Legal billing is critical for clients, yet a very difficult and time-consuming process for law firms.
Chasing payments, manually creating invoices can be dreading and can take up more time. But having a legal billing software in place or keeping up with the best practices for billing can improve your billing process.
In this guide, we will be sharing some insights regarding billing software for lawyers and law firms, best practices for legal billing and tips to improve the billing process. So if you are interested in improving your firm’s billing cycle, continue reading below.
What is law firm billing?
Law firm billing is a simple process of generating invoices for clients during the time that you have spent working on a particular case. Lawyers record time, create entries and generate bills on the basis of that.
This billing process is crucial for lawyers and it helps in keeping law firm finances on track.
A lousy billing process can impact the revenue of your firm. Which is why it is important to keep the best practices of billing in your mind.
Practices for Legal Billing
If you are struggling with legal billing at your law firm, here are the top best practices that can help you:
1. Accurate Time & Expense Tracking
Manual tracking of time can be a hassle. You might end up miss calculating time or get over or underpaid for the same.
But using a reliable law firm billing software can help you with accurate time & expense tracking. Legal time tracking software will ensure that billable hours and expenses are recorded accurately.
2. Create Clear & Detailed Invoices
Providing your clients with a detailed invoice is another crucial best practice for legal billing. Make sure you are clearly outlining the service that you provided, hours spent on the case, expenses incurred and other corresponding charges.
Transparency in invoices will foster trust and give a clear picture to clients.
3. Consistent Billing Cycles
Establishing a consistent billing cycle will help in maintaining a steady cash flow. This will also ensure that your clients don’t have to pay huge amounts of money at one.
Regular billing will divide the fee into a small manageable amount and help clients plan their finances.
4. Use Law Office Billing Software
Invest in a robust legal billing software for attorneys that can automate the billing process and save time. Make sure the legal billing software that you are choosing offers features such as:
- Time & expense tracking
- Automated billing
- Legal & trust accounting
- LEDES billing format
- Automatic timer
- Custom & bulk invoicing
- Client portal
- Reporting tools for insights
Make sure to choose the best billing software for lawyers for best billing practice.
5. Offer Online Payments
Offering clients an option to pay their bills online is another best practice for legal billing. Clients these days like flexibility in payments, they don’t want to visit the office to make payments or get involved in the process of cheques.
So offering them flexible online payment options through credit card, debit card, PayPal, LawPay, ACH and other methods of payments will improve the payment process.
6. Transparent Communication
Having a clear communication with your clients is crucial to prevent any kind of misunderstanding that can happen between you and your client.
Share timely case updates, invoices, case information with clients. Keeping them in a loop with everything that you are doing with no information or bill should be a surprise for you.
7. Flexible Billing Arrangements
Different clients have different needs and expectations for the legal billing cycle. Offering clients with flexible billing arrangements can enhance the client satisfaction and retention rate too.
Some of the popular billing options that you can offer your clients are flat fee billing, retainer arrangement, contingency fees, or a different plan for larger invoices.
This will enable your client to choose a billing option that is best suitable for them.
Improving the billing process
Here are a few tips that you can use to improve the billing process of your law firm:
Automate as many processes as possible.
One of the most important things to keep in mind while legal billing is automation. Try to automate as many processes as you can.
For instance, set-up recurring billing, bulk invoicing and other possible services.
Train Your Team
It’s important to train your legal team for software. Try to use the best billing software for attorneys that is available in the industry. Train them for the software so that they can save time and automate manual processes.
Client-Centric Approach
Go for a client centric approach. It will help you in the long run. Be as responsive to them, address all of their concerns, offer them flexible payment options, be transparent about the case progress and more.
Keep Track of Billable & Non-Billable Hours
Keep an eye on your recorded hours, segregate billable and non-billable hours.
Aim to maximize billable hours as much as possible. So that you can bill every minute that you spend working on cases.
Set Clear Expectations
Make sure to be clear expectations before you take any case. See what your clients want and what you can offer.
Be clear on the cost of the case, payment dates, way of conducting meetings, meeting cycles and more. This will help you ito prevent any possible disputes later on.
The Bottom Line
Transparent legal billing processes will help in fostering better lawyer-client relationships. You can manually create invoices but using a legal billing software can help in automating the legal billing process and give a boost to a firm’s productivity.
If you implement the above mentioned best practices into your law firm billing process, you can create a seamless billing flow that provides you with a clear picture of your law firm finances.
Adopting these billing practices not only benefits you but also your clients will have a clear understanding of the billing process. It will improve the overall efficiency of your law firm. The additional tips can also give a boost to your billing process, so make sure to consider them while billing.
