3 Secrets to Law Firm Billing Success

December 6, 2023 By Allison Lemasters Leave a Comment

If you ask any lawyer what their least favorite part of the job is, the number one answer will likely be “billing.” Law firm billing and invoicing is a constant source of frustration for many in the field. It’s labor-intensive and tedious, from timekeeping to billing cycle monitoring.

While it’s tempting to point fingers at clients for delayed payments, the root of such problems often lies in a law firm’s billing strategies. Using legal time tracking software will solve these issues, but there are a few additional secrets successful law firms employ to make billing less of a headache. If you’re experiencing a rise in late payments or extended billing cycles, try implementing these three strategies for a higher chance of law firm billing success.

1. Create Legal Billing Guidelines

One of the biggest problems in the law firm billing cycle is consistency across staff members. Consider creating legal billing guidelines or a legal billing handbook to give your staff a set of rules to follow when it comes to billing. Here are the basics of what your legal billing guidelines should include:

Introduction

Start with an introduction that explains the purpose of the guidelines and sets the tone. This section should highlight the benefits of adhering to proper billing practices and emphasize the commitment to transparency and fairness. Use the American Bar Association’s Model Rule 1.5 on Fees as a source of inspiration.

Clear Staffing Policies

Outline who is authorized to work on which cases and the expectations for the experience level necessary for various tasks. This section should also include rules for billing rates based on the staff’s roles and expertise.

Sample Attorney Billing Descriptions

Pick some tasks in your firm that everyone does more frequently, and include a list of sample billing descriptions for those tasks. Consider including “bad” legal billing examples and corresponding “good” examples. For instance, a bad example might be “Made initial pleadings,” whereas a good example might be “Prepared petition for divorce and summons according to details from initial client consultation.” Add some sample paralegal billing descriptions as well for your paralegal’s most common tasks.

Legal time tracking software makes this process much easier with multiple features that speed up time entry creation. With Bill4Time, for instance, you can speed through writing descriptions with auto-text. Auto-text allows you to write abbreviations for commonly used time entry descriptions (e.g., typing “RR,” which automatically changes to “research and review”).

Deadlines for Submitting Time

Specify the frequency of submitting time across the firm. At a bare minimum, your staff should submit their hours monthly, but many firms require weekly submissions. Weekly submissions may be superior, as it’s easier to remember everything you’ve done within a week as opposed to a month. If you use time tracking software, you can even make daily submissions because it’s so easy to record your time in real time as you do the work. This process ensures you capture every minute versus relying on your memory at the end of the week or month.

Invoicing Procedures

Make sure that anyone in your firm can easily answer the question, “How do I make an invoice for a law firm?” by defining the format and content of invoices. For example, if a specific format like LEDES is preferred, mention it explicitly. If you’re using legal time tracking software, provide step-by-step instructions for its use or a link to the software’s help center. Be sure to include how frequently clients should receive invoices — monthly invoicing is a good place to start.

Signature Requirement

Include a signature page to confirm that all parties have read, understood, and agreed to the guidelines. Requiring a signature helps in enforcing your policies and prevents future disputes.

2. Use Action Verbs for Legal Billing

The language you choose in your time entries plays an important role in whether or not clients pay your invoices. Using action verbs is an effective strategy, as these words bring clarity and assertiveness to your billing statements.

Why are action verbs effective? First, they convey a sense of urgency and importance. Words like “filed,” “researched,” or “drafted” emphasize the work done, making it tangible for the client. This clarity helps clients understand the value of the services provided, encouraging timely payment.

Second, action verbs enhance the professionalism of your billing statements. They reflect the precision and attention to detail that legal professionals apply in their work. For instance, saying “conducted an in-depth analysis of case law” versus “spent time looking at case law” provides a clearer, more professional depiction of the activity.

Some examples of action verbs that can enhance your billing descriptions include:

Analyzed
Drafted
Negotiated
Researched
Reviewed
Communicated
Facilitated
Advised
Examined
Developed
Investigated
Prepared
Filed
Attended
Resolved

Incorporating these verbs into your billing can transform how clients perceive the invoice. Instead of seeing a list of hours spent, they see a list of actions taken on their behalf to accomplish their legal goals.

