Conducting a thorough analysis—or working with a consultant—helps you select a platform that aligns with your unique business requirements. Effective e-billing can save your team a significant amount of time and effort on repetitive tasks. By leveraging advanced technologies to streamline what was once a messy tangle of spreadsheets and manual data entry, you can focus on value-adding activities instead. With the right resources, you can see how each legal matter contributes to your firm’s revenue streams, which makes it easier to control costs. Interested in learning more, check out our e-Billing and spend management solution. Discover how the LeanLaw’s accounting tools automate the trust accounting process in a few simple clicks and get started with your law office.
Why invoice management for small law firms matters
E billing is one of the quickest and best ways to bring more automation into your law firm which will only result in increased productivity and decreased lost time. Not only that, but legal e billing software can be accessed from anywhere a user has an internet connection, which makes it ideal for anyone who wants to work remotely while they are on the go. But in terms of billing software, this distinction bears more weight than semantics; it tells you what the software can (and cannot) perform. Software that’s focused on e-invoicing will most likely handle the creation contra asset account and sending of an invoice — but not much else; e-billing software, on the other hand, covers the entire process from start to finish. This has been an overall overview of what an e-Billing system and supporting guidelines can do for a Legal Department.
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These streamlined workflows greatly reduce silos and delays as well as lengthy back-and-forth communication to determine invoice statuses. Cloud technology is the foundation of these mobile solutions, providing a secure and accessible platform for storing data. Other major benefits of using the cloud are real-time updates and backups, which safeguard against data loss and ensure you’re always looking at the most recent information.
- Using software in the billing process introduces a level of automation that is impossible to achieve with manual methods.
- With a 26% discrepancy between accrual estimates and the amounts actually invoiced by law firms, using a legal e-Billing solution to close that gap can save your company thousands.
- First, automated reminders and consistent invoice formatting shorten the gap between service delivery and the day money reaches your account.
- In addition, this ensures 100% of your data is available for reporting and analytics.
The 24-page invoice
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. With the continuous evolution of technology, it’s going to be important that you look for advanced e billing features that can not only meet your current needs but will also help you stay ahead of the curve.
Increase in Client Trust
The e-Billing systems that cater to this market have built-in workflows that will slow down a smaller Legal Department.Pricing. The pricing for a large-firm system includes bells and whistles that a smaller organization will not use. Since on-premises systems require more client expertise for maintenance and bespoke implementation, they generally have a total cost of ownership that is greater than cloud solutions. One of the significant benefits of using billing software is the centralized documentation it provides. Every action taken on an invoice, from submission to approval and payment, is recorded in the system. This provides a clear audit trail and ensures accountability and traceability.
- Firms unleash entirely new levels of success.That barely scratches the surface of what legal billing software for small law firms can do.
- Some solutions might integrate seamlessly with your existing accounting platform or matter management system, while others could require significant overhaul.
- From time and labor spent to material costs and collection rates, e billing has proven to make a huge difference in the ways in which a firm get paid.
- When law firms rely on older systems—such as separate applications for time tracking, invoicing, and accounts payable—they often struggle with duplicate entry.
- Among the available technologies for lawyers, mobile apps, cloud technology, and client portals stand out as key tools in modern legal billing workflows.
What Legal Departments Want from an e-Billing System?
Choose the Essentials plan if you don’t mind handling billing yourself and have simple reporting needs. Upgrade to Premier to gain greater business insights real estate cash flow and hands-off billing. In fact, we often see firms purchase top-tier e-billing platforms but fail to realize the full benefits due to misaligned processes or insufficient training.
She is suspicious about the time spent on some of the tasks that are billed on the invoice. As work is billed, the percentage of work completed and the amount of money spent to date will appear on the invoice review screen for each invoice. In this way, in-house counsel can monitor the budget as the work is performed. The vendor will be responsible for providing IT infrastructure services legal e-billing like server and connectivity management, robust security controls, database administration and disaster recovery. On the other hand, cloud-based e-Billing systems do not need to be implemented from scratch.