Thomson Reuters Elite

Supergood | Elite API

Alex Klarfeld

Alex Klarfeld

— 7 min read
Supergood | Elite API

Programmatically access client and matter records, time and expense capture, prebills/proformas, invoices, rates, and trust balances from Thomson Reuters Elite with a stable REST API. Supergood builds and operates production-grade, unofficial Elite integrations so your team can automate legal finance and billing workflows—without heavy custom engineering.

Plain English: Thomson Reuters Elite is finance and practice management software for law firms. It powers client and matter setup, time and expense capture, prebills/proformas, invoicing (including LEDES), collections, trust accounting, and reporting across offices and practices.

For a tech company integrating with Elite, you can pull authoritative client/matter metadata, WIP and AR balances, rates, and invoice status—and push time/expense entries, budget updates, and proforma edits. If your customers use iManage for document management, an Elite API helps you sync matter numbers and status to iManage workspaces, attach cost codes and phases to documents, surface budgets and fee caps inside workspaces, and trigger prebills or accruals from activity captured in DMS. You can build features like time capture from document activity, automated prebills when a workspace hits a threshold, and unified dashboards that reconcile Elite WIP/AR with iManage matter files.

What is Thomson Reuters Elite?

Elite (https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en/products-services/legal/elite.html) is a suite of legal enterprise business management products—including 3E and ProLaw—that helps firms run finance, time & billing, and matter operations. It centralizes client/matter master data, rates and pricing, work-in-progress (WIP), proformas, invoices, receipts, trust, and reporting. Related modules include eBillingHub for LEDES/e-billing and MatterSphere for matter lifecycle and CRM.

Core product areas include:

  • Client & Matter Management (intake, numbering, status, responsible/billing roles)
  • Time & Expense Capture (WIP, validations, UTBMS codes, narratives)
  • Billing & Invoicing (proformas/prebills, write-ups/downs, LEDES, approvals)
  • Financials (AR/AP, GL, multi-currency, multi-office)
  • Rates & Pricing (rate cards, alternative fee arrangements, fee caps, budgets)
  • Trust Accounting (client trust ledgers, receipts, disbursements)
  • Reporting & Analytics (WIP/AR, realization, profitability)
  • Integrations (eBillingHub, MatterSphere, DMS like iManage)

Common data entities:

  • Clients & Matters (client number, matter number, status, practice group)
  • Timekeepers & Roles (responsible partner, billing attorney, originations)
  • Time Entries & Expense Entries (date, hours/amount, UTBMS/LEDES codes, narratives)
  • Rates & Rate Agreements (standard, client/matter-specific, AFA)
  • Proformas/Prebills (draft bills, line edits, write-downs, approvals)
  • Invoices (numbers, LEDES, e-billing status, payments)
  • Trust Ledgers & Transactions (balances, receipts, disbursements)
  • Budgets & Fee Caps (phases, amounts, thresholds)
  • Users/Roles & Security (department, office, permissions)

The Elite Integration Challenge

Finance and billing teams depend on Elite daily, but turning portal-centric workflows into API-driven automation is hard:

  • Complex master data: Client/matter numbering, multi-office/department segments, and user-defined fields require consistent mapping
  • Billing lifecycle nuance: WIP validation rules, prebills, write-ups/downs, and multi-step approvals demand idempotent, auditable actions
  • UTBMS/LEDES alignment: Phases/tasks/activity codes vary by client and must map cleanly for e-billing and realization analytics
  • Authentication & SSO: Firm SSO/MFA and session lifecycles complicate headless automation
  • Entitlements & ethics: Role-based access, matter security, and ethical walls must be respected across users and regions
  • Asynchronous jobs: Prebill generation, LEDES exports, and batch updates run long and need status polling or webhooks
  • Reconciliation & audit: Every change to WIP/AR or trust must be traceable and reversible with robust audit trails

How Supergood Creates Elite APIs

Supergood reverse-engineers authenticated browser flows and network interactions to deliver a resilient API endpoint layer for your Elite tenant.

