4 Payment Hacks to Get Your Law Firm Paid Faster

Although law firms face several day-to-day challenges, the biggest one is to set up a process to get paid promptly.

So, how can small firms:

• invoice clients in a hassle-free manner?
• allow clients to pay for invoices with ease?

The simplest and most cost-effective way to accomplish this is with law practice management software that provides built-in legal billing features. Such software will help your firm create a streamlined billing process that will take care of everything–from remote time tracking, invoicing clients to accepting online payments.

1. Simplify the Invoice Creation Process

Before the advent of electronic billing, creating and sending paper invoices was a time-consuming process. Fortunately, legal payments software has changed that. Nowadays, it’s easier than ever to generate legal invoices using any internet-enabled device, and then immediately send them to clients electronically.

There are a host of techniques you can implement to reduce legal billing inefficiencies but the easiest is to reduce the number of steps needed to create and send out invoices. One way that legal billing systems software accomplishes this goal is by automatically providing necessary billing information, such as LEDES billing codes.

Additionally, the ability to customize invoices allows you to easily determine what information appears on your firm’s invoices, such as which time or expense entry columns you’d like to reflect on an invoice.

2. Automate Invoice Reminders

Another way to improve your law firm’s cash flow is to use software that allows you to set up automated invoice reminders. With this tool, you can schedule reminders when you send out the first invoice to a client. If the invoice isn’t paid, a follow-up will automatically be sent to the client, reminding them that the billed amount is outstanding.

This convenient tool will save your law firm both, time and money. The initial invoice needs to be sent just once; after that, the software follows up with your client on your behalf. It’s time to eliminate manual re-sends, let the system do the work for you.

3. Allow Clients to Set Up Payment Plans

If you want to get paid quickly, consider allowing your law firm’s clients to set up payment plans for their legal bills. By doing so, you provide your clients with increased flexibility, making it easier to pay large legal bills.

This can be accomplished by using your firm’s legal payments software to set up a payment plan using built-in payment plan features. You can not only create the plan but also establish the amounts due and assign due dates. You’re then able to share this information with your client, who can instantly pay your firm via e-check (ACH) or credit card.

Additionally, you can set up invoice reminders for the amounts due, providing your client with all the information needed to make payments associated with their payment plan.

4. Utilize Advanced Billing and Revenue Reporting Features

Finally, ensure that your law firm’s billing process is as efficient and effective as possible by tracking and analyzing your firm’s financial and billing information. In this case, you’ll want to run reports that provide you with an overview of your law firm’s billing, invoicing, and collection data. Here are some of the reports you can run:

Aging Invoice Report: A report of overdue balances grouped into 1-15, 16-30, 31-60, and 61+ days overdue.
Accounts Receivable Report: A report detailing your law firm’s receivables, which can be filtered to show a particular client or case; you can also choose various grouping options to better format the data for your law firm’s specific needs.

• Case Revenue Report: Shows cases billed during a certain period and allows comparison of monies earned on those cases during the same timeframe.
• Fee Allocation Report: Displays amounts billed and collected by specific users at your firm during a specified period.
• Trust Account Summary Report: Shows all contacts with trust balances, including total credit, total debits, and “as-of” balance.
• Electronic Payments Report: Shows all payment activity made via credit card or ACH within a specified time frame.
• Credit Card Fees Report: Offers a detailed view into which fees are taken from the operating account.
• Remote Billing Tools = Continued Success

Even if your law firm is operating virtually, your firm can successfully collect payments from clients. As long as your firm uses law firm payment processing software with remote billing and accounting tools, your business will remain unaffected.

Using this software, your law firm’s billing processes will be streamlined, making it easier for clients to pay their bills. The ability to remotely track time, invoice clients, and accept online legal payments can make all the difference to your firm’s bottom line and ensure your firm’s continued success in the immediate future and beyond.

To learn more about how the billing tools in law practice management software can help your law firm bill more efficiently, download our FREE guide: The Ultimate Guide to Legal Billing.