Payment voucher template for a law office
A payment voucher records money leaving the law office’s cash box or account: to whom, how much in figures and in words in Qatari riyals, for what, by what method and who approved it. In a law office it also states who bears the amount: the client, added to their account, or the office, such as rent and salaries.
The payment voucher is written by the office’s accountant and approved by the partner or the manager, according to the permissions the office sets, and the payee signs for receipt of the money. A law office has two kinds of expenses that should never be mixed: amounts the office pays for a client in their file, such as court fees, expert fees and translation, and later recovers from them; and the office’s own expenses, such as rent, salaries, electricity and petty cash. That is why the template has an explicit box stating who bears the amount, the number of the case it was spent on, and the number of the expense request under which it was approved, if the office works with requests.
When do you need this template?
- When paying court or government fees for a client in an open file.
- When paying an expert’s or a translator’s fees, or what is owed to an outside party in a case.
- When paying the office’s regular expenses: rent, salaries, electricity and telecommunications.
- When paying a petty-cash advance to the office’s PRO or an employee, to be settled later against invoices.
- When refunding an overpayment to the client after the case or the agreement ends.
What must it include?
- The voucher’s serial number and date, and the office’s name and letterhead.
- The payee’s name as it appears on the receipt, invoice or cheque.
- The amount in figures and in words in Qatari riyals, and the payment method with its details.
- The description and the expense item, such as court fees, translation, rent or petty cash.
- The client and the case or service if the expense belongs to a file, and whether it is charged to the client’s account.
- Supporting attachments: the fee payment receipt or the payee’s invoice, and the number of the approved expense request.
- The signatures of the accountant and of the approver, and the payee’s signature for receipt.
Payment Voucher
Amount: QAR [Amount in figures]
Pay to Mr/Ms/Messrs: [Payee name]
The sum of: [Amount in words, in riyals and dirhams] only
Payment method (delete as appropriate): cash / cheque No. [Cheque number] dated [Cheque date] on [Bank name] / bank transfer, reference No. [Reference number]
In payment of: [Description]
| Expense item | Client | Case / service | Charged to |
|---|---|---|---|
| [Expense item] | [Client name or “None”] | [Case or service number] | [Client’s account / Office expenses] |
Attachments: [Fee payment receipt / Payee’s invoice / Copy of the cheque / Transfer receipt]
Payee’s acknowledgement: I, the undersigned, acknowledge that I have received the above amount in full.
If the amount is paid by transfer, or paid to a government authority against an electronic receipt, attach the receipt and write its number under the attachments instead of the payee’s signature.
How to fill in the template
Make sure the payment is approved first
Do not write the voucher until whoever holds the approval permission in your office has agreed to it, by a written expense request or by signing the voucher itself. Write the request number at the head of the voucher if there is one, so the same request is not paid twice.
Decide who bears the amount
Ask before writing: will the office recover this amount from a client? If so, write the client’s name and the case number and choose “Client’s account”; if not, it is an office expense, and an item such as rent, salaries or petty cash is chosen for it.
Write the payee and the amount as on the supporting document
Copy the payee’s name from the invoice, receipt or cheque exactly, write the amount in figures and then in words in Qatari riyals, and check both against the attached document.
Attach proof of the payment
Fasten the court fee receipt, the expert’s or translator’s invoice, or the copy of the cheque to the voucher. These attachments are what the client is shown if they ask about an expense on their statement of account.
Collect the signatures and file the voucher
The accountant signs, then the approver, and the payee signs for receipt with their Qatar ID number if the payment is in cash. A copy of the voucher is then kept in the case file if the expense is charged to a client.
Common mistakes
- Paying amounts for a client without linking them to the client’s case, so they do not appear on the statement of account and are never recovered.
- Mixing office expenses with clients’ expenses, so the case figures swell or the office’s real expenses disappear.
- A cash payment with no payee signature or no supporting receipt.
- A vague description such as “expenses”, without naming the item and the case.
- Writing the voucher days after the payment, so its date differs from the day the money left.
Issue this document from your office’s data
In Murafe, the payment voucher is issued from “Payment vouchers” by choosing the expense item; it is then linked to the case or service and marked “Charged to the client’s account” where that applies, so it appears on the client’s statement of account. A voucher not linked to a client, case or service counts as an “Office expense”, and that page shows their totals by item, with export to Excel. If the office works with expense requests, a request goes through the finance department and then senior management, after which 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. The voucher prints on the office’s letterhead with the amount written out in Arabic words; printing it is a separate permission, and every print is recorded in the audit log with the employee’s name, the time and the voucher number.