Tuesday, 10 April 2012

Discounts, Finance Charges, and Spellcheck – Attorney Billing Software

When you're thinking about buying legal software , it's important to remember to look for functions you frequently perform.

Discounts are a common write-down taken on a client invoice. You went the extra mile, recording all the hours and value for professional services you expended for your client. But, it adds up to more than your client might be able to afford. When you decide to offer a percentage discount on a single invoice or an on-going basis, why not do it the Easy way?

When you use “Easy TimeBill” legal software , you can select a client, select “discount,” and indicate a percentage discount for a single invoice or an on-going basis. Our legal billing software will calculate the full invoice, showing all of your hard work, and will then show a line for the discount applied and subtract the discount before calculating the amount due.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are those clients with overdue invoices. Assuming that your retainer agreement calls for finance charges on overdue invoices, why not allow our attorney billing software to automatically make that computation for you?

When you use “Easy TimeBill” legal software , you can select “finance charge” and input the percentage specified in your retainer agreement. Easy Soft will make the calculation and input it onto the invoice, adding in the finance charge above the total amount due.

Spellcheck is that additional feature we're so used to using that we made sure it was programmed as a feature in our law firm billing software . Why not make it Easy on yourself to spit-shine your invoices using the Easy Soft built-in spellcheck feature?

At Easy Soft, our legal software programmers try to think about all the details of your day, so that you can concentrate on the professional services you deliver to your clients. And our commitment doesn't end with the last line of code. Easy Soft technical support staff are just a phone call away, if you experience a question while using our software.

Once you start using our Easy Soft legal software products, you're going to wish you had an “Easy” button in all your other applications.

NJ CIS and More - Family Law Software

” NJ CIS.” Say it fast enough, and it sounds like ” NCIS” of ABC television fame. It strikes us that, either way, there's a hefty amount of paperwork involved.

NJ “CIS” refers to the NJ “ Case Information Statement ,” a mandatory form for all family law actions involving support, alimony, or equitable distribution, even if the divorce is uncontested. The CIS must also be updated and resubmitted, as appropriate. It is a document sworn to under penalties of perjury.

CIS NJ is similar to court forms adopted in other states to try to streamline information submitted by both parties and to make it easier for the court to quickly glean key information.

Because CIS NJ is a mandatory form, it is perfect for software automation by the programmers at Easy Soft. With our legal billing software, calculate details like ages and duration of marriage, and prompt you t, you fill in the core information only once, and then let our legal software automatically populate all duplicate fields o complete missing information.

The “ Case Information Statement ” also requires budget information that reflects the standard of living established during the marriage and any differences that may be reflected in the current lifestyle. When you use Easy Soft's CIS NJ , you can be assured that all fields are present from the form published by the court. When you complete the Easy Soft NJ CIS budget, it is complete.

Likewise, Easy Soft's law office billing software for the “ Case Information System ” is designed to ask you to list all of the assets and liabilities of the marriage, whether subject to distribution or not. By using our legal software , you quickly see which fields are blank and how much work remains to be done.

In many ways, CIS NJ is like the New York Statement of Net Worth , a form with income information that is also used to calculate child support for NY . And, in every state, submission of mandatory information like personal profile, income, assets, and liabilities is crucial for the divorce settlement . When you use automated legal software to compile important financial information, from New Jersey to Arizona, you improve the quantity and the quality of data that you submit to the court, and that can translate into real dollars and cents for your client.

Downloads of sample NJ CIS and all other Easy Soft legal software are free.

NCIS bobblehead Abby doll, not included.

For Your Eyes Only – Attorney Billing Software

James Bond. Now there's someone with universal appeal and an Aston Martin to boot.

Not all data is meant to be seen by all eyes within the same law office. Billing entries. Bank account information. And client escrow transactions. Each of these sensitive areas are ones that need to be controlled through management “permissions” granted to those who have access to legal billing software .

You don't need 007 when you have Easy Soft to help you keep billing information all in one program database, but viewable only to approved eyes.

With our legal billing software , “Easy TimeBill,” you can set the permissions for each person in the office you authorize to use this attorney billing software. You can limit a paralegal to view only her own entries. You can authorize an associate to view his own entries and that of her paralegal, in order to perform appropriate mid-level management functions. You can assign a section partner to view her own group in Litigation while staying out of Family Law.

Easy TimeBill legal software allows you to set up a unique user name and password for each person in your office who has permission to use this legal software . For each new time or expense entry, the user identifies the timekeeper by selecting from a drop-down list of authorized billers.

Perhaps more importantly, you can set permissions on who within the firm has permission to write checks and view bank account information in Easy Soft's legal billing software . Set up a user with “time entry only” permissions, and that user cannot see any sensitive financial information relative to clients and bank accounts.

Download a free demo of our lawyer billing software or purchase the full program on our 30-day money back guarantee. It will be like having your own Q in your computer.

Time is Money? Only if Time Management is Easy – Attorney Billing Software

It sounds great! Billing at $250/hour. Riches to follow, right?

What happens when you do your billing at the end of the month and, instead of hitting a target of 32 hours billable per week you only send out bills totaling $17,200?

Get profitable with Easy Soft legal software. Even if you are a sole practitioner, you should analyze how your time is spent at the office. You can create individual account numbers for clients. Why not add account numbers for routine, non-billable work, too?

With Easy Soft legal billing software, you can set different billing rates for different matters. This means that you can set your client rates and record billable time in your legal billing software , while you also record $0/hour time for business development, preparation for or attendance at CLEs, and even vacation and personal days.

