5 Questions Your Clio Data Can Answer (But Probably Isn't)
You're paying for Clio. It's tracking every client, matter, hour, and dollar. But when was the last time your data actually helped you make a decision?
Most small firms use Clio as a glorified timesheet. The insights are there—profitability, client value, efficiency gaps—but buried under manual reports and endless exports. Here are five questions your data can answer right now, if you know where to look.
Question 1: Which 20% of my clients generate 80% of my revenue?
Why it matters: Most firms spread their attention evenly across all clients. But if you knew that 5 clients generated half your revenue, you'd protect those relationships differently.
What it tells you: Which clients deserve white-glove service, which are profitable but low-maintenance, and which are consuming more time than they're worth.
The gap: Clio tracks this data, but getting the answer means exporting matter data, building pivot tables, and manual calculations—work that takes an hour and is outdated the moment you're done.
What good firms do with this: They assign their best attorneys to high-value clients, create proactive check-in schedules for their top 20%, and have honest conversations about scope or rates with clients who aren't profitable.
Question 2: What's my average time-to-payment by practice area?
Why it matters: Cash flow kills more small firms than lack of clients. Knowing which practice areas pay quickly—and which drag out collections—changes how you price and staff your work.
What it tells you: Whether your family law matters pay in 30 days while your estate planning clients take 90. Whether certain client types (corporate vs. individual) have different payment patterns. Where your working capital is tied up.
The gap: Clio shows you individual invoices and aging reports, but aggregating payment timing across practice areas requires exporting invoice data, matching it to matter types, and calculating averages manually.
What good firms do with this: They adjust payment terms for slow-paying practice areas (retainers, payment plans), prioritize fast-paying work when cash is tight, and factor payment timing into profitability analysis—a $10K matter that pays in 30 days is worth more than a $12K matter that pays in 90.
Question 3: Which matters are underwater (hours worked vs. budget)?
Why it matters: Scope creep is invisible until it's too late. By the time you realize a flat-fee matter has consumed 40 hours instead of the budgeted 20, you've already eaten the loss.
What it tells you: Which matters are trending toward losses before they close, which practice areas consistently run over budget, and which attorneys struggle with scope management.
The gap: Clio tracks time entries and matter budgets separately. Seeing "hours worked vs. hours budgeted" across all active matters requires pulling time entry reports, matching them to matter budgets, and doing the math yourself—repeatedly, as matters progress.
What good firms do with this: They catch scope creep early and have the "we need to revise scope or fees" conversation while the matter is still active. They identify which types of matters need better scoping or different fee structures. They coach attorneys who consistently underestimate effort.
Question 4: Am I leaving billable hours unrecorded?
Why it matters: Fifteen minutes here, a quick email there—unrecorded time adds up fast. If each attorney loses just 30 minutes a day to untracked work, that's 2.5 hours per week, 10 hours per month, $3,000+ in lost revenue per attorney per month.
What it tells you: Whether your attorneys are disciplined about time entry, which clients generate the most "off-the-clock" work, and whether your time-tracking culture is costing you real money.
The gap: Clio can't tell you about time that was never entered. Spotting this requires comparing calendar activity to time entries, looking for gaps between client communication and recorded hours, or noticing patterns in end-of-day time entry habits.
What good firms do with this: They create time-entry habits (record immediately, not at day's end), run spot-checks on email volume vs. recorded time, and address the cultural "I don't want to nickel-and-dime clients" mindset that costs firms thousands in unrecorded work.
Question 5: What's my client acquisition cost by source?
Why it matters: You spend money on marketing—website, networking events, bar association memberships, referral lunches. But do you know which sources deliver profitable clients vs. which are expensive distractions?
What it tells you: Whether that $500 bar association membership generates $50K in client work or nothing. Whether referrals from other attorneys bring better clients than web traffic. Where to double down and where to cut losses.
The gap: Clio tracks matter origination (how the client found you), but calculating acquisition cost requires matching that to your marketing spend, then dividing by client count and weighting by revenue. It's multi-system math that most firms never do.
What good firms do with this: They track origination consistently, allocate marketing budget to high-ROI channels, stop wasting money on activities that feel productive but don't generate clients, and nurture the referral relationships that actually pay off.
The Manual Reporting Problem
If you tried to answer all five of these questions right now, you'd spend 3-4 hours exporting data, building spreadsheets, and updating calculations. And next month? You'd do it all over again.
Some firms solve this with a full-time analyst or office manager who becomes the "data person." Others accept that they're flying blind and make decisions based on gut feel.
A third option: automated analytics platforms like LawFirmNavigator.com pull your Clio data nightly and surface these insights automatically—no spreadsheets, no manual work, no stale data. You wake up to fresh answers every morning.
Want to see what automated insights look like? Book a 15-minute demo
Not ready yet? Read more about why small firms need different analytics than BigLaw, or how the 80/20 rule changes everything for law firm profitability.