What this article helps with: A plain-language overview of Hona Disbursements: what it does, how a payment gets from your trust account to your client, what it costs, what is and is not supported today, and where to go next.
Who this is for: Everyone at your firm who will touch settlement payouts, including case managers, paralegals, accounting and finance staff, office managers, and firm admins.
When not to use this article: This is an orientation, not step-by-step instructions. If you already know what Disbursements is and want to do something specific, jump to one of the articles linked at the bottom.
Key Terms
Key Terms
What do you mean when you say...
Disbursement = a payment of settlement funds from your firm's trust account to your client.
Confido Legal = Hona's payments partner. Confido runs the banking rails, the underwriting, and the secure page where your client claims their funds.
Recipient = the person being paid. In Hona this is a contact.
Case = the matter the payout belongs to. Referred to as a Project elsewhere in Hona.
Draft = creating a disbursement. No money moves at this stage.
Approve = releasing it. This generates the client's secure payment link and sends it.
Overview
Hona Disbursements pays your clients their settlement money electronically, straight from your firm's trust account.
An authorized team member drafts the payout on the case, an approver signs off, and your client gets a secure link by text from your firm's existing Hona number. Your client verifies their identity, links their own bank or debit card, and chooses free direct deposit or instant to their card. Status flows back onto the case, so anyone working that case can see where the money is.
No checks in the mail. No clients driving in to collect. No bank account numbers read out over the phone.
It is built for personal injury firms, and it is powered by our payments partner, Confido Legal.
How a payment actually moves
Someone drafts it. Drafting requires the Drafter, Approver, or Disbursement Admin permission, granted by your firm's Disbursement Admin. A Hona role on its own is not enough, and there is no setting that opens drafting up to everyone. They set the recipient, the amount, and which account it comes from. Nothing is sent and no money moves.
An approver approves it. Users with the Approver or Disbursement Admin permission can do this. Approving is what generates the secure payment link.
Your client gets a text. It comes from your firm's existing Hona phone number, the same one they have been talking to your team on all case long.
Your client verifies who they are. They confirm the phone number or email on the disbursement and enter a one-time code.
Your client picks how to get paid. Instant to their debit card in seconds or minutes for a 1% fee capped at $95, or free direct deposit in 4 to 6 business days.
The status comes back to Hona. It appears on the case, so the next "where is my money?" call takes ten seconds to answer, and on the Disbursements page for the people who work with payouts.
Important: approving does not push money out. Funds only move once your client opens the link, verifies their identity, and accepts. Nothing leaves your trust account before that.
Who at your firm can do what
Who at your firm can do what
Three disbursement permissions sit on top of your normal Hona roles. They are free, and only a Disbursement Admin can grant them.
Drafter prepares payouts and cannot release them. Usually the accounting or finance staff who compute the client's net. Their Disbursements page shows the payouts they drafted.
Approver can draft and release. Usually a controller, office manager, or partner. Their Disbursements page shows the whole firm.
Disbursement Admin can do both, plus manage the bank connection and decide who else gets access.
Everyone else at your firm can still open a case they work on and see that payout's status and audit trail.
One exception worth knowing about: staff on the Team User role work entirely from their cases and never get the Disbursements page, whichever permission is granted on top. A Team User with Drafter can draft from a case they are on, and tracks it from the case.
Full detail is in "Disbursements Permissions: Drafters, Approvers, and Disbursement Admins".
What it costs
Who pays | What |
Your firm | $3 per disbursement, flat, regardless of the amount. Charged only when your client actually accepts the funds, and debited from your operating account. |
Your client, if they want it instantly | 1% of the payout, capped at $95. Their choice, deducted from their payout. |
Your client, if they choose direct deposit | Nothing. Free ACH is always available. |
There is no Hona subscription charge for Disbursements, no per-seat fee, and no setup fee. Disbursement permissions are free too, so you are not paying to add Drafters or Approvers. Full detail is in "Disbursements Pricing".
Why firms use it
The payout stops being the slowest part of the case. Intake, communication, and case updates are all fast now. Getting the client paid is usually still checks and manual work.
Your staff never handle bank details. Your client enters their own into a secure page. No account numbers collected over the phone, no paper forms, and no liability for your firm if a digit is wrong.
No more lost or stolen checks. Nothing to reissue, nothing sitting uncashed for weeks.
Anyone on the case can see the status. Case managers answer client questions from the case itself, without going through accounting and without needing access to firm-wide payout data.
Money movement is gated, and every step is logged. Drafting and approving are separate permissions, so your firm can put real distance between the person who prepares a payment and the person who releases it. Every draft, edit, approval, and payment event is logged with a name and a timestamp. Hona does not force that separation, so if you want it, split the permissions deliberately.
Your client gets paid at the moment that matters most. The end of a case is when the client's experience of your firm gets decided.
We already use Confido Legal. What does Hona add?
We already use Confido Legal. What does Hona add?
Four things:
The payment link comes from your firm's trusted Hona phone number, in the same thread as your client's case updates, rather than from a number they do not recognize.
Payout status is visible on the case to anyone working it, not just to accounting.
Drafting and approving happen where your team already works, including inside your case management system via the Hona Chrome extension.
Automations can push disbursement events into your case management system and accounting stack.
