Questions and answers
CLE providers: questions, answered
Bindro sells seats on accredited CLE courses, scans attorneys in per session, and issues one serialised certificate per attorney from that verified attendance — a no-show who paid gets nothing, which is what an audit checks. Bar members and firms can be priced against a roster or billed on a purchase order with no card. It does not file credits with any state bar. It costs 2.5% + $0.99 per paid seat; free courses cost nothing.
Reviewed: 2026-08-09
What providers ask
How does CLE credit reporting work by state?
Reporting duties vary by jurisdiction, and bindro deliberately takes no position on which apply to you: some bars expect the accredited provider to report attendance, others expect the attorney to self-report against a certificate, and the deadlines and formats differ. What bindro gives you is the evidence either route needs — per session hours, who was actually scanned in, and a serialised certificate per attorney — exported or printed. It does not submit anything to any bar on your behalf.
What software files CLE credits with state bars?
Not bindro — it issues credits and certificates but transmits nothing to any jurisdiction, and marketing that suggested otherwise would be a claim the engine cannot keep. Several established CLE platforms do offer state reporting as part of their service; if filing on your behalf is the requirement, check the current documentation of the vendors in that space rather than taking our word for what they do. Bindro is the registration, door and money layer underneath.
How do I track partial attendance for CLE credit?
Scan each session separately: a credential is scoped to the sessions it was sold for, so an attorney admitted to the morning session is unknown at the afternoon one, and each scan is recorded against that session. Credits are then issued per session from those scan records, so an attorney who sat the morning only receives the morning hours and nothing else. Nobody has to reconcile a sign-in sheet afterwards.
How are credit hours calculated for each attorney?
From the length of the session and the scan at the door, not from the sale. When you issue credits for a session that has ended, bindro writes one credit per verified attendee, carrying the session's contact hours and a unique serial; an attorney who paid and never arrived gets nothing. Issuing again for the same session is idempotent — it never mints a second credit for the same attorney — and a session that has not ended yet is refused outright.
Can I charge bar members less than non-members?
Yes — set a member rate on the seat type and bindro verifies each membership reference against your own roster inside the money transaction. A current member is charged the member rate, a lapsed or revoked reference is refused with a message against the field rather than quietly charged full price, and the order line records why it was cheaper. Only a digest of each reference is stored, so the console can never read a membership number back.
Can a law firm book eight seats and name the attorneys later?
Yes. The firm pays for the places up front and gets a roster it can fill in afterwards, either by typing the names or by emailing each place to the attorney taking it. Booking places never creates inventory — the roster only renames seats the order already paid for — and a place nobody has named is kept off the door list and refused if it is scanned, so an unnamed seat cannot become an unidentified credit.
Can a firm pay by purchase order instead of a card?
Yes — the checkout offers "invoice my organisation" for CLE providers, and an invoiced registration confirms with no card at all. Bindro issues a numbered bill carrying the firm's PO number and standard terms, commits the seats, and sends the bill to accounts payable while the credentials go to the booker. An unpaid invoice past its due date is voided automatically and the seats return to sale.
What happens in the accounts when a firm has been invoiced but has not paid?
Nothing — an invoice is a promise, not money, and issuing one writes no ledger entry whatsoever. Your balance cannot carry a registration nobody has paid for, so a payout can never be funded by an outstanding bill. When the remittance arrives, someone with finance rights records the settlement against a reference, and only then is the sale written and the money credited. Recording it twice is refused.
When does a CLE provider actually get paid?
Two days after the course completes, and never before it is delivered. Card money is held until the seats have actually been sat, which is the same rule the whole platform runs on rather than a term specific to this vertical; invoiced registrations reach your balance when the settlement is recorded. There is no reserve withheld on CLE courses — this vertical is rated low risk.
What does bindro cost a CLE provider?
2.5% + $0.99 per paid seat, and free courses cost nothing. On a $195.00 half-day seminar that is $5.87 a seat: a firm booking 8 places pays $1,560.00 and the fees on that order come to $46.96. There is no annual licence, no per-provider platform charge and nothing to pay before you sell a seat. You can also choose whether the fee is absorbed or passed to the registrant.
Does check-in still work if the hotel conference wifi fails?
Yes — the door works offline. Each device syncs a signed manifest of who is expected at that session, validates scans locally with no network at all, and uploads the shift log afterwards; a re-upload counts as a duplicate rather than a second admission. If the same attorney is scanned on two devices, the clash lands in a conflict queue for review instead of silently picking a winner.
Can I ask different questions of different registrants?
Yes — a registration question can be shown only when an earlier answer calls for it, and the rule is enforced on the money path rather than in the browser. A question hidden by the rule is not required, a question the rule reveals is, and a hand-posted answer to an invisible field is refused. It works with no client-side script, so it behaves the same on a locked-down firm laptop.
Can I collect a copy of an attorney's bar card at registration?
No — document upload is optional for CLE providers and is not turned on, so no file control renders on the registration form. You can collect the bar number itself as a registration answer, which is what most jurisdictions actually want; if you need the card image for a specific bar, collect it outside bindro for now rather than expecting the checkout to hold it.
Can I sell an annual all-access CLE subscription?
