Legal Billing Software Has Become A Critical Factor For Law Firms

Twenty years ago, billing was pretty much the same for everyone. Whether you owned a law firm, an ironmongers, a timber yard, or you were an accountant, you simply produced a paper document – possibly at the end of each month – and posted it to your client or customer.

How the advent of the internet and online billing has changed all that! Today, most of us bill online and receive payment online. Remember those things called cheques?

If you are a lawyer you may bill in one of a different number of ways. For instance, if you are working on a contingency basis/no win, no fee, you won’t be sending a bill at all if you don’t win the case. When you do win the case you then have to send an itemised bill for what has been agreed. 

However, if you are working on an hourly basis you have to bill by the hour. More complicated still, if you have a client for whom you are working on his divorce and at the same time defending him on a drink driving charge, the billing becomes completely different. One of those is a flat fee bill while the other is hourly, the drink driving charge often being on a flat fee, while the divorce simply cannot be.

Then there is the case of billing where a retainer is involved. It may be that you require a retainer from the client – which might need to be topped up from time to time – and at the end of the case you have to send a final bill, or alternatively send the client a refund for any amounts that have not been spent. Another problem with this is that if you receive a billing complaint you need to be able to produce a paper trail which proves that you billed correctly.

Some firms may try to do it the low-cost way. If you have Microsoft Office you could just set up a system using Excel. However, you can’t generate bills with Excel or interface with your bank. So what happens is that you have to create complicated systems to track matters.

You might also think of using generic software, but while these are great for many businesses they don’t have the ability to deal with matter-based billing and trust accounts.

This is why legal billing software has become so important. It can keep track of everything that you do and every client you have, no matter which way you are billing. Certainly, for years we have worked on paper billing because there was simply no alternative, but that is really so very last century. You can spend hours poring over your accounts when there is no need to do that any more. 

Your time is far better spent on what you do best, which is looking out for your client’s best result, rather than studying paperwork.

Legal accounting software today turns what used to be a time-consuming chore into a breeze. What’s more, you can also get an app that enables you to access all your legal accounts while you are on the move from a tablet or smartphone.