What this article helps with: The day-to-day workflow: who can draft, how to draft a disbursement, what every field in the draft window does, and how an approver reviews and releases it to your client.
Who this is for: Accounting and finance staff, case managers, and paralegals who draft payouts, and the approvers who sign off on them.
When not to use this article: If your firm is not enrolled yet, start with "Getting Started: Enrolling Your Firm in Disbursements". If you want to know what your client sees after you hit approve, read "What Your Client Sees: The Disbursement Payment Link".
Key Terms
Key Terms
What do you mean when you say...
Draft = creating the disbursement. Nothing is sent and no money moves at this stage.
Approve = signing off. This is the step that generates the secure payment link and texts it to your client.
Recipient = the person being paid. In Hona this is a contact.
Case = the matter the payout belongs to. Shown as a Project elsewhere in Hona.
Overview
Every disbursement follows the same two-step path:
Someone drafts it. This requires the Drafter, Approver, or Disbursement Admin permission. The disbursement sits in Needs approval and your approvers are notified.
An approver reviews and approves it. This requires the Approver or Disbursement Admin permission. Only then does Confido generate a secure payment link and text it to your client.
Approving does not push money into your client's account. It releases the funds to be claimed. Your client still has to open the link, verify who they are, and choose how they want to be paid. Nothing leaves your trust account until they do.
Before you start: do you have permission to draft?
Drafting is not open to everyone at your firm. You need one of three disbursement permissions: Drafter, Approver, or Disbursement Admin. Your Hona role on its own, including Admin, does not grant it.
If you do not have one, the draft options are unavailable and Hona tells you so, along with the names and email addresses of the people at your firm who can grant it. Only a Disbursement Admin can hand out disbursement permissions. Full detail is in "Disbursements Permissions: Drafters, Approvers, and Disbursement Admins".
Drafting a disbursement
Option 1: From a case (recommended)
Open the case in Hona, then use any of these:
The Actions menu at the top right, then Draft Disbursement.
The Messages and Activity section, where Draft Disbursement is the last option.
The plus button in the messaging area. This is also available in the Hona Chrome extension, so your team can draft a payout without leaving your case management system.
Drafting from the case is the better path because the case is linked automatically, the recipient is pre-selected from the case contacts, and the payout appears on the case timeline where anyone on the case can see its status.
If your Hona role is Team User, these three are the only ways you can draft. Team Users do not get the Disbursements tab, so Option 2 below is not available to you.
Option 2: From the Disbursements tab
Go to app.hona.com/disbursements and add a new disbursement there. You pick the recipient yourself and can optionally type in a case ID.
This path exists so accounting staff are not blocked when a case has not synced into Hona yet, and so firms can use Disbursements without the rest of Hona. It is also the way to pay a beneficiary who is not listed as a contact on the case.
A disbursement created this way with no case attached still appears on your own Disbursements page, so you can track it after you draft it.
What each field does
Field | What to put in it |
Recipient | Required. Who is being paid. You can search by name, phone number, or email, which matters when two contacts share a name. If the person is not in your contacts, create them from here. |
Amount | Required, and must be greater than zero. There is no balance check against your trust account and no check against the case's own funds, so the number you type is the number that goes out. This is what the approval step is for. |
Case ID | Optional. Enter your Case ID to match your disbursement to a specific case in Hona. |
Bank account | Which account the funds come from. Normally your trust account. If you have several, for example one per state, pick the right one; there is no per-case default. Your operating account also appears here, for the occasional advance rather than settlement funds. |
Notes | Internal only. These are for your approvers and your own records. Your client never sees the notes field. |
Expiration days | How long the payment link stays valid. Leave it blank to use your firm's default, which is 60 days. |
Client messages | The texts and emails your client receives at each stage. These come from your firm's templates and can be adjusted for this one payout if the situation calls for it. Anyone who can draft can adjust them. |
Notify approvers | A checkbox, on by default. Leave it checked and everyone who can approve is notified. If you can approve yourself and are going to do it immediately, you can uncheck it. |
Click Draft Disbursement to save it. The disbursement now sits in Needs approval. Nothing has been sent to your client.
Tracking what you drafted
If your permission is Drafter, the Disbursements page at app.hona.com/disbursements shows you the disbursements you drafted. The list, the counts at the top, and the Needs Approval section are all scoped to your own work, so a clerk preparing payments in a batch can see what they have prepared and what is still sitting unapproved.
The Needs Approval section tells you what you prepared that is still waiting. It looks the same as it does for an approver, approve button included, but a Drafter cannot approve: if you try, Hona tells you an approver has to do it and points you at your Disbursement Admins. You are also emailed about every status change on a disbursement you drafted, and that cannot be switched off, so you will hear when one is approved, lands, or fails.
If your permission is Approver or Disbursement Admin, the same page shows your whole firm.
If your Hona role is Team User, you do not get a Disbursements page at all, whichever permission you hold. Open the case to see what you drafted and where it got to.