  • Handles username/password, SSO/OAuth, and MFA (SMS, email, TOTP) securely
  • Maintains session continuity with automated refresh and change detection
  • Normalizes client, matter, time, proforma, invoice, rate, and trust objects into consistent schemas
  • Aligns with customer entitlements, matter security, and ethical walls for compliant access
  • Supports high-volume operations (bulk time import, prebill generation) with polling or webhooks for long-running jobs
  • Maps UTBMS/LEDES codes and client-specific rate rules with validation and clear error reporting

Use Cases

iManage-Driven Workspace & Matter Sync

  • Auto-create/update iManage workspaces from Elite matter data
  • Enrich documents with matter numbers, phase/task codes, and billing status
  • Display budgets, fee caps, and trust balances inside workspaces for fee earner awareness

Time Capture & Prebill Automation

  • Push time from document/email activity or timers into Elite with validations
  • Generate prebills on schedule or on WIP thresholds; route for approval
  • Apply standard or client/matter-specific rates and UTBMS codes consistently

Budget vs. Actuals & Client Reporting

  • Pull WIP/AR and budgets by phase to power dashboards
  • Alert teams when fee caps are close; trigger write-down recommendations
  • Export realized vs. standard rate delta for profitability analytics

E-Billing & Accruals Sync

  • Retrieve invoice status and rejections for case/ticketing systems
  • Post accruals and monthly estimates to client portals
  • Attach supporting docs and narratives; track resubmission outcomes

Available Endpoints

Authentication

POST /sessions: Establish a session using credentials. Supergood manages MFA (SMS, email, TOTP) and SSO/OAuth when enabled. Returns a short-lived auth token maintained by the platform.

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.supergood.ai/integrations/<integration_id>/sessions \
  --header 'Authorization: Basic <Base64 encoded token>' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "username": "[email protected]",
    "password": "<password>",
    "mfa": { "type": "totp", "code": "123456" }
  }'

Example response

{
  "authToken": "eyJhbGciOi...",
  "expiresIn": 3600,
  "user": {
    "id": "u_elite_2f31d7",
    "name": "Billing Analyst",
    "entitlements": ["matters", "time", "proformas", "invoices"]
  }
}

POST /sessions/refresh: Refresh an existing token to keep sessions uninterrupted.

Matters

GET /matters: List matters with filters for status, client, practice, attorneys, and update windows.

Query parameters

  • status: open | closed | on_hold
  • clientNumber: string
  • billingAttorneyId: string
  • responsiblePartnerId: string
  • practiceGroup: string
  • updatedFrom, updatedTo: ISO 8601 timestamps
  • page, pageSize: integers for pagination

Example response

{
  "items": [
    {
      "matterId": "mtr_004219",
      "matterNumber": "045678.0001",
      "clientNumber": "045678",
      "title": "Acquisition of Contoso Ltd.",
      "status": "open",
      "openedOn": "2025-11-03",
      "closedOn": null,
      "currency": "USD",
      "practiceGroup": "Corporate",
      "billingAttorney": {"id": "tk_102", "name": "Alex Rivera"},
      "responsiblePartner": {"id": "tk_007", "name": "Priya Shah"},
      "utbms": {"phases": ["L100", "L200"], "clientSet": "ACME_2026"},
      "budgets": {"fees": 250000.00, "expenses": 15000.00},
      "balances": {"wipFees": 38540.00, "wipExpenses": 2190.75, "ar": 120000.00, "trust": 50000.00},
      "udf": {"dmsWorkspaceId": "iManage:WS_045678.0001"}
    }
  ],
  "page": 1,
  "pageSize": 50,
  "total": 1
}

Time Entries

POST /time-entries: Create or update a time entry with UTBMS/LEDES validation. Entries post to WIP subject to Elite rules and entitlements.

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.supergood.ai/integrations/<integration_id>/time-entries \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer <authToken>' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "externalId": "imn-activity-93841",
    "matterId": "mtr_004219",
    "timekeeperId": "tk_102",
    "workDate": "2026-02-18",
    "hours": 2.3,
    "rate": 495.00,
    "currency": "USD",
    "billable": true,
    "utbms": {"phase": "L200", "task": "L220", "activity": "A102"},
    "narrative": "Drafted stock purchase agreement SPA sections 2.1–2.5; reviewed comments.",
    "source": {"system": "imanage", "workspaceId": "WS_045678.0001", "documentId": "DOC12345"},
    "tags": ["workspace-timer", "drafting"]
  }'

Example response

{
  "timeEntryId": "te_81b9f4",
  "status": "posted_to_wip",
  "wipFeesDelta": 1138.50,
  "validations": [
    {"type": "utbms", "status": "ok"},
    {"type": "rate", "appliedRate": 495.00, "rule": "client_matter_rate:2026"}
  ],
  "createdAt": "2026-02-18T19:12:03Z"
}

Proformas (Prebills)

POST /proformas: Generate a draft prebill for a matter or client with optional write-downs and grouping. Long-running jobs return a jobId for polling.

