If you`re like most people, managing your clients` funds is uncharted territory. Most of us do not have a background in accounting, and accounting is not a subject included in law school programs. Teamwork is valuable – Clio and QuickBooks Online make a great team for law firms. Through synchronous collaboration, this integration creates a complete legal accounting solution that helps lawyers deliver a client-centric experience – staying organized and up-to-date on all billing and financial matters. Lawyers can free up more time for their clients` needs and spend their time on it and generate more revenue for their law firms. Only you and your external accountant need access to your general ledger so that your information is safe and your legal staff can focus on the firm`s legal work. Solution: The software world, including LeanLaw, enhances QuickBooks Online by extending its functionality. They call it the QuickBooks App Store. This is a growing market that only takes more advantage of the usability of QuickBooks Online – without having to develop the customization itself. If you think of QuickBooks Online as a platform like iTunes where you are looking for apps for the features and functionality you need, you have a new perspective that you can use to your advantage. LeanLaw is the main legal application of the QBO App Store. Let`s face it: if you`re trying to use QuickBooks Online alone in your law firm, there are some legal features you`ll miss. But QuickBooks Online isn`t the young product it was a few years ago – there`s a lot of power under the hood of QuickBooks, and integrated with the right add-on software, like LeanLaw, legal time tracking is effortless and your invoices practically write themselves.
The legal time recording and billing workflow is smooth and automated. What used to take days or weeks is now done in minutes. Solution: Real legal reporting can be done with LeanLaw. Easy access to compensation reports, unfinished business, what you`ve billed, what you`ve collected in real time: by lawyer. By customer, by origination. You can get a price report to understand what you`re charging each customer. LeanLaw believes that these reports are one of your most important tools for understanding the profitability of the law firm. Pay your company`s bills without leaving your accounting software. There is no doubt that your lawyer management software should include invoicing and accounting features within the larger platform.
In fact, this is one of the most common reasons why law firms choose to implement cloud-based software. Given these factors, QuickBooks Online is the optimal choice for lawyers. The complete accounting tool is easy to use, secure and synchronized with Clio for an end-to-end solution. In addition, there is an army of QuickBooks Online chartered accountants who are committed to bringing their clients to QuickBooks Online for usability, optimization, and organization. LeanLaw even has its own range of ProAdvisors – LeanLaw Accounting Pros – accounting chartered accountants from law firms for QuickBooks and LeanLaw. Your accountant and accountant can be more than just people balancing your books and filing your tax returns. Using LeanLaw as a tool, they can advise you on how to become a more profitable law firm. Think of QuickBooks Online`s accounting software for lawyers as your company`s cost tool.
It allows businesses: Did your accountant or accountant say you shouldn`t use QuickBooks Online for your law firm? Have you had any problems with legal fiduciary accounting or time tracking and legal invoicing, to name a few? Like many myths, there is usually a nugget of truth somewhere. For invoicing and accounting software, it is important to synthesize data and generate reports that give law firm management insight into the effectiveness of invoicing procedures. These reports may include billable and non-billable hours per timekeeper, client or file, as well as measures of the lawyer`s profitability. QuickBooks has dashboard functionality, but it`s limited to billing and accounting metrics. It`s not as comprehensive as fully integrated systems dashboards that can track billing against other lines of business. This means you can make more progress in meeting your KPIs, even if they`re not just related to financial metrics. For example, it can be helpful for law firms to track which lawyers regularly have clients who don`t pay their bills, or how much time timekeepers spend on specific clients or questions. Your second option is to run QuickBooks Professional (the desktop edition) in a hosted private cloud or virtual desktop. (We use these terms interchangeably here.) This includes hiring a cloud service provider that hosts QuickBooks Professional (likely along with your other software, documents, and data) in a fully hosted environment and provides a virtual office for anyone your company can work in (from anywhere).
A plan for almost everyone. QuickBooks offers a wide range of accounting features suitable for individual lawyers and medium-sized businesses. To do this, Intuit offers several pricing plans. Not all plans include the above features. Finding the right accounting software for lawyers is a great way to save time. They can also be more accurate and productive at the same time when it comes to law firm finances. But as with any technology you choose for your business, it`s important to carefully consider your options first. This fragmentation thwarts the goal of using practice management software designed to make your life easier by managing all areas of your law practice.
Law firms that use multiple platforms to run different parts of their business end up creating more work for employees. For example, it may be necessary for lawyers to enter data multiple times into different systems, so you won`t be able to take full advantage of the technology. Juris is dedicated to legal accounting. It provides sophisticated end-to-end legal invoicing and all the accounting features a law firm needs. A common point of confusion is the different types of accounting software for law firms. The term “law firm accounting” tends to be used quite generously and is often used (inaccurately, in our opinion) to describe billing and trust functions, but the basics of basic/traditional accounting software (such as a chart of accounts, P&L, balance sheet). This is a very 2015 myth. To be honest, Intuit strongly encourages users to upgrade from the desktop version of QuickBooks to QuickBooks Online. Ask yourself: What does the future of software look like? Available online or just on your desktop? User management means that the software allows your company to distinguish who has access to information and adjust their access levels based on their relevant user status. Simplifying or automating manual tasks saves you time. You can use the hours you earn to increase revenue and time spent on billable work. To that end, Clio and QuickBooks Online are working together to streamline legal accounting and customer money management, which means more time and energy spent on billable work and provides a better customer-centric experience.
Every lawyer knows that the rigorous management of clients` trust accounts is an integral part of the ethical (and legal) billing of law firms. Invoicing and accounting software must be able to effectively manage the trust accounts of lawyers who hold client funds before they are earned. These include the monitoring of the interest-bearing account (IOLTA) and the tripartite reconciliation with the balance sheet, the escrow account and the escrow account. This means the ability to accept credit card or eCheck payments in your accounting software, either through its own payment gateway or through a third-party integration like PayPal or Square.