PDF by choosing “Save as PDF” in the print window, so there is no need for a scanner to send a copy to the client. Each option suits a different situation:
Option
When it suits
A4 — original and copy on one page
When the original is handed to the client and the copy stays at the office, as with a carbon-copy book
A4 — single copy
For saving as a PDF or sending electronically
A5 landscape
If the office prints its vouchers on A5 paper
On the office’s pre-printed letterhead paper, switch off “Print letterhead”, and its space is left blank.
Printing has its own permission for receipt vouchers and another for payment vouchers under “Roles and permissions”.
No voucher is printed without a trace: the audit log keeps who printed it, when, and the number of the voucher printed.
Questions on this topic
No, but it can be cancelled: the reason for the cancellation is written down, the voucher stays visible with a “Cancelled” stamp and outside the balances, and then a correct voucher is issued with the next number in the sequence. That way every number has an explanation when the books are reviewed.
Automatically on printing, in Qatari riyals, with dirhams where there are fractions, without the accountant writing it by hand. The amount in words also appears while the voucher is being entered, so it can be checked before saving.
No. Unless an employee has been granted “View office expenses”, they see only what was spent on cases and on behalf of clients, so salaries, rent and petty expenses stay out of their lists and figures.
Yes, once their account is shown to them in the client portal: they find there a list of the receipt vouchers issued in their name, alongside their statement of account and what they still owe.
