Immigration practice, without the folder full of reminders
Tracking for every application and every appointment, KYC that survives a foreign passport, and a client who can see where things stand — in their own language.
The hard part isn't the law. It's the calendar.
A Spanish immigration practice rarely loses a matter on a point of law. It loses one because an appointment fell in August, because a certificate expired four days before it was filed, or because nobody told the client that the document deadline started running with a notification that landed on a Friday.
An immigration matter is, underneath, a chain of dates and third-party documents: the application, the appointment, the decision, the renewal. It makes no difference whether it is a NIE, a non-lucrative residence permit, an arraigo social or laboral, a family reunification, a TIE renewal or a citizenship-by-residence file — the chain is the same and the clock runs the same. And every client lives it in a different language and from a different time zone.
Mandato doesn't practise immigration law. It orders everything around it: the state of each application, the date of each appointment, the paperwork still outstanding and the conversation with the client. Frank & Partners, the firm Mandato was built in, runs on the order of fifty NIEs a month this way. And it serves a gestoría or an asesoría doing immigration work just as well: the work is the same, even if the bar card isn't.
Every application, with its state and its date
The matter tracks the application and its associated appointment: what stage it is at, what has been submitted, what is missing and when the next thing falls due. Those dates live in the firm's calendar next to the procedural deadlines arriving from LexNET, not in a parallel spreadsheet.
When a client has several applications running — theirs, their spouse's, the child who turns eighteen next year — each is a matter with its own clock, and all of them hang off the same client.
And above the individual files there is a firm-wide view: every NIE application grouped by what is urgent — the ones that have run past their date, the ones with an appointment in the next few days, the ones still waiting for an appointment, the upcoming ones and the ones already resolved — on a single screen. For a practice moving fifty files a month, that list is the morning briefing; without it you open matters one at a time to find out which one is on fire.
KYC that doesn't break on a foreign passport
KYC in a Spanish firm is built around the DNI. In immigration work the client arrives with a Norwegian passport, proof of address in English and a certificate that needs translating. The onboarding flow jams on step one, and somebody ends up filing documents in a shared folder.
In Mandato, onboarding accounts for nationality from the start: which document identifies this person, what is being asked of them, what is still missing. Tax-ID validation with the AEAT's official algorithms covers the Spanish side where there is one; the rest of the identity file lives where it should, in the matter, with its history.
When the client is a foreign company with a Spanish director, the registry filing is tracked from the matter and the certificate is read on arrival.
The client sees where they stand, in their language
Most of the administrative time in an immigration practice goes on explaining the state of a matter by phone, by email and over WhatsApp — often in a language that isn't the firm's.
The client portal shows the milestone their application has reached, the documents that are theirs to provide and what is already settled — in Spanish or English, with nobody translating by hand. WhatsApp is a native channel of the matter, not a parallel conversation on a partner's phone.
The practical effect is measured in calls that don't come in. Clients stop asking “where are we?” because they can see it.
It runs on the phone, in the corridor outside the office
An immigration practice does not work sitting down. It works between one appointment at the Oficina de Extranjería and the next, phone in hand and often on bad signal. Mandato installs on a phone like an app — it goes on the home screen and opens full-screen, with no browser bar — and it is not a shrunken website: the screens you use standing up were built for that.
And if the connection drops, what you type is not lost. It queues on the device itself and sends as soon as the network returns, telling you it has. That is the difference between noting something down at the moment and promising yourself you will note it when you get back.
The resolution deadline lives with the rest of the file. Every application carries its dated milestones — filing, appointment, fingerprints, resolution and TIE collection — so when it went in and when the statutory period to decide runs out are where they should be. When that period passes without notification, what to do about the silencio administrativo is the lawyer's judgement; having the date in front of you is the precondition for exercising it in time.
Mandato does not book the appointment for you, and it does not submit the application to the administration: it tracks the state and the dates, and tells you. It also doesn't cover the regional justice systems — Avantius and eJusticia.cat are still pending. And the LexNET integration needs your bar credentials: if you run immigration work from a gestoría, everything else on this page works the same, but that one piece isn't yours. Those procedures you still do yourself; Mandato makes sure they don't slip.
Frequently asked questions
Does Mandato book the appointment automatically?
No. Mandato tracks the application and the appointment, and puts the date in the firm's calendar with its reminders. Booking still happens through the official channels.
Does it work for clients who don't speak Spanish?
Yes. The portal, the templates and the communications exist in Spanish and English, written by lawyers. The client picks their language; the firm works in its own.
How does KYC work for a non-EU client?
Onboarding accounts for nationality and the corresponding identity document, and keeps the paperwork in the matter with its history. AEAT algorithmic validation applies where there is a Spanish tax ID.
Can I also run the client's litigation?
Yes. LexNET notifications reach the matter and deadlines reach the calendar, and written submissions are filed through LexNET from the matter itself.
Can I see every NIE in the firm at a glance?
Yes. Alongside the tracking inside each matter there is a firm-wide view grouping every NIE application by urgency: overdue, with an appointment in the next few days, still awaiting an appointment, upcoming, and already resolved. It is the view that replaces the parallel spreadsheet.
No appointment, no expiry, outside the calendar.
Start free and bring your first immigration matter across this week.
