Law Firm Accounting Software (Alphabetical List)
Bench is North America's largest bookkeeping service for small firms, including an app for tracking and a team of bookkeepers to do your books for you. Learn more about Bench.- Less Accounting is an accounting solution built for small businesses. It also includes the ability to create proposals and act as a basic CRM. Learn more about Less Accounting.
- QuickBooks is an all-in-one accounting solution and a good option for firms that may need to scale their accounting needs in the future. Learn more about QuickBooks.
- Quicken Home and Business is desktop-based accounting software that allows solo attorneys to track their home and business expenses in a single program. Learn more about Quicken Home and Business.
- Sage is cloud-based accounting software with basic features that can also scale up and integrate with Salesforce customer relationship management. Learn more about Sage Accounting Software.
- Wave is basic cloud-based accounting software that is free to use for most of its features. Its pricing model may be attractive to solo attorneys. Learn more about Wave.
- Xero is cloud-based accounting software suited for general-purpose accounting for small law firms and businesses, though it lacks trust accounting features. Learn more about Xero.
- ZipBooks is a cloud-based, intuitive, full accounting software that allows you to create invoices, track time and expenses, and integrates with your bank. Learn more about ZipBooks.
When choosing law firm accounting software, it can be challenging to know which specific features you need to keep your business running smoothly. We’ll try to make it easy.
- First, determine your firm’s needs. Some programs offer only accounting features, while others will allow you to accept credit card payments online, manage your payroll, and more.
- Read through our feature definitions list.
- Then, get more information about the software that most interests you by visiting the product page for each.
- Finally, sign up for a trial account with one or two likely software options, put them through their paces, and select the one that will work best for your firm.
Below are links to more information, including our best-fit judgment for each product.
Feature Definitions
Timekeeping. This means time tracking specifically, but not billing and invoicing
Billing/invoicing. This means billing and invoicing features.
Online payments. This means you can 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. Most online payment services come with a processing fee.
Bill payment. Pay your firm’s bills directly from your accounting software.
Accounts payable. The software will keep track of money you owe to creditors.
Accounts receivable. This means you can track any outstanding invoices and payments.
Bookkeeping. This means you can do basic checkbook register–style bookkeeping.
Reporting/analytics. Businesses often need reports that help them assess things like cash flow and outstanding bills and invoices at a glance. A check mark in this field means that the accounting software can generate at least those basic reports. Some have more robust reporting features than others.
Expense tracking. Track business expenses and categorize them accordingly.
Tax preparation. Some accounting software will prepare taxes for your firm. If this field is checked, the program can fully prepare your taxes so you can review, approve, and pay your taxes.
Payroll. This applies to software that has full payroll abilities, including the ability to automatically calculate employee taxes, print checks, or pay by direct deposit.
Secure portal. Secure communication and file-sharing portals are becoming more common, particularly with cloud-based software. For accounting software, the secure sharing features usually include the ability to share documents and other communication with clients, your accountant, or your tax preparer.
Connect to bank accounts. This applies to software that allows you to directly link your bank accounts, which gives you up-to-date information about those accounts.
Mileage tracking. Keep track of miles traveled visiting clients or heading to the courthouse, making it easier to tally for taxes or billing purposes.
Contact management. This means you can store contacts in the software for invoicing or billing purposes.
Statement reconciliation. This applies to software that provides a bank and business activity statement, outlining deposits, withdrawals, and any other activity from bank accounts.
Foreign currencies. This means you can invoice and bill in foreign currencies.
Check printing. For any firm that needs to print physical checks.
Multiple users. Add more than one user to manage the firm’s accounting.
