The Benefits of Electronic Billing Software for Law Firms

TimeSolv is a strong option for firms that primarily need time tracking and billing and want to keep costs moderate. It’s a bit old-school in approach (with the sync utilities and such), but very capable. If your firm is upgrading from spreadsheets or legacy billing software and you want something that plays nice with QuickBooks, TimeSolv can fit the bill. It requires a tad more IT effort to set up the QuickBooks connector, but once running, it offloads the heavy lifting of billing legal e-billing from QuickBooks. Clio provides a variety of reports (e.g. billing history, payments, productivity, etc.), and if you have Clio’s higher-tier plans, you can build custom reports.

Of Counsel vs. Partner: Key Differences Explained Clearly

There is no correct way to display or represent petty cash some (or all) of these metrics and KPIs. Generally, senior management will only need a summary of the data and/or problem areas highlighted. By contrast, the e-billing/revenue/legal teams will need more detailed information to better manage their workload. This makes consuming and understanding the data easier, especially when identifying trends and changes over time. Billing is the process of keeping track of the time lawyers spend on client work and then sending them an invoice for the work completed. This is usually done by charging an hourly rate or a fixed fee for services.

Unified Billing & Accounting

Many firms overlook the fact that, on top of the e-billing activity itself, a number of matter management tasks need to be done to support the e-billing effort. Such tasks include the time and effort needed to update fee earners and rates, and to submit budgets and accruals. Some larger firms may invest several weeks in updating fee earners and rates in the beginning of a new financial year, depending on the complexity. E-billing has been embraced by many legal firms and organizations as a way to simplify the billing process, improve cash flow, and increase efficiency. If you are considering implementing an e-billing system, it pays to be aware of the pitfalls that exist in building and using one. Armed with this knowledge, you can sidestep issues that could leave you with a less than glowing result.

MatterSphere

Firms can then easily review these electronic bills and set up templates, automations and more. For example, some organizations require electronic bills to follow specific guidelines for standard billing formatting, like the Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard (LEDES). If an organization uses LEDES formatting (which can also be paired with Uniform Task-Based Management System (UTBMS) codes for further clarity), it will reject invoices with errors or incorrect formatting. Each element contributes to the transformation of your legal department into a strategic business partner than can confidently control costs and save time by automating routine tasks. Rocket Matter lets you set up automated billing, so invoices will be sent out on a chosen schedule based on your billable hours and expenses.

These are published policies and procedures that outside counsel are required to follow when submitting invoices. The e-Billing system will flag errors automatically before the reviewer sees the bill. The reviewer will open the invoice and may focus on the flagged errors or review the time and expense entries, line-by-line. Additionally, changing what content different users can view helps them work faster by eliminating the need to sort through irrelevant information.

• Instead, there’s an entire process law firms must manage after the submission to be sure an invoice has been received and accepted – or to quickly understand the issue and how to fix it if the invoice is rejected.
• Thousands of customers worldwide rely on CaseFox to track, manage, and improve their law firm’s operations.
• Since your time is so valuable, you should be spending it thinking through the subtleties of cases and serving the cause of justice, not figuring out how to send bills and accept payments.
• Don’t underestimate the positive impact on your cash flow of making it quick and easy for clients to pay you.
• If you go this route, ensure you (or your bookkeeper) are comfortable operating within CosmoLex’s accounting module.

Electronic legal billing best practices

• They offer implementation and maintenance advantages because you will be working with a single vendor.
• This means your clients can make payments more quickly, taking advantage of any discounts which come from settling a bill with less delay.
• Even more impressive, it’s easy to provide flexible payment options to meet your clients’ varying needs and keep your entire billing operations in one place.
• This process of law firm billing works to ensure that the entire invoicing cycle is efficient, accurate, and transparent, and ultimately benefits both the law firm and the client.

Egress’ Insider Data Breach Survey 2021 found that 94% of surveyed organizations experienced insider data breaches in only a year. User permissions help AI in Accounting prevent sensitive information from being exposed by human error or malicious intent. With the rate of cybercrime rapidly increasing, a billing system for today’s legal industry must meet specific requirements to be effective, secure, and compliant with regulatory standards.