How do I categorise my matters by specific criteria or practice areas for reporting purposes?

SILQ has created a field called Matter Type that allows you to track performance of matters in your firm in a way that is completely customisable to you. This field can be used to categorise matters using any criteria relevant to your firm. For Example, you may have a Conveyancing firm, and whilst SILQ has specific Matter Classes for this practice area being Purchase & sale, you may want to report more specifically around the price of the property, the type of property etc. Or perhaps your firm has a Personal Injury component; although SILQ has specific Matter Classes for this also, you may want to be able to report based on the size of the settlement or whether it is multiple parties etc. There are any number of reasons and categories relevant to your firm.  

Tracking performance by matter type helps you understand where time is being spent and where improvements are needed.

This level of detail reveals which areas are creating bottlenecks, which require more assistance, and which are running efficiently.

If you’d like to report on matters in a way that goes beyond our default Matter Classes (i.e. Criminal, Purchase, Personal Injury, etc.), the Matter Types field allows you to do exactly that. It’s a customisable field that allows you to add multiple layers of categorisation of matters based on criteria that are specific to your firm’s needs — whether operational, financial, or strategic.

How Can It Be Used?

You can create Matter Types based on any internal criteria that matter to your firm. For example:

• In Conveyancing, you might want to segment matters by:

  • Property Type (e.g. House, Unit, Commercial)

  • Property Value (e.g. <$1M, $1M–$5M, >$5M)

• In Personal Injury, you might use:

  • Size of Settlement (e.g. Minor Claim, Major Settlement)

  • Case Type (e.g. Single Party, Multi-Party, WorkCover)

• For Criminal, you could categorise by:

  • Severity: (Summary vs Indictable)

  • Type: (Assault, Property, Drug, Traffic, White-Collar etc)

Why Is This Useful for Reporting?

Customising your Matter Types allows you to:

• Track performance more meaningfully across categories relevant to your firm

• Identify trends and bottlenecks by matter type, not just matter class

• Allocate resources more effectively based on what’s growing or slowing

• Improve marketing and strategy decisions by seeing which types of work are expanding

• Assess profitability and efficiency across different matter types

This is especially valuable for multi-disciplinary firms or practices wanting to track nuances in caseload, matter complexity, or source of work.

Getting Started

You can set up your own list of Matter Types using the Lookups option in system settings. Once enabled, users will be able to select a Matter Type when creating or editing a matter. This field can then be used in many of SILQ’s reporting tools to segment and analyse data more precisely.

Tip: Start with categories that align with your business goals — such as revenue tracking, resource planning, or marketing attribution — and evolve the list as your reporting needs become more refined.