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Certum Draft

File Notes

A file note should take seconds to make, not minutes. The File Note toolbar button in the matter workspace opens a small sheet — pick the note type, describe it, type the note — and saves a professional PDF straight into the matter’s Correspondence folder. No choosing a folder, no naming a file, no leaving the matter.

The New File Note sheet — a telephone attendance with number and duration, showing the "bills as 12 min" rounding chip, description and note body

Making a note

Section titled “Making a note”

  1. Open the matter and click File Note in the toolbar.

  2. Pick the note type: File Note, Telephone Attendance, Conference, Advice, Capacity or Settlement.

  3. Add a short description — it becomes part of the filename, so “with client re contract” reads well in the folder later.

  4. For a telephone attendance, enter the number and the duration in minutes. The sheet shows what it bills as — duration rounds up to the firm’s six-minute billing unit at capture (a 10-minute call bills as 12 minutes), the same rule the invoice expects.

  5. Type the body and hit Save Note.

The PDF lands in the matter’s Correspondence folder (created if the matter type’s pack didn’t define one), named by the same convention throughout the app:

2026-08-10 01 Telephone Attendance - with client re contract.pdf

The date prefix keeps the folder chronological; the counter increments if you make several notes the same day. The letterhead carries the firm name from Preferences → Firm Setup.

Why Correspondence matters

Section titled “Why Correspondence matters”

Notes aren’t filed into a private notes store — they’re ordinary PDFs in the folder the rest of the app already watches:

  • Invoice drafting sweeps Correspondence, so a telephone attendance with its billed minutes is sitting there when the bill is drawn.
  • The automation API’s matter.correspondence listing sees them like any other letter.

If a colleague has the matter open, the workspace is read-only and the File Note button is hidden — notes are edits like any other.

Notes over the automation API

Section titled “Notes over the automation API”

The same engine is exposed as the audited matter.note.add write operation, so an AI assistant (or any tool on the automation socket) can file a note — same types, same rounding, same PDF, same Correspondence folder. Every API note is recorded in the automation audit log.

Section titled “Related”