The Best Law Firm Accounting and Bookkeeping Software

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 and hands-off billing. You can also schedule invoices to be generated and emailed at certain dates or intervals.

• MyCase three-way trust reconciliation tools enable you to stay in compliance with bar regulations.
• You can integrate it with a non-legal accounting software like Xero, which offers more modern solutions like
  Hubdoc for receipt management.
• These dashboards show important financial data like bank balances, reconciliation information, outstanding invoices, budgets, and more.
• The software doesn’t include accounting features, but it easily integrates with QuickBooks.
• This makes all your documents easily accessible for when you are reviewing that accounting entry.
• FreshBooks Select is a custom plan built to save time and money, and ensure your growing legal business has the accounting solution it needs.

For this, you should confer with both your legal team and your accountant. You might consider LexWorkplace, document management software born in the cloud, built for law firms. Still unsure as to which of the above software offerings is right for you? What you’ll notice about the majority of legal accounting program offerings out there is that the messaging surrounding these products still focus on increasing the efficiency of the billable hour. Client trust accounts can be pooled (more than one client’s money in an account) or separate (usually for larger sums of money or if requested by the client).

How to Choose Legal Billing Software

Legal accounting solutions that support digital payment integration can even help eliminate uncomfortable conversations by automating follow ups and other parts of the A/R process. Lowers Compliance Risk
Handling paper checks and manually handling IOLTA accounts exponentially increases your compliance risk. The consequences of making even an innocent mistake that results in commingling funds can have dire consequences. Today’s clients don’t just want to pay for invoices online, they want a variety of ways to do it.

• Clio is one of the most simple accounting software programs for lawyers by handling all your basic administrative tasks while on the go.
• Unfortunately, reports that give you what you need can be cumbersome to create manually.
• If your firm’s users tend to need more technical support when learning a new tool, look for options that are easy to navigate and offer personalized customer support.
• Trust accounting must be done correctly in order for law firms to stay compliant.
• Legal accounting software is a type of program that is tailored to the legal industry, helping to keep track of time, billings, schedules, and more.
• Although you could get by with using just a general ledger package software for your law firm, you will most likely want another software designed specifically for legal practices.

The software makes lawyers more productive with features like time and expense tracking, online payments, billing, accounting, integrations, and calendaring. LeanLaw is one of the more popular names in the legal accounting industry. There are many things that make LeanLaw the best law firm billing software, including features like time tracking by matter, expense tracking, bulk invoices, and trust accounting. Stay organized with law practice management software that allows you to keep track of everything from billable hours to time tracking. FreshBooks’ robust accounting platform helps you stay on top of client work and keep all your client documents in one place.

Rocket Matter

Complex bookkeeping and accounting can be handled digitally, freeing up time and saving money by having more efficient processes for handling finances. As the 2021 Legal Trends Report found, the majority (66%) of consumers expect to pay for legal services online. This data shows that clients find software that securely accepts online credit card payments is more convenient. Online payment solutions like Clio Payments also streamlines your collections and accounting workflows. We recommend using the built-in timer features to keep accurate records of your attorneys’ time. All legal accounting software options offer invoicing and accounts receivables, but only Xero offers automated accounts receivable reminders.

It’ll even connect you with experts to build custom reports for your firm. You can instantly run financial statements to see how business is doing. Generate statements such as cash flow, profit and loss, balance sheets, etc. It provides time and billing, case and client management, and full-fledged accounting. Centerbase is arguably one of the most customizable LPM applications, though that customization may require an outside consultant.

PCLaw Support – How to Get Help for PCLaw

Your billing process is also more streamlined and bills are processed and sent out in a timely manner. A TimeSolv Legal plan also includes legal-specific billing formats, including LEDES 2000, 1998B, 1998BI, Chubbs and Litigation Advisor. And you’ll get access to conflicts management, trust accounting and ABA task codes. We recommend QuickBooks Plus and Advanced in order to get the most from your legal billing software. Both plans allow you to get a more granular view of your practice and track billable hours by client, case, and employee.

How useful that data will be depends a lot on what capabilities your accounting software supports, how it integrates with your other legal software, and what reporting features it has. Generally speaking, a combined billing, case management and accounting solution will give you the most flexibility since it can utilize a wider variety of data for reporting purposes. Improves Client Relationships
Sending out paper invoices and requiring physical checks law firm bookkeeping can not only make your firm appear outdated, but it can put a damper on the client experience as well. Integrating self-serve payment options with legal accounting software is an easy way to create better relationships and stay relevant against competitors. However, beyond making the payment and reconciliation process easier, the ability to easily create customized invoices and flexible payment schedules can also lower the chances of non-payment.

TimeSolv is a full case management solution, with project management tools that let you set milestones and create a budget you can share with employees and clients. You can collect and store client payment information upfront, so payment is automatic and you don’t have to chase clients down over unpaid invoices. Even solo practitioners and small firms have to track and allocate hours to clients, account for retainers and manage a variety of rates and billing options. Yes, most versions of QuickBooks Online let you create unique user IDs and customize access levels for anyone on your team so they can work in your legal accounting software with their own login. This means the ability to accept credit card or echeck payments within your accounting software, either through its own payment portal or via a third-party integration like PayPal or Square.

Let’s open the book on law firm accounting software and what it can do for you, and finish off with some software recommendations that are sure to make managing your law firm’s finances easier and more efficient. Award-winning support means talking to a real person for the help and info you need because we provide so much more than just online accounting software for law firms. Winning new clients is easy with professional-looking proposals, estimates, and e-signatures.

If you’re looking at law firm accounting and financial management software, it’s important to consider that the standard options out there, such as Quickbooks, may not be enough on their own. Ideally, you want legal accounting software that allows you to handle bookkeeping and accounting tasks together, to ensure that the information from both is considered in final reports. When it comes to the best accounting software for small law firms, LeanLaw is one of our top picks. It integrates with Quickbooks to provide the specific legal accounting needs that law firms need, including three-way reconciliation, easy timekeeping, invoicing, and mobile functionality for ease of access on the go. You can also seek help with different aspects of your law firm, from trust accounting, workflow management, and more through LeanLaw’s partners. Law firm accounting software like MyCase, offers law practice management and accounting features in a single package, so all critical accounting information is current, compliant, and audit-ready.