Billing restricted to directors
Every billing route returns 403 to anyone but a director.
CRM platform
Pulse CRM for Settle Law Firm
A legal-operations CRM that connects matters, tasks, time, correspondence, documents, billing, registries, and reporting inside one daily workspace.
The problem
Deadlines, client records, matters, correspondence, time, billing and specialist registries needed one operating system, without flattening the differences between them.
Built with
Py Python python.org F FastAPI fastapi.tiangolo.com SQ SQLite sqlite.org J Jinja2 jinja.palletsprojects.com JS JavaScript developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript U Uvicorn uvicorn.org
- Client
- Settle Law Firm
- Year
- 2025
- Role
- Product architecture, backend, frontend workflows, and UI system
- Status
- Live, private client data protected
Screens
Desktop and mobile
The legal-operations CRM on desktop and mobile, on a seeded demo firm: matters, tasks, time and billing in one daily workspace.
Daily workspace
Active matters and today's load, then tasks split across overdue, today, tomorrow and the next seven days.
Matters
Every matter with its client, status and dates, filterable by state.
Clients
The client register, with contact, address and a working note on each row.
Billing
One NNN-STL sequence across four currencies, with paid, pending and overdue in view.
Trademark registry
Applications by number and class, each with its next action and the days left to take it.
Powers of attorney
Each power of attorney with its dates, legalisation state and days remaining.
Time tracking
Time entries against matters, with rate, amount and billing state.
System
Features
Sequential invoice numbers across deletions
One NNN-STL sequence. Deleting an invoice renumbers the rest, transactionally.
Currency determines document language
USD and EUR issue in English, RUB and UZS in Russian.
Bank details frozen per invoice
Each invoice keeps the bank snapshot it was generated with.
Bulk marking invoices as paid
Mark many invoices paid at once, one shared date or one each.
DOCX as the authoritative artifact
The DOCX carries signature and stamp. The HTML preview never does.
Decisions and tradeoffs
Problems we hit
Invoice renumbering on delete and restore
Problem
Deleting an invoice from the middle of a sequence requires shifting all higher numbers down immediately. Restoring it requires shifting them back up.
Our solution
Transactional, per-row renumbering
Both operations are transactional, fingerprint-confirmed, and preserve external file references, making the renumbering a precise per-row operation rather than a bulk recalculation.
Runtime image injection causing layout drift
Problem
An earlier approach injected signature and stamp images into the DOCX at generation time, adjusting geometry at runtime. This caused layout drift.
Our solution
Geometry lives in the template
The geometry is now embedded in the DOCX templates, and runtime injection, rotation, or floating-anchor manipulation is prohibited.
Floating-point rounding in invoice amounts
Problem
Invoice amounts were stored as floating-point REAL columns, which introduces rounding errors in currency arithmetic.
Our solution
Integer minor units as canonical
The canonical representation is now integer minor units. Application arithmetic uses Decimal with explicit half-up conversion, while the legacy REAL columns remain as temporary dual-write shadows during migration.
Deleted bank settings hiding invoice rows
Problem
If a bank setting referenced by invoices is permanently deleted, those invoice rows must remain visible to directors and retain their frozen snapshot.
Our solution
Unlink, never remove
The operation unlinks the setting from the invoice rows but does not remove them, so no financial record disappears with its reference.
Decisions we made
Operational density over a sparse interface
Decision
The main product decision was to prioritize operational density over a sparse marketing-style interface.
Why we made it
Staff need to scan lists, compare states, and move between linked records quickly. The navigation therefore remains visible and predictable, while filters and creation actions sit close to the data they affect.
Domain registries, not generic notes
Decision
The second decision was to extend a common CRM core with domain-specific registries instead of forcing legal work into generic notes.
Why we made it
Trademarks, watch notices, powers of attorney, leads, and correspondence have their own entry points but remain part of the same product model.
Responsive access, not a reduced product
Decision
Responsive behavior was treated as useful access, not a separate reduced product.
Why we made it
The mobile surface preserves dashboard and task visibility, while the fuller desktop layout remains the main environment for record-heavy work.
Next
Contact
Let's talk.
For professional opportunities, collaborations, or selected freelance work.
Open to conversations Frankfurt, Germany Europe/Berlin
GitHub penguindevteam@gmail.com