IRIS Firm Management 5.0 release notes

IRIS Firm Management 5.0 is available from June 2026. Contact your IRIS account manager or customer success manager to find out more about what's new.

You can also check our bug fixes, known issues, or check our APIs.

June 2026|February 2026|2025|2024

Key highlights

New features and enhancements

Billing and invoicing

  • Set up and manage billing at entity, job, and individual client level.
  • A single process from completing work to issuing the invoice, with clearer separation of billing flows end to end.
  • Separate invoice numbering keeps billing records clear and auditable.
  • Send, print, or email receipts individually or in bulk from the billing screen.
  • Create receipts and future bills together in a single step.
  • Service line group filter on the billing edit filter screen.
  • Approve bills and manage contacts from a mobile device.

Request for Payment (RFP)

  • Enable and configure RFP billing at entity level, with the option to disable where required.
  • Set RFP flags at job and client level, with validation and licence-aware grids.
  • Billing toggle and column visibility for RFP across billing, AR, future billing, Staff Data Capture (SDC) search, and credit control.
  • Draft bills and messages aligned with RFP subtypes, with clearer undo wording.
  • Future bills split correctly by RFP value.
  • Print, edit, and email receipts from client RFP grids, including bulk RFP receipts.
  • RFP invoice numbering is separate from standard bill numbers.
  • Clear separation of standard and RFP billing flows end to end.
  • Follow-up fixes for RFP VAT transaction creation.

Accounts Receivable (AR) and cash receipts

Incoming payments are matched to the correct invoices automatically, handling a wide range of payment scenarios without manual intervention.

  • Automatic allocation of receipts to invoices across a broad range of scenarios.
  • Consistent, accurate accounts receivable across the practice.
  • Cash receipt import allows future-dated batches where policy permits.
  • Fewer blocked batches and cleaner AR lists.

WIP provisioning

IRIS Firm Management 5.0 gives you more control over how provision calculations are configured and maintained.

  • Define your own ageing brackets and percentages instead of using fixed defaults.
  • Exclude specific entities, service lines, and job types from provision calculations.
  • On-screen controls prevent accidental edits during open accounting periods.
  • Grids populate more accurately and columns order correctly.
  • Clearer grids and safer maintenance timing.

Standing orders and VAT

Standing order capability now covers setup through to posting, with improved VAT accuracy.

  • Set up recurring charges for clients, removing the need to re-key.
  • Repeatable client charging with clearer posting behaviour.
  • VAT is calculated when payments are allocated or reversed.
  • New VAT transaction tables aligned with existing patterns.
  • VAT transactions created during allocation and unallocation routines.

Integrations

Client records in IRIS Firm Management now link directly to IRIS Elements, with IRIS Firm Management as the primary record holder to protect billing.

  • Client and Staff records sync between IRIS Firm Management and IRIS Elements, keeping data consistent across your IRIS platforms.

User Defined Fields (UDF)

Update UDF across multiple clients, contacts, staff, or jobs simultaneously.

  • Bulk update UDF for clients, contacts, staff, and jobs.
  • Mandatory UDF enforcement is now consistent.
  • Preferences settings now display in the correct sections with clearer labels.

Job management

  • Stage type can be made mandatory in job budgeting where configured.
  • Job budgeting: tighter controls on budget setup and more accurate job-level financial tracking.
  • Job selector filtering respects client context.

Timesheets and expenses

  • Year-to-date totals are visible at a glance on timesheets.
  • Smarter defaults for chargeable time.
  • Improved handling of travel claims, including duplicate award validation.
  • Expense submission now includes safeguards that prevent accidental duplicates.
  • Approval workflows give firms more control.

Security and access

  • Stronger login security using OpenID Connect form post.
  • Tighter controls over sensitive records, including credit control note ownership.
  • Better visibility of who changed what and when, with a clearer audit trail.
  • Okta welcome email send status now logged for new user creation.

Platform performance

Key parts of the IRIS Firm Management platform have been rebuilt to improve speed and reliability.

  • Application startup time and screen transition performance both improved.
  • Upgraded UI framework (Kendo UI) with follow-up defect fixes.
  • IRIS Firm Management Launcher rebuilt using .NET and jQuery.

Bug fixes and reliability improvements

Billing, AR, and credit control

  • Client form: transactional notes dialog state now persists correctly.
  • AR provisions: approval no longer drops after save.
  • Billing: reliability improvements; edit actions disabled when no row is selected.
  • Duplicate Edit Bill button removed from existing draft bills dialog.
  • Future bills, retainers, and reverse item workflows: completion response errors resolved.
  • Shared bill list fix and billing label corrections.
  • Invoice address behaviour: county short code used when available.
  • Credit Controller popup sizing fix.
  • Credit control note editing now correctly enforces ownership - users can only edit their own notes.

SDC

  • Selector search results are more accurate and return more quickly.
  • Long client names now display correctly in the WIP transfer selector.

Due dates

  • Due dates templates now validate correctly, preventing inaccurate data from being saved.
  • The add button in the due dates notes dialog now works as expected.

Job management and budgeting

  • Job rollover year override now respects job configuration.
  • Clients with no jobs no longer appear incorrectly in billing selections.
  • Job budgeting: missing stage inserts resolved on new rows.
  • Job locks now remove reliably.

Time and expenses

  • Time entry lines doubling and child grid saves corrected.
  • Split overtime on timesheet submission now supported.
  • Timer: value error handling resolved and accumulated time preserved on stop.
  • Approving an expense no longer incorrectly removes the client.

Mobile

  • Contact notes fix for mobile workflows.

UDF and forms

  • Colour pickers in user preferences now respect default colour selection.
  • Mandatory UDF enforcement consistency improved.

Reporting and dashboard

  • Consistent date format applied to the outstanding timesheets widget.
  • Dashboard configuration hidden without AdvancedIFM unless superuser.

Navigation and layout

  • Scrolling fixed on detailed WIP allocation.
  • Entity switching flicker with collapsed expansion panels reduced.
  • Custom search client list persistence and billing FilterID alignment corrected.
  • Snapshot dialog now displays the CreatedBy field correctly.
  • Copying and pasting is now restricted to password fields only.

System improvements

Performance and reliability

  • Query optimisations for measurable performance gains.
  • Grid resize behaviour improved on window dimension changes.
  • Reduced flicker and duplicate submission paths in high-interaction screens.

Observability and operations

  • OpenTelemetry replaces Application Insights for modern tracing and metrics.
  • Logging improvements for identity onboarding flows.
  • Faster resolution times when identifying issues.

Code quality

  • Playwright replaces Selenium for UI automation.
  • Expanded unit tests across billing, search, and industry codes.
  • Static analysis and dependency updates applied throughout.

Database and licensing

  • Database version aligned to 5.0.0.0.
  • Request for Payment (RFP) and VAT-related schema additions maintained alongside renames.
  • Licence handling updates, including DMS licence behaviour.