You keep your existing Confido account and you are not billed twice. Connecting it takes a couple of clicks and no re-underwriting.
What is and is not supported today
Supported
Paying your clients their settlement funds from your trust account
Multiple recipients on one case, each as their own disbursement, which covers multiple plaintiffs and multiple beneficiaries
Paying medical providers, lienholders, and other third parties, with one caveat worth knowing about (see the note below)
Multiple trust accounts, for example one per state
Paying from your operating account when you are sending an advance rather than settlement funds
Separate Drafter and Approver permissions, so the person who prepares a payout does not have to be the person who releases it
Running Disbursements standalone, without the rest of Hona
Pushing disbursement events into your case management system and accounting stack via automations
Exporting your disbursement list, including case IDs, if you are an Approver or Disbursement Admin
Not supported today
Sending a client a check through Hona. Disbursements offers instant to debit card and free direct deposit. Checks stay in your existing process. There is no check option on your client's payment page, so a client who wants one needs to reply to your text.
Instant payouts above $100,000. Above that threshold direct deposit is the only option, or the payout can be split across multiple disbursements.
Trust balance validation. Hona does not check your trust balance or a case's own funds before a payout goes out. Your approval step and your existing trust accounting are the controls.
International payments. Funds cannot be sent overseas. Your client needs a US bank account or a US debit card.
Recurring or repeat payments. Each payout is its own disbursement with its own link. Confido is building stored payment details for repeat recipients, and it is in testing now.
A shared team queue for drafters. A Drafter sees the payouts they drafted, not everything their team drafted. If your accounting staff work from a shared pool, the firm-wide view comes with the Approver permission.
A Disbursements page for Team Users. The Team User role is scoped to the cases somebody is a member of, and that holds whichever disbursement permission is added on top. If a Team User needs the Disbursements page, move them to the User role.
A note on paying providers and third parties
A note on paying providers and third parties
It works. You add the provider or third party as a recipient the same way you would add a client, and they get the same payment link, the same identity verification, and the same choice between instant and free direct deposit.
The caveat is that there is no saved payment information yet, so the recipient enters their banking or card details every time you pay them. For a provider you pay on one case, that is a non-issue. For a provider you pay across fifty cases, it gets old fast, and some will tell you they would rather have a check.
Confido is building stored payment details for providers and vendors, so a recipient can enter their information once and then be paid in one click at settlement. It is in testing now. Until it lands, weigh the repetition against the convenience for each provider relationship.
Where to go next
Getting Started: Enrolling Your Firm in Disbursements: connecting your trust and operating accounts, what underwriting reviews, and the Positive Pay step at your bank.
Disbursements Permissions: Drafters, Approvers, and Disbursement Admins: who can draft, who can approve, what each person sees, and how to grant the permissions.
How to Draft and Approve a Disbursement: the day-to-day workflow and what every field does.
Disbursement Statuses and Notifications: what each status means and how to customize your client messages.
What Your Client Sees: The Disbursement Payment Link: the client side, start to finish, plus the questions clients ask.
Disbursements Pricing: the $3 fee, when and from where it is charged, and the limits.
Troubleshooting and FAQs: Disbursements: failed payments, declined name checks, and wrong amounts.
FAQs
How long has this been around? Is it proven?
How long has this been around? Is it proven?
Confido Legal has been operating for around six years and has run its digital disbursements platform for about two, moving a substantial volume of settlement funds for law firms in that time. Hona Disbursements is the integration that brings it into the tool your team already runs cases in.
Do we have to change our trust accounting process?
Do we have to change our trust accounting process?
No. Keep your reconciliation and your staging exactly as they are. The only thing that changes is the last step: at the point where a check would have been printed, the disbursement gets drafted in Hona instead.
Does everyone at our firm need to be set up before we can use it?
Does everyone at our firm need to be set up before we can use it?
No, but somebody does. Whoever completes your enrollment and bank connection becomes your first Disbursement Admin and can draft and approve immediately. From there they grant Drafter to the staff who prepare payouts and Approver to the people who release them. You are prompted to do this during enrollment, and you can change it any time from the Manage Connection page.
Can we try it before we commit?
Can we try it before we commit?
Yes. There is a Try it out option on the Disbursements page that lets you draft an example disbursement and walk through the client experience yourself. Nothing is charged and no money moves.
What if some of our clients do not have bank accounts?
What if some of our clients do not have bank accounts?
A prepaid debit card from one of the major networks works with the instant option, and some firms buy these for clients in that situation. Additional options for unbanked clients are on Confido's roadmap. Clients who rely on check cashing services may still prefer a check, so keep your existing process as the fallback for that handful. Additional methods including PayPal are coming from Confido but are not live yet.
How do we get it turned on?
How do we get it turned on?
Click Disbursements in the left-hand navigation in Hona and choose Begin Enrollment, or talk to your account manager. The full walkthrough is in Getting Started: Enrolling Your Firm in Disbursements.
If you do not see Disbursements in your navigation at all, your Hona role is Team User, which does not have that tab. Ask a firm Admin to start enrollment.
Conclusion
Disbursements takes the slowest, most manual step in a case and turns it into a text message. If you have questions about whether it fits your firm's process, chat with our support team or email [email protected].