3. Conduct Regular Legal Billing Training

By facilitating regular legal billing training, there is a much higher chance that your firm will meet its billable hour requirements and that clients will pay invoices. This approach ensures that all team members are up-to-date on the best practices in legal billing.

How often you conduct this training is up to you. Quarterly training sessions are ideal, as this frequency allows for adjustments in response to regulatory changes, technological advancements, or internal policy updates. Additionally, every new employee should undergo this training as part of their onboarding process.

Here are a few examples of content to include in your quarterly training sessions:

Timekeeping Accuracy: Training should cover how to categorize different tasks and the level of detail required in time entries. Consider highlighting some good examples of billing descriptions you’ve seen from bills that quarter.
Use of Technology: Provide training on the latest billing software and tools. Perhaps focus on a specific feature in your legal time tracking software and how to use that feature more effectively. Your software may even have a library of training videos you can show during training, taking the burden of planning off your plate.
Billing Policies and Procedures: Review the firm’s policies regarding billing cycles, rates, and client communication. If you’ve noticed that staff aren’t following a particular policy, bring attention to that policy and emphasize why it’s essential to the firm’s bottom line.
Client Communication Skills: Train staff on effectively communicating billing matters with clients. Discuss how to address client queries and set client expectations for receiving and paying invoices. Ask your team about the biggest complaints they hear from clients about their bills and brainstorm ways to address these issues.

Bonus Secret: Use Bill4Time

While the strategies mentioned above will improve your billing cycle, using Bill4Time is the best way to find law firm billing success. By incorporating Bill4Time, law firms can address common billing and invoicing challenges more effectively, freeing up time to concentrate on providing top-notch legal services. See how it works by signing up for a free demo, or explore the platform for yourself with a free trial.

Keep Your Law Firm Moving Forward During the Holidays with the Bill4Time Mobile App

December 1, 2023 By Carole Poster Leave a Comment

The end-of-year holiday season is a great time to connect with family and friends, but it’s also a busy period for law firms. Collecting outstanding payments and finalizing annual documents at the end of the year demands attention — attention that is divided as soon as lawyers start assigning the end-of-year final tasks. And on top of all that, managing remote employees can rightfully be a challenge for many law firms.

Bill4Time helps law firms address these year-end challenges with a robust feature set. The flexibility of the Bill4Time mobile app is especially noteworthy, as it enables efficient management of staff and tasks across various locations — whether that be multiple offices or remote employees.

Manage A Practice From Anywhere With Remote Task Management

There’s a delicate work-life balance at law firms the first nine to 10 months of the year, but the final two or three really test a legal professional’s stamina. With holiday gifts, staff PTO, and the year-end challenges mentioned earlier, things can get hectic, often leading to the risk of lawyer burnout.

Effective remote task management requires a focus on the big picture while keeping an eye on the smaller details that build up to the law firm’s overall goal. The risk of lawyer burnout increases for those who have been working constantly to maintain that goal without taking appropriate breaks in between.

It’s no surprise with multiple variables at play that managing a law firm can feel overwhelming to those doing it without a solution in place. To avoid lawyer burnout, a remote task management software is needed to properly manage staff and tasks in multiple locations.

The Bill4Time Mobile App: A Remote Time Tracking Solution for Law Firms

For attorneys and law firms looking to manage their practice while traveling with family, visiting friends, or simply being away from the office, the Bill4Time mobile app allows just that.

With practical features like a customizable mobile dashboard, time and expense tracking, client and matter project management, and a one-tap timer, the Bill4Time mobile app provides an all-in-one solution for law firms — no matter where they are in the world.

Additionally, the Bill4Time mobile app allows for a streamlined, systematic time tracking and task management platform for legal professionals practicing on the go. Getting attorneys working in different locations on the same page can be chaotic without a solid system in place.

Maintaining an effective time tracking process no matter where a lawyer practices is vital to keeping law firm books and billing accurate. The Bill4Time mobile app is the easiest way to track time, manage projects, and organize expenses from anywhere around a busy holiday schedule. If internet connection is spotty, the app saves entries when offline and will sync when connected again — despite the challenges of airport Wi-Fi connectivity.

