FilePro Virtual Assistant: a VA who opens matters, builds precedents and preps your billing

Nobody searches “filepro virtual assistant” for fun. You search it because the practice runs on that system: every matter opened under a matter type, every letter merged off a precedent, every time entry recorded, every bill assembled. And the person doing the unglamorous half of that, the half that does not need a practising certificate, is you, after court, after the last client call, at the kitchen table with the cards file open.

FilePro is built for Australian law firms specifically, and that is the point. It is not a generic CRM with a legal skin: it is matters, a precedent engine that merges your card and matter data into documents, time recording, billing and a trust accounting module that is built to the legal profession rules. That design is powerful when someone is actually driving it and a slow drag when nobody is, because precedents do not merge themselves and time not recorded today is revenue you quietly never see. A VA’s job is to keep the file fed and the precedents flowing.

The daily rhythm a VA runs in your FilePro

Morning starts with the files. The VA works from your matter lists and task reminders: which matters have something due today, which have unbilled time piling up, which have gone quiet. FilePro will hold all of it in one place, but only if someone keeps the matters current rather than letting them drift, so the VA works that list and flags anything genuinely stuck back to you rather than guessing.

Then new work. Overnight enquiries opened as matters under the correct FilePro matter type, because the matter type is not cosmetic: it determines which precedent set, which fields and which document structure load onto that file for its whole life. Open it under the wrong type and you have a file that merges half-blank later, so the VA opens it deliberately, links the parties from the cards file with the right card types, and fills the matter fields that every downstream precedent and report depends on.

Midday is precedents. This is the heart of FilePro and the heart of what the VA does. Documents built from your Precedents library, with merge codes pulling card details and matter field values straight into the letter, form or agreement, so the client’s name, the property address, the other side’s solicitor are entered once and flow into everything. This is where clean data earns its keep: a precedent merge is only ever as good as the card and matter record behind it, which is why the VA keeps the cards file and matter fields true as routine rather than as a periodic cleanup. The VA prepares the draft off the precedent and queues it for the fee earner. Nothing leaves the firm under a practitioner’s name without the practitioner’s eyes on it.

Correspondence gets filed as it lands. Inbound documents and emails saved against the right matter through FilePro’s document management, named to a convention so the electronic file is genuinely the single source of truth rather than a parallel pile in someone’s sent items. The whole promise of running on FilePro is that the matter holds everything, and that is only true when someone files consistently, which is exactly the kind of steady, unglamorous work that does not need a lawyer but does need doing every single day.

Afternoon is money, in the safe half. Time recorded against the right matter with a rate and a description a client will actually pay rather than “attendance”, work in progress reviewed so nothing billable is quietly leaking, and draft bills assembled in FilePro with disbursements attached for your authorisation. On the disbursement side the VA enters costs as they are incurred, saves supplier invoices to the file, and orders InfoTrack or GlobalX searches against the matter through the integration, so the file carries its own paper trail instead of a folder of loose receipts. The VA assembles the bill; you check it, finalise it and send it.

On conveyancing matters the precedent library and the file structure do a lot of the lifting and the VA keeps it fed: key dates entered and reminders staged in advance, the matter progressed as searches come back and conditions are met, settlement figures and adjustment paperwork prepared early off the precedents and redone when the date moves, which it always does, and the practitioner authorising anything that counts. The conveyancers page walks that workflow through end to end.

Underneath all of it, matter and cards-file hygiene: cards deduplicated, matter fields completed, documents named to a convention, quiet files surfaced for review. Boring, and it is the entire game, because every precedent merge, bill and report in FilePro is only as accurate as the data sitting under it.

The honest bit

A few things to price in honestly. FilePro is licensed per named user, so the VA’s login is a real cost on top of the hourly rate and you should budget for it rather than be surprised. Do not try to save it with a shared login: FilePro attributes time entries, documents and actions to the user who made them, and that audit trail is worth far more than the seat the first time anyone needs to know who recorded what on a matter. A shared login also defeats the security-level scoping that keeps the VA out of trust accounting in the first place, so it quietly undoes the one control that makes this safe.