Then, run a management report at the end of the month with our law office software , and you can better understand how you spend your time. You can also ask whether it's time to hire an administrative assistant, a paralegal, or associate. And, if you already have partners, associates, and other billable employees, our attorney billing software can create reports to go over with them to ensure that they are meeting their billable targets.

Perhaps you're thinking that legal software that can perform such detailed analyses must be expensive? What if we offer you a free trial download so that you can push buttons and fill in boxes and click through screens to see if you like it? And, what if we also offered a 30-day, unconditional money back guarantee when you purchase our legal billing software for only $249 for a single-user license and $99 for each additional license?

Consider the possibility that instead of raising your hourly rate, you hire our law office billing software and let us help you maximize your profitability. Think it sounds too good to be true? Well, then it must be Easy Soft.

Unlimited Growth Potential - Attorney Billing Software

At Easy Soft, we're optimists. We even program our legal software with features full of optimism.

Take our legal billing software , for example. We've built it to fit your firm today and the firm you might want to grow, tomorrow. You can purchase Easy TimeBill today with a single license and add additional billers as you hire them. For offices with more than three simultaneous users, select our “enterprise” attorney billing software for the best price.

Or, consider the feature of unlimited numbers of clients. With Easy TimeBill legal billing software , you can enter as many clients as hire your firm. Each client is assigned an individual client number to organize time and expense entries. At month's end, no matter how many of those unlimited clients need invoices sent out, our legal software will instantly organize every new time and expense entry and create individual invoices.

Repeat business? That's also not a problem for our legal billing software. If the same client hires you for more than one matter, Easy Time Bill will assign a unique sub-number for each matter. You can even use different billing rates for different projects under the same client.

At Easy Soft, all of our legal software is ready to grow with your firm. If you move your offices to a new location, make one set of changes to the law firm's address and all future documents will automatically populate with your new address. If you go from a sole proprietorship to an LLC or if you add another partner to the name of your firm, just make those changes once on a main data screen, and let our law office software do the rest.

Oh, and we nearly forgot to mention just one more great feature. When you land that über-big client you were dreaming you'd land, yup, you guessed it: Easy Soft's law firm billing software has an endless number of digit places ready-and-waiting for that billing, too!

UTBMS billing codes. What are they? And why do they matter? - Attorney Billing Software

Let's get this out of the way first: “UTBMS” is the acronym for “Uniform Task-Based Management System.”

Why should this matter to your selection of legal software ?

UTBMS was released by the American Bar Association Litigation Section in 2002, after the American Corporate Counsel Association had used a task force to develop the codes. It grew out of a need recognized by Attorney Sally Fiona King and her experience overseeing outside counsel invoices on behalf of her corporate legal department.

The goal in creating uniform billing codes used in legal billing software is to group individual activities by various people into the same or similar types of legal work product. There are different sets of codes for different types of cases, such as one set of UTBMS codes for litigation cases and another for Worker's Compensation cases.

The UTBMS uniform codes used in Easy Soft's legal software allow attorneys and clients alike to understand and strategize the use of resources for legal projects. Should there be more emphasis on client communication, negotiations, legal research, or drafting? In the Easy Soft attorney billing software , these UTBMS law office software billing codes are selected and print side-by-side to the description for services performed.

One easy way to evaluate the strength of features offered by Easy Soft's TimeBill and Trust Accounting software is to review the legal software comparison chart put together by the American Bar Association. The ABA chart highlights the important features of legal billing software and trust accounting software of Easy Soft and several of our competitors. In this head-to-head comparison, you can see from the ABA chart that Easy Soft's “Easy TimeBill” and “Easy Trust” attorney billing software are affordable, packed with features like the UTBMS billing codes, and fully tech supported for your law office operations.

If you and your client want monthly bills that are a useful tool for legal resource allocation, then you need the Easy Soft legal billing software and trust accounting software with UTBMS billing codes.

Monday, 6 February 2012

Legal Billing Software To Enhance Revenue Flows

Cash flow governs profitability. This applies as much to lawyers as it does to any businessman or professional. However, lawyers have a different billing and account system, governed by state and federal laws. They need specific legal billing software that incorporates their needs and handles not only billing but also managing back office accounting and trust fund accounts that can stand up to any future audit or scrutiny. Legal time and billing software built around a lawyer's needs saves him time, ensures compliances and enhances revenue flows.

Lawyers use four broadly classifiable billing and accounting methods. These are: hourly billing, fixed fee billing, retainer based hourly billing and contingency billing. Separate itemized account of costs involved in each case along with the actual lawyer's billable hours have to be maintained in respect of each client and each case of the client separately should there be multiple cases from the same client. Competent, affordable yet feature rich attorney time billing software includes these facilities.

A lawyer has to maintain matter based record keeping. In a lawyer's case he has to be very precise and specific in billing and accounting for each case, in respect of his billable hours and his expenses even though all the cases relate to only one client. The law office billing software handles this quite competently, freeing an attorney of all worries about accounting.

The right attorney time and billing software ensures compliance state regulations freeing the attorney to concentrate on his cases instead of having to check whether all his billing and accounting procedures are in conformance. Meticulous records are archived for future retrieval in case of audits or checks.

Any attorney considering legal billing software will certainly want it to handle client retainers separately where they deposit advances in trust accounts. The right billing software takes care of this effortlessly and seamlessly, blending it with the rest of the software and functions.

The beauty of this law office billing software is that it has been designed in coordination with legal professionals, is user friendly with a short learning curve and has an intuitive interface, designed to work for the maximum benefit of the lawyer. The legal time and billing software reduces burden on the attorney, generates bills automatically and keeps perfect track, enhancing revenue flows.