Reviewing and approving
Approvers and Disbursement Admins can find pending items in either place:
The Needs Approval section at the top of app.hona.com/disbursements, or by filtering the table by status.
The disbursement card on the case timeline.
Click Review and Approve. You will see the full details: recipient name, phone, and email; the case; the amount; the source bank account; the expiry date; the notes; and who drafted it.
What to check before you approve
The amount. Nothing in the system validates it against your trust balance or the case's net to client.
The recipient, and their phone number and email. This is what the payment link and the verification code go to.
The source bank account. Especially if you run multiple trust accounts.
The client messages, if the drafter changed them.
You can edit any of these before approving. Every change is written to the audit log with the before value, the after value, and your name, and your approval is recorded as its own separate line.
Editing somebody else's draft does not take it off their Disbursements page. The disbursement stays with whoever drafted it, so they can keep tracking it through approval.
What happens when you approve
Confido generates a secure, single-use payment link.
The disbursement status changes to Sent.
Your client is texted the link from your firm's existing Hona phone number, the same number they have been talking to your team on all case long. If their notification preference is email, they receive it by email.
From there your client verifies their identity and picks how they want to be paid. See "What Your Client Sees: The Disbursement Payment Link".
After it is sent
Watch the status. The Disbursements page and the case timeline both show where each payout is. See "Disbursement Statuses and Notifications" for what each one means.
Resend the link. The payment link can be copied from an approved disbursement, so if your client says they never got the text you can send it to them directly.
Fixing a mistake. An approved disbursement cannot be edited. If the amount, the recipient, or the source account is wrong, cancel it and draft a replacement.
Stopping a payout. You can cancel a disbursement any time up until your client accepts it. Once they accept an instant payment, it cannot be pulled back, so act quickly if something is wrong.
Export your records. Approvers and Disbursement Admins can export the firm's disbursement list, including case IDs, from the Disbursements page at any time. Export is not available to a Drafter. The full firm data is also available line-itemized in your Confido account.
FAQs
I cannot find the Draft Disbursement option. Where did it go?
I cannot find the Draft Disbursement option. Where did it go?
Drafting requires the Drafter, Approver, or Disbursement Admin permission. If you hold none of them the draft options are unavailable at all four entry points, including inside the Chrome extension. Ask one of your firm's Disbursement Admins for the Drafter permission. Their names and email addresses are shown on the message you see when drafting is blocked, and on the Manage Connection page.
Can I send more than one disbursement on the same case?
Can I send more than one disbursement on the same case?
Yes. Draft one per recipient. This is the normal pattern for multiple plaintiffs or multiple beneficiaries. There is no split-payment feature, so each person gets their own disbursement and their own link, and each carries its own fee.
The beneficiary is not a contact on the case. How do I pay them?
The beneficiary is not a contact on the case. How do I pay them?
Draft a disbursement and create a new contact as the recipient. This comes up often in wrongful death matters. The same approach works for a medical provider, lienholder, or any other third party who needs paying but is not a contact on the case.
Does approving mean the money has left our trust account?
Does approving mean the money has left our trust account?
No. Approving authorizes the payout and sends the link. Funds move only after your client opens the link, verifies their identity, and accepts. Until then nothing has left the account.
Can the person who drafts also approve?
Can the person who drafts also approve?
It depends on their permission. An Approver can draft and approve, including approving their own draft. A Disbursement Admin can do the same. A Drafter cannot approve anything, which is the point of the permission: it lets an accounting clerk prepare payments without being able to release them.
Hona does not block self-approval. If your firm wants two sets of eyes on every payout, give the people who prepare payments Drafter only and keep Approver with someone else. See "Disbursements Permissions: Drafters, Approvers, and Disbursement Admins".
How does this fit with our trust accounting and check-printing process?
How does this fit with our trust accounting and check-printing process?
Nothing about your trust accounting needs to change. Keep doing your reconciliation and staging exactly as you do today. The change happens at the point where a check would have been printed: instead of printing, the disbursement gets drafted in Hona.
The firms that get the most out of this make the digital payout the default and treat exceptions as the fallback. If you leave it optional, adoption tends to stay low because staff default to the process they know.
Can disbursement activity flow into our accounting system?
Can disbursement activity flow into our accounting system?
Yes, through Hona's automations. You can trigger an action on a disbursement status change, most commonly when a payout reaches Deposited, and pass through fields like amount, recipient, case ID, and the last four digits of the source bank account. Firms use this to create a record in their case management system's collections section, which then flows into their accounting software.
Automations need setting up the first time. Contact [email protected] and we will help you build it for your stack.
Can we set up recurring payments to the same client?
Can we set up recurring payments to the same client?
Not today. Each payout is a separate disbursement with its own link, so a client on regular payments needs a new one each time. Confido is building stored payment details that will allow repeat payments without a new link; it is in testing now.
Conclusion
Draft, review, approve. Drafting needs a permission, approving needs a stronger one, and the approval step is your control point, so treat the amount and the recipient's contact details as the two things worth double checking every time. Questions? Chat with our support team or email [email protected].