Get Paid Faster and Confirm Payment Status with Bill4Time Payments

The financial stress the holidays season brings to clients of law firms could put payments on the back burner. Automating — and customizing — the payment process allows law firms to focus less on the accounting side of the practice and more on practicing law.

With the email tracking feature in Bill4Time Payments, whenever an invoice email is sent, opened, delayed, clicked upon, or failed to deliver — the law firm will have a list and check it twice. Payment status notifications leave law firms better prepared should they need to follow up on an outstanding bill. Bill4Time Payments also allows law firms to offer multiple ways to pay, giving their clients a customized payment plan to support client needs.

Staying informed on your firm’s payment status can help you take action when needed to keep clients happy and your firm paid!

Choosing the Right Legal Time Tracking Software

Think of legal time tracking software as the ship, the staff as the crew, and the owners or partners captain with the compass. Without the right ship, it doesn’t matter how good the crew and captain are — it’ll only get so far before the waters get too rough to pass. Choosing the right remote time tracking software could take your law firm further than previously thought.

When looking for a legal remote time tracking software, keep in mind the features that will most benefit firm operations. The Bill4Time mobile app’s customizable mobile dashboard, security measures with role-based access control, portable time and expense tracking, and one-tap timer set it apart from its competitors and stands as a leader in the industry. From large law firms to solo practitioners, Bill4Time gives practices an effective remote time tracking solution for law firms to keep cases moving forward all year — and especially during the holidays.

Schedule a Bill4Time demo today to see the difference it makes at law firms everywhere.

Attorney Billing Timesheet Templates: A Comprehensive Guide

November 30, 2023 By Allison Lemasters Leave a Comment

In legal practice, timekeeping is a critical yet often challenging task. Precision in billing is crucial for a firm’s revenue, but amidst busy days filled with client meetings and court hearings, timekeeping can fall by the wayside. This leads to hasty or delayed time entries, affecting the overall profitability of a firm.

The issue compounds when attorneys use varied timekeeping methods, from traditional pen and paper to legal time tracking software. This diversity in approaches leads to inconsistency, causing headaches for managing partners and administrators who must consolidate these varying time records. Such disarray can lead to significant billable leakage and affect a firm’s recurring revenue.

Our guide on attorney billing timesheet templates aims to address these challenges head-on. We’ll answer commonly asked questions about timesheet templates, examine some PDF and Excel templates for lawyers, and offer practical tips to help you reclaim control over your timekeeping processes.

What Is a Timesheet for Billable Hours in a Law Firm?

A timesheet for billable hours in a law firm is a document that attorneys use to record the amount of time they spend on various client-related activities. These activities range from case research and drafting legal documents to client meetings and court appearances. The primary purpose of these timesheets is to track billable hours accurately, ensuring that the firm is billing clients fairly for the services they receive.

Why Do Attorneys Use Billing Timesheet Templates?

Attorneys use billing timesheet templates to bring some order and consistency to the timekeeping process. They typically include fields for date, client name, description of the task, and the time spent on each task. By standardizing the format, the firm can streamline the billing process and reduce the time spent on administrative tasks.

Despite these advantages, attorneys often find timesheet templates restrictive and cumbersome, especially when dealing with complex cases that don’t fit neatly into standard time increments or categories. Moreover, the manual process of filling out these templates is prone to errors and omissions, especially when done under time pressure. These challenges underscore the need for a more flexible and efficient solution to manage time tracking and billing in law firms.

How Do I Make a Professional Timesheet?

Creating a professional timesheet in a law office involves balancing the need for detailed record-keeping with the ease of use for attorneys. An easier solution here is to adopt time tracking software, which streamlines and standardizes timekeeping across an entire firm. However, if you are tasked with making a timesheet for your law office, you can follow these basic steps:

Choose a Clear Layout: Start with a layout that is easy to read and fill out. Include columns for the date, client name, case number, a brief description of the task, and the time spent. The layout should allow attorneys to quickly enter information without confusion.
Include Room for Details: There should be plenty of room to accurately describe every task performed. As noted repeatedly by the American Bar Association, invoices should show clients the value of your work and tell the story of their case progress. Vague descriptions can lead to misunderstandings with clients and even a bar complaint.
Set Standard Time Increments: Decide on the time increments for billing (commonly in six-minute or fifteen-minute increments). Consistent increments ensure uniformity across all billings.
Make It Accessible: The timesheet should be easily accessible to all attorneys in the firm. Consider a central location or a system where timesheets can be submitted electronically.
Encourage Regular Updates: Encourage attorneys to update their timesheets daily. Catching up on a backlog of entries often leads to mistakes or forgotten billable activities. This issue is easily solved with time tracking software, as you can automatically track your time in real-time instead of manually after a long day.

