Billing for lawyers – how to improve your billing process

Billing can be time-consuming and even frustrating for lawyers who have so many other important things on their mind. Tracking and billing time for every client can take a lot of time and energy and is a very important process since this can make you lose money for your legal office. Whether you are an experienced billing user or a beginner in this, we offer you some tips to help your business financial management process.  

Track your time and record it right away

Use timer or other time tracking methods to record the time you spend on a task for a client or for an internal project. Either you use KeyVision timer or other similar tools, you can have the correct time spent on the task and record it in the billing process.

Don’t let time pass you by recording your time after a couple of days. Record it just after you complete the task so you can be sure on accuracy. Since a working day is full of different events, after a couple of hours it will be more difficult to remember all the activities you have worked on.

Develop a recording time habit

Many people – lawyers also, find it difficult or less practical to write down every action they take when they take it. Still, some of them write it down in Excel or in a notebook, or dictate it to a dictaphone and write it down at the end of the day. But our experience in working with successful law firms showed us that developing a recording time habit can become the right way to stop forgetting what exactly has been worked for a client.

The online timer can be the best solutions for this – it’s easy to start the timer in the software solution and end it when the work is done. Plus, if working with KeyVision software solution for lawyers, the recorded time goes directly in the timesheet approval flow and billing process.

Use detailed activity descriptions in your timesheet

When recording activities in your billing flow, you should offer detailed activity descriptions so your client won’t have to ask what is he/she paying for. This not only builds trust but also helps you keep track of what you have been worked on for that client/project.

Use billing rules and budgets for correct billing

When having a bigger team, you will need different billing rules for your billing process. That is why you should try billing software for lawyers. This will help you set up flexible billing rules, define project budgets or billing caps and most of all it will help you with insights about your projects – total billed, due amounts, recovery rate, average fee, and work efficiency. KeyVision is legal software that offers these features to help you in your day by day activity and in the decision-making process.

Billing and legal business financial management

Your invoices are part of something bigger: an entire financial process in your legal company. Setup this process once and take the right business decisions for a long time. Of course, this can happen only if you’re using a legal business management software like Keyvision. Use dashboards and real-time reports like per client or per practice effort, expense tracking or Profit&Loss to get details on your business development.

Don’t forget to create “more than invoices”

Customer relationship specialists say that an invoice is not just a billing document, but also a way of building a good customer relationship. Studies show that clients are paying attention to every detail on invoices, especially when paying legal services. The bill is not only a paying document but also a mini-report on the lawyer activity during the month. So, a detailed invoice will also be a way of building trust and good customer relation.

So you want to try a billing software for lawyers? Signup for 15 days free trial!