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.supergood.ai/integrations/<integration_id>/proformas \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer <authToken>' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "matterId": "mtr_004219",
    "throughDate": "2026-02-29",
    "includeUnbilledOnly": true,
    "groupBy": ["timekeeper", "utbms.phase"],
    "writeDowns": {"feesPercent": 0.0, "expensesPercent": 0.0},
    "recipient": {"contactId": "cnt_9012", "delivery": "electronic"},
    "notes": "February prebill for ACME – Corporate M&A"
  }'

Example response

{
  "proformaId": "pf_6a10e2",
  "status": "draft",
  "totals": {"fees": 40215.00, "expenses": 2190.75, "tax": 0.00, "currency": "USD"},
  "lineItems": {
    "count": 37,
    "sample": [
      {"type": "time", "timeEntryId": "te_81b9f4", "hours": 2.3, "rate": 495.00, "extended": 1138.50, "utbms": {"phase": "L200"}},
      {"type": "expense", "expenseEntryId": "ex_553a12", "amount": 45.00, "code": "E101"}
    ]
  },
  "createdAt": "2026-02-29T02:32:41Z"
}

Get full API Specs →

Technical Specifications

  • Authentication: Username/password with MFA (SMS, email, TOTP) and SSO/OAuth where enabled; supports service accounts or customer-managed credentials
  • Response format: JSON with consistent resource schemas and pagination across modules
  • Rate limits: Tuned for enterprise throughput while honoring customer entitlements and usage controls
  • Session management: Automatic reauth and cookie/session rotation with health checks
  • Data freshness: Near real-time retrieval of matters, WIP, proformas, invoices, rates, and trust balances
  • Security: Encrypted transport, scoped tokens, and audit logging; respects Elite matter security and roles
  • Webhooks: Optional asynchronous delivery for long-running workflows (e.g., prebill generation, LEDES exports)

Performance Characteristics

  • Latency: Sub-second responses for list/detail queries under normal load; prebill generation times reflect underlying platform behavior
  • Throughput: Designed for high-volume time entry ingestion and billing cycle synchronization
  • Reliability: Retry logic, backoff, and idempotency keys minimize duplicates and support at-least-once processing
  • Adaptation: Continuous monitoring for UI/API changes with rapid adapter updates

Getting Started

  1. Schedule Integration Assessment

Book a 30-minute session to confirm your modules (3E, ProLaw, eBillingHub), licensing, and authentication model.

  1. Supergood Builds and Validates Your API

We deliver a hardened Elite adapter tailored to your workflows, matter security, and UTBMS/LEDES rules.

  1. Deploy with Monitoring

Go live with continuous monitoring and automatic adjustments as Elite evolves.

Schedule Integration Call →

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Which Elite modules can this integration cover?

Supergood supports workflows commonly used for legal finance and billing, including Client & Matter (master data), Time & Expense (WIP), Billing (proformas/prebills, approvals), Rates/Pricing, Invoicing (including LEDES via eBillingHub), and Reporting, subject to your licensing and entitlements. We scope coverage during integration assessment.

Q: How does this work with iManage?

We can map Elite client/matter numbers and key fields to iManage workspaces, push time from workspace activity into Elite, and surface budgets/WIP inside workspaces. We respect matter security and ethical walls across systems and provide idempotent sync to avoid duplicates.

Q: Do you support UTBMS/LEDES code sets and client-specific rules?

Yes. We validate UTBMS phases/tasks/activity codes, apply client/matter rate rules, and can export LEDES for eBillingHub or retrieve e-billing statuses back to your systems.

Q: Can we edit prebills and maintain an audit trail?

Yes. We support generating proformas, applying write-ups/downs, adding notes, and routing for approvals with immutable audit records. Long-running edits use jobs with polling or webhooks.

Q: How are MFA and SSO handled for automation?

We support username/password + MFA (SMS, email, TOTP) and can operate behind SSO/OAuth when enabled. Sessions are refreshed automatically with secure challenge handling and monitoring for session expiry.

iManage API - Programmatically connect document workspaces to Elite matters with Supergood

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Supergood can have your Elite integration live in days with no ongoing engineering maintenance.

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