While these steps guide in creating a professional timesheet, the process underscores several pain points. The time and effort spent in meticulous record-keeping, the challenge of accurate descriptions after exhausting workdays, and the risk of errors or omissions reflect a need for a more streamlined approach.

Still, many legal professionals may find themselves tempted to use an attorney timesheet template that’s free—but there are numerous problems with these that we’ll explore next.

Free Attorney Billing Timesheet Templates

A quick Google search for free attorney billing timesheet templates PDF reveals millions of results. However, many of these templates are seriously lacking and won’t help lawyers accurately track their time. Let’s examine a few popular ones.

Ask a few questions, and the problems with this template immediately jump out at you.

What’s the lawyer billable hours rate?
What happens if timekeepers with varying rates calculate their time?
Which billing increments should attorneys use here?
What happens if I need to use UTBMS codes for a particular task, entry, or line item?
What if the attorney faces multiple interruptions during the same task?
Should attorneys delineate between services and expenses, meetings, research, and communication?

This template doesn’t really make any of this clear, yet it’s been downloaded over 50,000 times. Some attorneys even complained that this template didn’t do any Excel calculations for them.

We hear you, Linda. The last thing attorneys have time for is adding up all their billable hours. But even free attorney billing timesheet templates in Excel are somewhat lacking. Let’s take a look.

Does Excel Have a Timesheet Template?

Excel offers numerous timesheet templates, but none of them are really sufficient for a law office. Take this Excel template, for example:

While this Excel spreadsheet does automatically calculate the hours spent on a task, it still doesn’t combat the numerous issues found in the PDF timesheet from above and presents new issues, like:

Distinguishing between in-court and out-of-court hours is great, but it doesn’t account for other billable activities like expenses or travel time.
You can’t track nonbillable hours if that’s something your firm wants to do to understand internal productivity.
The hourly intervals may not match the actual time spent on tasks, as legal work can often be unpredictable and not fit neatly into hourly blocks.
Some may accidentally use an older version of the template spreadsheet.
Attorneys who want to do things differently may choose to “tweak” the spreadsheet a bit to “improve things,” leading to inconsistencies across the firm.

These problems are baked in. They’re an inherent part of using spreadsheets. And the more attention you divert to these problems, the less attention you can spend on your clients or practicing law. Ultimately, this is unfair to your firm, and it’s unfair to each of the timekeepers in your firm. This is where many start looking for a more efficient, automated solution.

Time Tracking Software for Lawyers

Concluding our exploration of attorney billing timesheet templates, it becomes clear that while traditional methods have their place, they also bring a host of challenges. Time tracking software emerges as the superior solution. To illustrate, here’s what tracking time looks like in Bill4Time:

The above is a time entry window in the Bill4Time platform. You’ll note several features that combat the issues encountered with even the best free attorney billing timesheet templates, like:

Simplicity and Efficiency: Unlike manual timesheets, Bill4Time automates the entry and calculation process, saving time and reducing errors. It offers a simple interface that can significantly streamline the timekeeping process.
Real-Time Tracking: Bill4Time allows for real-time tracking, eliminating the end-of-day rush to recall and record activities. This feature ensures that legal professionals can capture every minute of work as it happens. Simply press the play button on the handy timer and pause for any interruptions.
Automatic Calculations: Bill4Time eliminates manual calculation errors, guaranteeing accurate billable hours and earnings—no matter how many times you start and stop a task.
Customizable Entries: Whether it’s different clients, cases, or attorney rates, Bill4Time allows for detailed descriptions, ensuring that every entry is both accurate and informative.
Expense and Time Delineation: Bill4Time distinguishes between billable hours and expenses, facilitating clear, comprehensive invoicing.

