IRIS Firm Management 5.1 release notes

This release makes it easier to find jobs that are ready to bill, review changes made to a bill, contact a client from your timesheet, and find the records you use most. Your administrator turns on some of these features in settings, so you may not see everything right away.

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

October 2026|August 2026|June 2026|February 2026|2025|2024

Key highlights

Features your administrator controls. Your administrator turns on Ready for Billing, draft bill change history, Email Client Contact, and Recent Quick Search choices in settings.

New features and enhancements

Billing

Ready for Billing: find jobs that are ready to invoice

Billing staff can now find the jobs that are ready to bill in one list. There is no need to check each job or keep a separate tracker.

  • A new Ready for Billing column (Yes or No) appears on the job list, with a filter for All, Yes, or No.
  • Open the shortcut menu on a job and select Mark for Billing or Unmark for Billing.
  • The same Yes or No column and mark or unmark option appear on your timesheet for any entry that belongs to a job.
  • Optionally, IFM marks a job as ready when someone completes a "job complete" step. IFM clears the status when the final bill leaves nothing outstanding.
  • The status is also available in your reports.
  • The column shows Yes or No in words, so the status is clear without relying on color.

Your administrator turns on this feature and decides who can mark or unmark jobs. Everyone else can view the column. If the administrator turns the feature off later, IFM keeps existing Yes and No values.

Draft bill change history: review what changed and who changed it

When you review a bill for approval, you can now open a line-by-line history of every edit. It shows when the change happened, who made it, what changed, and the old and new values. Sort, filter, and group the history to focus on one person, one item, or one day.

Your administrator turns on this feature. Until then, you continue to use the previous version history.

A smoother billing experience

  • The Approvals list now shows total billed hours for each bill and for each job within it.
  • Open the job record directly from the main billing list, the approval screen, and the WIP allocation screen.
  • Downloaded invoice PDFs now use the invoice reference as the file name, so they are easy to match to the bill.
  • Time import files can now include Rate and Amount columns. IFM uses your figures as entered.
  • After you pass a bill for approval, the result appears straight away and the Approvals list refreshes on its own.

Time and expenses

Email a client contact from your timesheet

If you have a question about a time entry, open the shortcut menu on the entry and select Email Client Contact. Choose a contact from the list, then send the email. If the client has no eligible contacts, IFM tells you instead of sending an email.

Your administrator turns on this feature and chooses who can send these emails.

Canadian expenses: tax factoring on each expense type

Firms that use Canadian expenses can now record whether tax factoring applies directly on the expense type, rather than tracking it elsewhere. New expense types start with tax factoring turned off. People without edit access can view the setting but cannot change it.

Closing a claim period

If you cannot close a claim period, a message now lists the expenses that need attention. Fix them, then try again. You can also widen the charge account list on the timesheet, so long account names are easier to read.

Staff and names

Partner, manager, and supervisor name layout

Your firm can now choose how names appear when someone creates a partner, manager, or supervisor from a staff record. The options are:

  • Forename Surname
  • Surname, Forename
  • Surname Forename
  • Surname, Initial (for example, "Pearson, R")

A separate setting controls how staff names appear elsewhere. Existing names do not change.

Recent Quick Search choices

Quick Search can now remember the records you chose recently, so you can choose them again instead of typing them. Your history is private to you.

Your administrator turns on this feature.

Custom forms: adjust field widths

People who design custom forms can now make labels and fields wider or narrower on each tab. This helps when you have long labels or long values. Existing forms look the same until someone changes them.

Templates and job rollover

  • Changing the template on a piece of text now fills in that template's details automatically.
  • Schedules created when you roll a job now include the client search name and the job name in the description.

Grids and search (Beta)

This functionality is in Beta. To use it, contact support to turn it on for your firm.

AI assistance on lists

On lists where your firm has turned on AI assistance, you can now:

  • Search in plain language using Smart Box.
  • Use suggested actions from a toolbar.
  • Highlight rows.
  • Chat about the rows you are looking at.
  • Add a temporary column with a short insight for each row. The column does not change how the list looks for anyone else.

Your firm can turn on each part separately, so you may have only some of them.

Improved search windows

The search windows for clients, staff, jobs, receivables, budgeting, scheduling, and onboarding have a new design. You can now narrow client searches by client category.

Reporting

  • Drag column headings on the reports list to put the reports you use most where you want them.
  • The billings dashboard can now show month-to-date billing totals by client partner.

Other improvements

  • Screens, dialogs, and buttons have a fresh, more consistent look.
  • After you sign in again, you stay on the screen you were using.
  • For Canadian expenses, province lists now show provinces, and a new expense starts with the staff member's province.
  • Dashboard settings now appear under Dashboard in the firm settings. Your saved values have not changed.