Why Not To Buy Legal Billing and Accounting Software If You Are An Attorney

And Stay Where You Are, Doing More Accounting than Legal Practice!

Strange as it may seem quite a few attorneys are averse to going in for computerization of any kind, even law firm billing software when it so obviously proves helpful and productive for them. Today we have some very professional Legal time and billing software incorporating almost everything the attorneys need to keep track of billable hours and back office accounting procedures. Consider what top of the line law firm billing software does for an attorney:

Saves him time by automating and computerization of the main matters regarding :

•  Billable hours in respect of each matter relating to each client or a number of matters relating to a single client, with separate track of hours to be billed and expenses incurred against each matter in hand.

•  Keeping track of matter based record keeping is important especially when there may be many cases connected with a single client as happens in the event the lawyer is dealing with a corporate client. Today's top Legal time and billing software automatically maintain matter based record keeping beautifully, freeing lawyers of cumber some tasks and accounting labor.

•  Keeping track of advances or retainer ships that have to be accounted for in a separate trust account. This can be crucial as such receivables are subject to audit and if there are flaws or queries a lawyer stands to lose a lot and be fined. Legal billing and accounting software literally saves his skin by providing perfect records of all past transactions.

•  Generation of reports of unpaid bills and works for which bills are to be issued. Simply set markers and the software does the rest for you at scheduled intervals.

•  Very user friendly interface and a short learning curve enable lawyers to become proficient with all its features.

So why not to buy legal billing and accounting software if you are an attorney?

Legal Billing and Accounting Software Take Drudgery Out Of A Lawyer’s Life

Given the complexity of billing and accounting in a lawyer's operations, the more clients he takes on, the more time he has to spend on maintaining accounts. This can become drudgery, eating into his time and preventing him from devoting more time for the cases in hand. Legal billing and accounting software take drudgery out of a lawyer's life. If an attorney chooses wisely and goes in for lawyer billing software that does all that he has been doing manually, he saves a lot of time and energy handling routine billing and accounting tasks. Computerized and automated, these tasks can be done fast. Though expensive, the investment in such attorney billing software is easily recouped considering that the lawyer now becomes more efficient and has more time to devote to existing as well as new clients. Almost all lawyers using the right lawyer billing software report an increase in productivity and revenues.

There is a huge market for attorney billing software and in their rush to capture a market share developers usually leave out features, make the software cumbersome or heavy code-wise, making it slow and prone to errors. The user interface is complicated and not easy to navigate with features commonly required hidden behind menus and sub-menus. Incomplete and buggy software can hamper rather than help lawyers in their billing and accounting functions and for this reason alone lawyers have become cautious in selecting a software that actually works the way they want it to. The perfect legal billing and accounting software for most lawyers is the one that does all that they used to do manually, smoothly and flawlessly. The right attorney billing software has a very intuitively designed interface and navigation structure plus additional features that prove quite helpful such as compiling all relevant documents pertinent to a case in one folder for archiving and retrieval at any time in the future.

A well planned and integrated legal billing software would have these features and naturally include what is expected of it such as keeping track of each client and his billable hours plus expenses separately, issuing bills when the amount of advance amount falls below a pre set level. The lawyer billing software would naturally handle billable hours where no advance is received and bills are issued periodically in respect of billable hours and expenses. In cases where lawyers work on contingency basis and an account is created on this basis, the software would keep track of expenses and the percentage of amount to be billed when the lawyer inputs “completed” against the case. Attorney billing software lawyers appreciate usually has these features in addition to keeping track of retainers and trust accounts and matter based record keeping that is extremely important to avoid confusion and mix-ups and importantly, comply with federal and state laws in that regard. These are the basic minimum required to work flawlessly regardless of the number of cases and time period.