What is Advoca?
Advoca is practice management software (also called law firm software or legal case management software) for lawyers and law firms in Belgium. You work in the browser, with nothing to install, on a computer, tablet or smartphone. Every firm has its own, strictly isolated environment. You can use the application in English; invoices, including the statutory VAT wording on them, are currently generated in Dutch. Advoca currently supports law firms in Belgium. Support for France, the United Kingdom, Poland and Germany is in preparation.
Advoca has three plans, priced per user per month (excl. VAT): Core €69, Advanced €99 and Advanced+ €119. Every new firm can try Advoca free for 30 days, without a payment card. See the plans.
Matter management with matter IDs and conflict-of-interest checks
Automatic matter ID
Every new matter receives a unique number following a fixed pattern, for example G2610001 (prefix, year, month, sequence number). The whole firm speaks the same language.
Parties with roles
Link contacts to a matter as client, opposing party, opposing counsel or another role. One contact can appear in several matters.
Conflict-of-interest check
If you add a party who is on the other side in another matter, Advoca immediately shows which matter causes the conflict. A deliberate override is recorded in the audit trail.
Deadlines, hearings and limitation periods
Record deadlines, hearing dates and limitation dates for each matter. The Limitation periods report and the weekly agenda show what is coming up.
Fee agreements per matter
A fixed hourly rate, a matter percentage, a discount, a budget with an alert percentage or a fixed fee: the agreement is stored with the matter and applied when you invoice.
Web links and notes
Keep useful links (case law, portals, shared folders) and contact moments with the matter or the contact.
More about matter management and conflict checks
Time recording: time entries, timers and day overview
Time entries per matter
Record minutes worked and billable minutes with a description and task code. Non-billable work remains visible without appearing on the invoice.
Timers
Start a timer for a matter and convert it into a time entry. Time is rounded to units of 6 minutes.
Day overview with gap analysis
A day overview on a timeline shows which hours have been recorded and where the gaps are, so no work gets lost.
Review by a colleague
Time entries and tasks can be sent "for review" to a reviewer, who approves them before they are invoiced.
Time entries on a task
A task can have linked time entries and shows their total time. Start a timer or click + Time entry from the task; invoicing still works from the time entries.
More about time recording for lawyers
Belgian invoicing (Advanced plan)
Invoice from unbilled time entries
With one click Advoca creates an invoice from all completed, billable time entries on the matter, at the right rate and with the agreed discount.
Fees, costs and disbursements
Add invoice lines by type, with quantity, unit price, VAT rate and line discount.
VAT regimes with statutory wording
Standard 21%, reverse charge (medecontractant / cocontractant), intra-Community service, exemption under Art. 44 of the Belgian VAT Code and pro deo. At 0%, Advoca puts the mandatory wording on the invoice.
Structured payment reference
Every invoice receives a valid structured payment reference (gestructureerde mededeling / communication structurée), +++123/4567/89012+++, with a check digit, so payments are easy to match.
PDF and UBL
Your client receives a clean PDF with your firm details, a VAT breakdown and payment instructions. There is also a structured UBL file (XML) for e-invoicing.
Credit notes, payments and reminders
Create a credit note for an invoice, record (partial) payments, track the outstanding balance and email a reminder to the client's billing address.
Invoices follow a simple flow: to review → approved → sent → paid. An invoice can only be sent once your firm details (address and VAT number) have been filled in, so every invoice contains the legally required information. More about invoicing · Peppol and e-invoicing in 2026
Document management with OCR and full-text search
Upload documents per matter and organise them in folders (for example correspondence, proceedings, client documents). Advoca reads the text of every document, including scanned PDFs without a text layer, thanks to OCR in Dutch, French and English. You can then find any document with a full-text search, with highlighted excerpts. A download returns exactly the same file you uploaded. More about document management
Debt collection (Advanced plan)
Follow up debt-collection files with the instructing client, the debtor and dated entries: debt, payment and action. Advoca shows the outstanding balance and keeps everything with the ordinary matter. How a debt-collection practice uses Advoca
Search, reports and dashboard
- Omnisearch: one search box for contacts, matters and documents.
- Reports: limitation periods, weekly agenda, work in progress (WIP), time entries per fee earner and birthdays, with export to CSV.
- Dashboard: what needs attention today, such as time entries to review, open contact moments and invoices to be checked.
Team, roles and firm details
The administrator invites colleagues by email (the invitation is valid for 14 days) and chooses their role: team member or administrator (what can each role do?). A team member works in everything at the firm; only an administrator can invite people, change roles or revoke invitations. The Team page shows each team member's full name, role, email address and phone number. On the Firm details page the administrator manages the address, VAT number, company number (KBO-nummer / numéro BCE), IBAN and BIC (with validation of the IBAN and VAT number), the subscription and the payment method. You restrict a sensitive matter with entitled users: then only they and the administrators see that matter.
Security and professional secrecy
Every firm is isolated from all other firms at database level (row-level security). Changes are recorded in an audit trail. Backups are encrypted, stored immutably in the EU and automatically restored to check that they work. Read how Advoca protects your data