With Bill4Time, legal professionals can trust that the focus remains on their clients and the law, not scraping together their hours at the end of each week on a lacking PDF template. With features built to address the specific needs of law firms, Bill4Time exemplifies the move towards a more modern, efficient practice. Click here to schedule a demo and take the first step toward a streamlined billing process that complements your commitment to legal excellence.

Simplify Statement Generation with Bill4Time’s Enhanced Statements Feature

November 15, 2023 By Carole Poster Leave a Comment

Bill4Time is thrilled to announce the launch of our enhanced Statements feature.

This new update empowers law firms to generate more detailed and tailored client statements, streamlining the billing process and improving client communication.

With the enhanced Statements feature, Bill4Time now offers the convenience of directly emailing these statements from within the platform, saving time and effort for busy legal professionals.

Introducing the New Statements Tab: A Convenient Space for Statement Generation

To make the statement creation process even more efficient, Bill4Time has enhanced the statements tab on the main navigation bar. This tab provides users with a convenient space to create new statements as well as access previous ones.

The new — but familiar — statement creation process follows a similar flow as the previous feature, but it has added functionality for greater statement customization and flexibility.

Email Statements Natively in Bill4Time

One of the standout additions of Bill4Time’s enhanced feature is the ability to promptly email statements to clients directly from the platform. This offers law firms the choice to send statements as a PDF attachment or as a link for viewing in the client portal.

With this convenient option, legal professionals can effortlessly share statements with their clients, improving communication and ensuring timely delivery of invoices. Before you start, make sure to configure Statement email settings.

Stay on Brand With Customized Statement Email Settings

Before utilizing the email functionality, it is important to ensure that the Statement email settings are properly configured to meet the specific requirements of your law firm. For law firm branding purposes, you can add your law firm’s information (company name, street address, phone number, etc.) on each statement, maintaining a clear and consistent look for clients. Within the Settings tab in Bill4Time, you can customize the email delivery method for all statements.

Additionally, you have the flexibility to designate both the recipients and sender for the statement email distribution. This allows you to streamline the emailing process and ensure that statements reach the intended recipients in a timely manner.

Optimize Statement Delivery With Multiple Formats

When sending statements via email, you can choose to send the statement as a PDF attachment or as a link that will automatically redirect your clients to the client portal for viewing the statement. This flexibility allows you to cater to your clients’ preferences and optimize the delivery of statements.

Increase Client Satisfaction Through Flexibility

With Bill4Time, users have expanded options to tailor statements for multiple scenarios.

This includes selecting the date range, specifying the statement creation date, and the flexibility to include all unpaid invoices that fall outside the selected date range for each specific client. These customization options allow law firms to create statements that are more detailed and tailored to their clients’ needs.

Improve Billing Organization With Easy Access to Generated Statements

Following the recent enhancements, all created statements are now conveniently located within the ‘View Statements’ tab.

Statements generated within the last 30 days are accessible in the ‘Recent Statements’ table, while all historical statements are cataloged in the ‘Statement History’ table. Users are provided with efficient filtering options to easily locate specific client statements.

Additionally, each statement PDF is readily viewable within the Bill4Time platform, eliminating external windows and keeping work in the platform.

Increase Productivity With Bulk Statement Sending

Bill4Time provides users with the flexibility to send statements individually or in bulk, depending on their workflow and preferences. You can easily email or view a single statement directly in Bill4Time.

For law firms that need to send multiple statements simultaneously, Bill4Time offers the option to select multiple statements from the Recent Statements or Statement History tables and click the email icon at the top right of the table.

This will send each individual statement to its respective recipient. The Subject and Body fields will inherit the default settings configured in your Statement Setup under Settings.

Make Legal Billing Easy With Bill4Time

Bill4Time’s enhanced Statements feature provides law firms with a comprehensive solution for generating detailed and tailored client statements.

With the ability to customize statements, conveniently access generated statements, and streamline the emailing process, legal professionals can save time and improve client communication. By leveraging this feature, law firms can enhance their billing process and deliver a superior client experience.

Schedule a demo today to discover the power of Bill4Time’s enhanced Statements feature and transform your law firm’s billing workflow.