FilePro is also a configurable system, and that cuts both ways. Your precedents, matter types and merge fields are powerful precisely because they are tailored to your firm, and that means a VA operates inside what you have built, not on the architecture itself. We do not rewrite precedent codes, change merge fields or restructure matter types on a live system unless you specifically ask for it and supervise it, because one wrong change to a precedent affects every document built from it from then on. If your FilePro needs structural work, that is a job for you or your FilePro consultant, and the VA runs files cleanly through whatever you decide.

And while FilePro handles your legal accounting, including trust and office, if you want one person across the firm’s general books as well, that crosses into bookkeeping, which is our $25-35 tier rather than a stretch task for the admin VA. We will tell you which one you actually need on the call rather than sell you both.

One more honest note on access. FilePro runs on a desktop or hosted setup rather than a tap-it-open consumer web app, so the practicalities of getting a remote VA into your instance matter, whether that is a hosted FilePro login, a remote desktop session into the firm’s environment, or a VPN your IT person sets up. None of it is exotic and most firms running FilePro already have remote access for their own after-hours work, but it is worth confirming on the call rather than discovering on day one. The VA works inside your access arrangement, on your environment, with their own named login scoped to the right security level.

The weekly review a VA gives you back

The quiet win with a FilePro VA is not any single task, it is getting your weekly review back as a five-minute read instead of an evening’s archaeology. FilePro holds the data to tell you exactly where the practice is: matters with unbilled WIP sitting too long, files with no recent activity that are about to become a complaint, time recorded but not yet drafted into a bill, disbursements incurred but not captured. None of that surfaces by itself. Someone has to run the reports and the lists, read them, and put the three things that actually need your attention in front of you.

That is the VA’s standing job at week’s end. The same matter lists and reports run on a fixed cadence, the WIP reviewed per matter, the quiet files flagged, the draft bills queued for your authorisation so Friday’s billing run is a sign-off rather than a scramble. It is the difference between a system that merely stores your practice and one that actually reports on it, and the gap between those two is almost always just the person who keeps the data clean and runs the numbers every week. That person does not need a practising certificate. They need to be reliable, inside FilePro every day, and accountable to you, which is the entire proposition.

What stays with you

Trust money, without exception. Dealing with trust money is tightly restricted under the legal profession legislation in every state and territory: receipting, payments, transfers and reconciliations stay inside the practice with authorised people. Your VA never holds FilePro trust accounting access and never effects a trust transaction, and because FilePro permissions its trust module by security level, that line is a setting rather than a promise you have to take on faith. What the VA does is the preparation around it, draft bills and disbursement detail with vouchers attached, and trust-to-office transfer paperwork assembled for your authorisation.

Also yours, always: anything resembling legal advice, undertakings, the wording that goes out under your name, the final shape of every agreement and letter the precedent produced, and the confirm on every critical date the file diarises. The VA opens matters, runs precedents and records time; the judgement that turns a draft into advice and a step into a decision is the practitioner’s. The fuller picture on supervision, privilege and the regulatory frame is on the law firms page.

What it costs and where to start

Matter admin, precedent assembly, time recording and draft billing prep sit on our admin tier at $12-17 AUD an hour excl GST; heavier specialist legal admin is $18-25. Most small firms run 10-15 hours a week, roughly $500-1,100 a month, plus the VA’s own FilePro licence. Placement takes 7-10 business days, with 5-7 days supervised inside your own FilePro before any solo work, starting with matter creation and precedent assembly and adding billing once the file basics are clean. There is a refundable $500 deposit credited to your first month, a 30-day recalibrate-or-replace guarantee, and no lock-in beyond 14 days notice. VAs are Manila-based, working your business hours, with credentials in 1Password and confidentiality signed before day one.

If you want the deeper view, the law firms page covers the regulatory and supervision picture, the invoice chasing page covers debtor follow-up once bills are out the door, and the VA cost guide has the full pricing breakdown. Otherwise book a discovery call with Jenn, who has placed 87+ VAs into Australian businesses since 2024 and takes every call herself. Bring your matter list and last week’s unbilled WIP. We will find the hours.