No, and the reason is structural rather than a missing screen. Payouts settle per delivered course, so money taken for a year of unspecified future courses has no delivery event to release it against — the platform could take it and never pay it out. Subscription pricing is therefore refused at checkout for this vertical. Season passes and multi-course bundles are not available here for the same reason.
Can I sell a multi-day institute where attorneys pick their sessions?
Partly, and the limit is worth knowing before you plan the programme. Multi-session orders are real — one order, one line per session, each person getting a credential per session that admits at that session only — but they ship on the public JSON API today, while the hosted checkout page still sells one session per order. Running an institute through the hosted flow means selling each session as its own registration.
Can I take a registration over the phone for an attorney who cannot use the form?
Yes — the console has a back-office registration form that runs the same money path, the same registration questions and the same credential issuance as the public checkout. It is not a separate ledger or a spreadsheet row: the seat is committed in the same pool, the attorney appears on the same door list, and the credit is issued from the same scan as everybody else's.
Can I comp a seat for a speaker or a scholarship attendee?
Yes, and a comped seat still earns credit the same way. Complimentary registrations are issued from the console, carry a real credential, appear on the door list and are scanned like any other attorney, so the credit record is identical. The one difference is financial: there is no money on the order, so there is nothing to refund and no platform fee.
What attorneys ask
How do I get my CLE certificate?
Your provider issues it after the session has ended, from the record of your scan at the door. Each certificate carries a unique serial and the contact hours for that session, so it can be verified by quoting the serial alone, and you get one per session you actually attended. If you registered but were not scanned in, there is no certificate to issue — ask the provider before you leave, not afterwards.
I only attended the morning session — do I still get credit for it?
Yes, for the morning only. Credit follows the sessions you were actually scanned into, so a half-day gives you the hours for that half-day and nothing for the sessions you missed. This is why a provider scans at each session rather than once at the front door, and why leaving before the afternoon session is scanned means no afternoon hours, whatever the registration said.
Why does the registration form ask for my bar number?
Because the provider has to attribute your credit hours to you as an admitted attorney, and the bar number is what identifies you to your jurisdiction. It is a registration answer held against your seat, and it is separate from any membership number you might also be asked for — that one is about a discount, this one is about the credit.
I am a bar association member — how do I get the member rate?
Enter your membership number at registration and the member price is applied for you; the discount is worked out on the server, not in the browser, so the amount you are charged is the amount the provider set. If your membership has lapsed or been revoked you are told so at that point rather than being charged the wrong price and sorting it out later. Only a digest of the number is stored.
Can I send a colleague in my place if I cannot attend?
Not through bindro — transferring a seat is not enabled for CLE providers, and an attempt to do it is refused rather than quietly moving the credit to somebody the record does not name. Ask the provider: they can cancel your registration and take a new one for your colleague from the console, which keeps the credit attached to the attorney who actually sits the session.
Can I cancel my registration and get a refund?
Up until the session starts, yes — your confirmation email carries a signed link to your own registration, and you can refund it there yourself without emailing anyone. Once the session has started that window has closed and it is the provider's call from the console. If the provider cancels the course outright, it stays refundable regardless of the clock.
Will the provider be able to see my membership number?
No — only a one-way digest of it is stored, and the console cannot read the number back at all. It is treated as a bearer secret because it unlocks a cheaper price: the roster page shows your name and whether your membership is current, which is what the provider needs to answer a billing question, and never the number you typed.
What happens to my credit if I registered but did not turn up?
You get nothing, and that is deliberate. Credits are derived from check-in records rather than from the sale, so paying for a seat you did not sit produces no certificate and no hours — which is exactly what an accreditor expects of the provider. The money question is separate: whether a no-show is refundable depends on when you asked, since the self-service window closes at the start of the session.
What does bindro NOT do for a provider?
A capability this vertical does not declare is refused by the engine rather than quietly missing, so it is listed here rather than left to be discovered.
- Filing credits with a state bar — nothing in the engine transmits anything to any jurisdiction. Bindro issues the per-session hours and the certificates; the provider files them, exactly as they do today.
- Credit categories — a credit record carries hours, a serial and the session it came from. Ethics, technology and specialty-credit categories are not modelled, so the split has to come from how you structure the sessions themselves.
- Collecting a bar card or admission certificate at registration — document upload is optional for CLE providers and is not turned on, so the file control does not render.
- Board and quarterly activity reports — configured as optional for this vertical and not resolved; the console page is a hard refusal rather than an empty report.
- Webcast, on-demand and recorded CLE — bindro sells the seat and admits at the door. It hosts no content and has no learner record, and a credit here comes from a scan.
- Picking sessions across a multi-day institute in the hosted checkout — the hosted flow sells one session per order today; multi-session orders ship on the public JSON API.
- Annual all-access CLE subscriptions — payouts settle per delivered course, so subscription revenue could be taken and never paid out. It is refused on purpose.
- Paying for a seat in instalments, or deferring a seat to a later run of the course — both are optional for this vertical and are not enabled.
- Printed name badges — badge printing is optional here and not resolved; check-in is by QR.
- Handing a seat to a colleague — ticket transfer is not declared for CLE providers, so a direct call is refused rather than quietly reassigning the credit.
- Waitlists on a fully subscribed course — a waiting list is not enabled, so full is full.
What else should I read?
CLE providers: the overview
Credit hours earned per session, from the scan at the door.
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