Law Firm Billing Best Practices: 3 Rules Every Firm Should Adopt

November 15, 2023 By Bill4Time Staff Leave a Comment

Law firm billing can be either the bane of a lawyer’s career or the reason their law firm gets paid — it’s up to the lawyer themselves to decide. Thankfully, it’s easier to implement legal time tracking software into a law firm’s operations than most think. Legal software can help lawyers simplify the billing and invoicing process, creating a space where clients know expectations and trust the statements. This is especially vital in an environment where finances are a sore spot.

Clients continue to push back on rate increases and look for more discounts, according to a recent analysis of the legal field. As attorney rates continue to increase, clients are weighing their options and searching online for lower-cost counsel.

Importance of Legal Billing Guidelines

Getting paid has more to do with a firm than it does with its clients. If a client refuses to pay an invoice or they decline to pay on time, it means the firm has missed several vital signals — potentially going back to when they first took on the client. The problems that created their unwillingness to pay could’ve occurred a long time ago.

Let’s take a look at a fictitious firm, Woolford and Woolford SC, to show an example.

Woolford isn’t positioned as an expert in their local marketplace, so clients see them as a discount provider.
Their business development tactics rely on needy language that attracts price shoppers.
They’re desperate for work, so they welcome these clients into their firm.
Their intake process is inadequate; they don’t realize they should interview clients, set expectations, and establish/assess billing guidelines.
These clients complain about Woolford’s invoices; they refuse to pay for research, administrative expenses, or junior associates in their firm.
Partners in Woolford are conditioned by their clients to expect rejection, so they add discounts, write-downs, and write-offs to their client’s invoices preemptively.
The partners are desperate to keep their client, so they offer more. Realization rates fall as revenue and profit decline.

Many law firms deal with a similar scenario, in one form or another, daily. Clients — not firm partners or attorneys — determine what they’ll make. Yes, law firms set their rates, but ultimately, this holds less value if clients are unable or unwilling to pay.

Get Paid Faster With These Law Firm Billing Best Practices

These best practices aren’t a cure-all. Clients won’t pay law firms if there’s a legitimate reason for them to hold back. However, law firms that implement these best practices will find a large amount of non-payment issues resolved overnight.

Let’s take a look.

Law Firm Billing Best Practices #1: Build a Powerful Brand

Branding is commonly misunderstood by businesses, partners, and even marketers. Many believe that their “brand” is a promise, their product or service, their website, or even their logo — it’s not solely one of those things. On a larger scale, branding is your reputation. It’s the gut feeling people have about a specific law firm.

With many lawyers focusing on practicing law, most attorneys and law firms haven’t built or budgeted for a brand. Without a clear brand, most clients can’t tell the difference between one firm and its competitors.

Clients aren’t typically familiar with the legal industry, so they can’t assess another firm the way most legal professionals can. Clients will rely on other signals to make their decision — personal recommendations, reviews, first impressions, and price.

To fix this, law firms need to build a powerful reputation in the hearts and minds of prospective clients. There are some simple principles you can use to guide you:

1. Do what your competitors can’t or won’t do.

Become an expert in a specific practice area, win a large number of cases, achieve the impossible in a real estate negotiation. Find a way to become exceptionally known for something.

2. Create value for everyone, all the time.

Attorneys can solve problems for those around you by giving speeches, writing articles, hosting webinars and events, and serving the community, creating a powerful and valuable resource. Find a need, then solve it like no one else.

3. Promote your achievements.

Share accomplishments with others in a way that says, “I did this for clients just like you, I can do it for you too.” This is the essential crux of business development, but it’s also the main component most attorneys and firms miss. Lawyers can build a strong website, run a legal blog, or interact with their community on social media.

4. Build partnerships with other influential legal professionals.

As lawyers begin to achieve the above items, they’ll start to build a brand (reputation). Use this reputation to develop successful relationships with powerful, like-minded supporters who are interested in the value provided.

Doing this attracts an avalanche of clients. Marketing and advertising campaigns outperform competitors at a lower cost per click/visit. Firms can attract more clients than other similar practices.

