Opening a new matter: FICA, conflicts and mandate

The Legal pack's new-matter steps for a South African practice, from FICA documents and a partner's conflict clearance to an e-signed mandate.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 4 min read · For Legal businesses in South Africa

Launching soon. The Industry CRM add-on described in this article is launching soon. This article describes it as it will work at launch.

Opening a matter in a South African practice is a sequence that should not be done out of order. You cannot sensibly sign a mandate before you know who the client is, and you should not hear the detail of a case before checking you are free to act. Yet when the office is busy, steps happen in whatever order the paperwork arrives.

Achekam's Legal pack turns that sequence into a workflow. Each step becomes a task, the client is asked for what only the client can provide, and the matter cannot move past certain points until the earlier steps are done.

The new-matter workflow, step by step

1. Screen the matter. A first look at what the client wants and whether the practice does this kind of work.
2. Request FICA documents. The client is sent a request for identity and address documents.
3. Run the conflict check. The names on the matter are searched, and a partner clears the result.
4. Send the fee estimate. The client receives the practice's estimate of fees.
5. Sign the mandate electronically. The mandate and fee agreement go out for e-signature.
6. Open the file. The matter becomes active.

The workflow creates its tasks stage by stage as the matter moves, so the team sees what is due now rather than every step at once.

Requesting the client's FICA documents

Instead of an e-mail asking the client to "send us your ID and proof of address", the workflow sends a request for those documents. The client answers the request, and the answer moves the task on. Nobody has to watch an inbox and remember to tick something off.

What counts as acceptable, how recent a proof of address may be, and what to do when something is missing are matters for the practice's own FICA procedures. The workflow asks and records; your procedures decide. Write the request once, in plain language, listing exactly what you accept, so clients send the right document the first time. The Financial Intelligence Centre's page for legal practitioners sets out which attorneys, advocates and law firms are accountable institutions under the FIC Act, with the compliance communications and risk assessment that apply.

A partner clears the conflict check

The conflict check searches the names on the matter against the practice's records, and in this workflow a partner clears the result. That puts the judgment with someone able to weigh a borderline connection, and it turns the clearance into a recorded act by a named person rather than an assumption.

The matter's stage gate backs this up. A matter cannot reach Mandate signed until the conflict-check stage is done and a signature task is complete, so the mandate can never get ahead of the clearance. The full list of stages is Intake, Conflict check, Mandate signed, Active, Finalising, and Closed or Declined.

Fee estimate first, then the mandate

With the conflict cleared, the client receives the fee estimate and then the mandate and fee agreement to sign. The signing uses Achekam's e-signing: signature and initials fields placed on the document, signers in order or all at once, an expiry and reminders. When everyone has signed, the signed PDF and a completion certificate are filed back into the practice's documents. Only then does the workflow open the file.

Sending the estimate before the mandate gives the client a chance to query the fee before anything is signed, which tends to prevent fee disputes later.

Starter wording a practitioner must review

The pack comes with a mandate and fee agreement, and it is marked as starter wording that a practitioner reviews before use. Every contract or agreement in the industry packs carries the same marking. Treat it literally. The fee basis, how unearned amounts are handled, termination, and the description of the mandate itself are for the practice to decide and write in its own words.

Do the review once, carefully, before the first matter, and save the reviewed version as the one everybody uses.

Why money held in trust stays outside the add-on

The Legal pack keeps no trust account. A retainer it requests is the practice's own money for fees. Money held in trust for clients stays outside the add-on, in whatever system and bank account the practice already uses for trust accounting.

That is a deliberate line, and everyone in the office should understand it. If a client is to pay money into trust, for a transfer, a settlement or anything else, that payment does not go through the pack's retainer request. Keep the two apart in your instructions to clients as well, so nobody pays trust money in response to a fee request.

Who does what when a matter opens

Before the first new matter, review the starter mandate, write the FICA request wording, decide which partners may clear conflicts, and brief staff that trust money never goes through the pack.

For the conflict check in more detail, see running a conflict check before accepting a matter. How the signing step works on its own is covered in getting a client mandate signed electronically.

The workflow takes care of the order; the practice still does the judging. Settle the wording and the people first, and the steps fall into place behind them.

General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.