Clients hate surprises. This is especially true when it comes to your bill. The solution is to have an ongoing conversation with your clients about costs. For some reason, though, a lot of lawyers have a hard time talking to clients about money. This means invoices are often the only communication happening, which is more like delivering bad news once a month.
Instead of, you know, talking to your clients, Viewabill proposes “disrupt billable hours” (FastCo’s words) by sharing your time entries with your clients as you make them. It is as likely to disrupt billable hours as you are likely to start working for free, but it is an interesting concept — with some big hurdles to clear.
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Because Freshbooks and QuickBooks have similar names, people often wonder if they are alternatives. The QuickBooks-Freshbooks difference question just came up in the LAB, in fact.
Despite the names and a few overlapping features, Freshbooks and QuickBooks are very different products. Here’s a breakdown of the differences, and when and why you should use each one.
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Whether because we are looking to save money, space, or hassle, all-in-one solutions are very popular. All-in-one printer/copier/scanner/fax machines are ubiquitous. Law firms tend to adopt practice management software that includes tasks, calendars, document management, contacts, sometimes email, and often more. The problem is that anything that tries to do everything often does nothing well.
Read All-in-One Solutions Are Not One-Size-Fits-All.
New lawyers often choose all-in-one solutions (I did), whether hardware or software, when starting a law firm. While an all-in-one printer/copier/scanner/fax or practice management software can be a good option, they can also hamper productivity by trying to do too many things, and none of them well.
Law firms should carefully consider whether to use an all-in-one solution or select the best tool for each task.
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I reject the idea that the time it takes me to do work is necessarily a good measure of the value of that work. My firm uses hourly billing only in very limited circumstances. Instead, we define the work the client wants and decide a value, instead of leaving both those things uncertain, as happens in the average hourly fee representation.
Here is why—and how—we stopped hourly billing.
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Smartphones make it easy to work from nearly any location. Working outside of the office, however, makes it easy to lose track of billable time.
A new program, MobileArchiver for Outlook, will archive all of your mobile phone calls and text messages into Microsoft Outlook, making it easier to find billable phone calls.
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For many lawyers, tracking time is more difficult than actually doing the task at hand. Although it can be tedious, unless you bill flat rates, it is something that everyone has to do.
Fortunately, there are plenty of programs that can help you track time and hopefully make it less tedious. If you are looking for something new, try out Toggl.
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattimattila/4460629374/
Regardless of how you track your time, make sure it is accurate. Around these parts, we use Freshbooks for tracking our time in cases, and it works great for the most part. But even when your time is accurate, are you cutting your own time?
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I have been using Freshbooks for timekeeping and billing for over two years, since March 2008. I discovered Freshbooks in December 2007, started testing it with the free account, and quickly decided that Freshbooks is a better solution than anything I had used before (Time Matters, Timeslips, ProLaw, and Amicus). I’ve used it ever since, and it is getting better as my practice grows.
Freshbooks has become one of my “gold standard” applications*—it is the standard by which I judge all other timekeeping and billing software.
(FYI, Freshbooks is not QuickBooks. They do different things.)
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