These clients have seen the value provided, and they’re eager to work together. Once a firm is differentiated in their mind, they want that specific firm. As a result, they’re respectful, hopeful, and willing to pay the higher fees requested. The brand precedes the firm.

Law Firm Billing Best Practices #2: Verify Employee Timekeeping

Without a proper legal billing policy in place, money is left on the table. The team is left to track their time on a whim. They’re prone to human error and estimating their time. The longer timekeepers take to complete their timesheets, the more billable leakage their firm experiences. Ann Guinn shared research that supports this in her ABA blog post:

You lose 10% of your revenue (billable time) if you record time entries the day of once a day.
You lose 25% if you wait 24 hours to record your time.
You lose 50 to 70% if you wait just one week.

The attorneys in this particular case study were waiting until the end of the month! If this is projected out, this means firms could be losing 200% to 280% of the revenue they should have. Income that’s rightfully theirs simply because they didn’t track their time correctly.

Here’s how you fix this.

Switch to automated time tracking software: Legal time tracking software like Bill4Time provide automatic time tracking that accurately captures time. This “set it and forget it” software limits human error and stops revenue leakage.
Appoint a legal billing liaison: This could be a managing partner, director, or executive that’s responsible for managing the firm and keeping everyone knowledgeable of procedure. This legal billing liaison can create ad sample attorney billing descriptions to help firm staff write better billing descriptions.
Create an incentive system: Once a new legal billing policy is in place, it may be difficult for everyone to jump on board. It would be worth-while to create morale with incentives or awards to take the edge off and make the process a fun competition.

Treat the line items in your invoice as inventory in a store. It’s valuable revenue, and it needs treatment as such.

Law Firm Billing Best Practices #3: Follow Through With Legal Billing Guidelines

Once a law firm and its clients have agreed on legal billing guidelines, follow them to the letter. Doing this bolsters trust, decreasing the likelihood of a flagged or delayed invoice. Here’s a brief overview of what these guidelines should look like:

Shepherd invoices through an eBilling system. If estimates are conservative and there’s a particular emphasis placed on accuracy, pre-bills will be close to the final bill. This attention to detail reduces the need for discounts, write-downs, and write-offs. There’s also a chance to catch billing issues and missed requirements before clients flag them.
Pick up the phone and call clients any time there’s a disparity. Are you drastically over or under budget? Have you run into an unexpected expense? Reach out to your decision-makers and point-of-contact ahead of time. Don’t ambush your clients with a surprise (positive or negative).
Resist the urge to discount or write-off time. Treat timesheets like inventory. Remember that each line item on an invoice is a unit of revenue. Think of every improvement made to the quality of timesheets/invoices as improving the acceptance and collection realization rates for the firm.
Submit invoices on time. Poor communication and law firm sluggishness in publishing invoices is a contributing factor to delayed or decreased payment. Make sure to stick to the schedule and bill clients on time.
Offer ePayments. Use alternative fee arrangements that ensure fair compensation. Built-in online payments processors like Bill4Time Payments allow firms to safely and compliantly accept online payments. Offering ePayments increases the likelihood that clients will pay firms on-time — and 70% faster.

Take a look inside Bill4Time Payments.

Take a look inside Bill4Time Payments

Increase Firm Cashflow With Law Firm Billing Software

Implementing these tips will help boost realization rates, revenue, and profit in law firms. Using law firm billing software, like Bill4Time, to help navigate legal billing can take a practice to the next level.

Schedule a demo with Bill4Time today to see the positive impact it can have on law firm billing.

Editor’s Note: This blog was originally published in July 2021. Last update: November 2023.

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Law Firm Growth: How Compliant Legal Time Tracking Drives Success

November 7, 2023 By Bill4Time Staff Leave a Comment

Compliant legal time tracking may not be on every legal professional’s radar, but it should be. Not only to comply with regulations and standards set forth by the ABA, but also to lead law firms towards success.

Legal time tracking software that ensures legal compliance is one of the easiest ways to implement this at your law firm.

How Compliant Time Tracking Promotes Law Firm Growth

With manual time tracking, compliance requirements seem tedious and time-consuming. Your schedule is filled with a ton of items on your to-do list and you don’t have enough time to get everything done.

Then you’re hit with more work when inputting your work.

You’re required to adhere to a specific format at a specific time, expected to follow a specific set of standards, required to use legal codes to document your work, and to format your time sheets in a specific way.

This is where things can get tedious and mistakes can happen — unless you have the right legal time tracking software at your firm. With the proper legal software, it’s significantly easier to adhere to these kinds of compliance standards, leading to happier clients and a growing bottom line.

To fully understand the impact, we’ll examine the three pivotal reasons that demonstrate why compliant time tracking is the essential growth tool your firm needs.

1. Legal Compliance Regulations Keep Staff on the Same Page

Imagine a scenario where you have 25 attorneys on staff. In the process of adding their time, they decide to use their own legal codes on their timesheets and invoices.

How does this affect your business?

Let’s say you want to audit your financials at the end of the quarter. You’d like to know whether your billables are on target and the firm is making money. But then you notice each attorney used their own legal codes or task naming conventions.

Your audit is exponentially more difficult, especially if some of your staff are no longer on the team. How do you go about decoding each attorney’s individual codes?

Many attorneys are either not using these legal codes as outlined by governing bodies or they’re using them incorrectly. Estimates state as many as 60 to 80 percent of attorneys get this wrong, despite there being reputable guides available to follow. This can lead to stunted law firm growth, and even decrease firm revenue and lower reputation — making compliant time tracking vital.

How do you implement this in your firm? What does it really mean?

Compliant time tracking means:

Everyone in your firm uses the same standard to track their time
It’s easier for firms to analyze, improve and collect on billables
There’s no need for staff to memorize messy naming conventions or unique customizations

Your firm is more productive, which means your firm is more profitable.

2. Increase Law Firm Growth With Legal Time Tracking Software

Collection realization rates are falling.

While hourly rates are increasing, collection realization rates are on a steady decline. There are a variety of reasons for this, but a commonly ignored reason is, you guessed it, compliance.

A standardized system (e.g. LEDES or UTBMS) means you and your clients are on the same page. Your clients understand what they’re being billed for and why. This means they’re more likely to be agreeable and more willing to pay their invoices.

Here’s why this matters.

More and more, sophisticated clients are using software to monitor your invoices. What are they looking for? Compliance with corporate parameters.

Are expense categories e.g. meals, experts, out of town travel, approved?
Are the partners/associates listed on this invoice authorized to work on this case?
Do expense percentages comply with their rules?
Are invoices in line with budget requirements?

Once a compliant time tracking standard is put into place and executed properly, law firms will be able to dive into reports and find insights to help increase profitability.

3. Compliant Time Tracking Helps Firms Gain Insights Into Profitability Metrics

There are very specific questions growing firms need answers to. Non-compliance makes it much harder to get these answers. In short, it makes it more difficult for your firm to grow.

What sort of questions?

If you have multiple offices, which office is most efficient? Most profitable?
Who are your most efficient/profitable partners, associates, paralegals and assistants?
Who in the company is non-compliant?
Which practice areas and tasks are most profitable?
Which clients are most profitable/unprofitable?

Compliance = standardized data.

With compliant time tracking, you have everything you need to extract the valuable data your firm needs to grow. Think about the problems outlined in reason one. This data is incredibly difficult to come by if your firm isn’t on board with compliant time tracking.

Compliance makes it easier to extract the valuable performance data your firm needs to grow.

Create a Compliant Time Tracking Strategy

Compliance can be difficult, but legal time tracking software can make it easy and automatic.

You’re busy. Your schedule is filled with a long list of tasks to do. So automating this part of your practice opens up time for you and your staff to focus on other tasks insteading of compliance — let your legal software do the work for you.

Compliant time tracking reduces expenses. It minimizes the amount of work you’re required to do (see: manual billing and invoicing). It keeps your team on the same page, providing you with the precious data you need to grow your firm.

Compliance creates standards. It increases staff competence. It restores client confidence. It keeps your revenue flowing in. Here’s the good news. Compliant time tracking doesn’t have to be difficult.

In fact, with the right software, it’s automatic, and you’ll see compliant time tracking for what it is.

Your secret law firm growth strategy.

Editor’s Note: This blog was originally published in October 2018. Recent update: November 2023.