QuickBooks

QuickBooks Rating:
4.4/5

Features

Customer Experience & Support - 7/10

7/10
Pricing & Value - 7/10

7/10
Security - 9.25/10

9.3/10
Innovation & Future-Proofing - 7.25/10

7.3/10

Comments Rating 5 (1 review)

Details

Rating Breakdown

Our Rating: 3.8/5

Our rating is based on our subjective judgment. Use our resources—including our rating and community ratings and reviews—to find the best fit for your firm.

Community Rating: 5/5 (based on 1 rating)

The community rating is based on the average of the community reviews below.

Composite Rating: 4.4/5

The composite rating is a weighted average of our rating and the community ratings below.

QuickBooks is a popular accounting platform that many solo lawyers and small to medium-sized law firms use. It integrates with a wide range of Law Practice Management Software providers, and has a host of helpful add-ons to its core system. Although you can get it as a desktop or an online version, the cloud-based platform is gaining in popularity and is likely the most useful for the modern law firm.

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Who QuickBooks is For

Quickbooks can handle most accounting tasks a lawyer will throw at it. It has robust reporting capabilities, integrations with countless other software platforms, and, given it’s multiple price points, it is generally affordable. Additionally, most accountants can easily work with Quickbooks, so it may save you a lot of headache come tax time.

Lawyers who are able to take advantage of the cloud-based system’s integrations and add-ons will likely be the happiest with this product. An office could easily run their HR department (with payroll and time-sheets add-ons), create complex billing systems, take online payments from clients, and set their budgets and track expenses within the system. It just may require you to watch some YouTube videos.

Quickbooks is not, however, customized for lawyers or law firms. As alluded to above. Which can make it difficult to set up, and require a little extra effort around your trust accounting. Whats more, many attorneys don’t need all the features Quickbooks offers. Accordingly, these lawyers may find more benefit from a less expensive offering.

Features

Apps
Website	quickbooks.intuit.com
Android iOS iPadOS MacOS Web Windows
Starting Price	$8/month
Free Trial	✓
Bookkeeping Double-entry bookkeeping.	✓
Connect Bank Accounts Link your bank accounts for up-to-date transaction information with little or no manual data entry.	✓
Billing/Invoicing	✓
Online Payments 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. Most online payments involve a separate processing fee.	✓
Timekeeping	✓
Mileage Tracking Keep track of miles traveled visiting clients or heading to the courthouse, making it easier to tally for taxes or billing purposes or add to your expense reports.	✓
Bill Payment Pay your firm's bills without leaving your accounting software.	✓
Statement Reconciliation Helps with the complex task of balancing your business accounts. Does not necessarily include more advanced reconciliation features like three-way trust account reconciliation.	✓
Payroll Payroll includes automatically calculating employee taxes, printing checks, and paying by direct deposit.	✓
Tax Preparation Some accounting software can also be used to prepare taxes for your firm so you can review, approve, and even pay your taxes all in one place.	✓
Reporting Businesses need reports to help assess key business performance indicators like profit and accounts receivable. Some products have more robust reporting features than others.	✓
Foreign Currencies	✓
Check Printing	✓
Contact Management Store contacts for invoicing or billing purposes.	✓
User Management Manage multiple users, including your accountant and tax preparer, or multiple billers or timekeepers at the firm.	✓

Additional Details About QuickBooks

Pricing

A plan for just about everyone. QuickBooks provides a wide range of accounting features that work for solo lawyers or medium-sized firms, alike. In order to do this, Intuit offers multiple pricing plans. Not all plans include the above features.

Security

Client information security is a real concern for lawyers. QuickBooks, therefore, uses SSL (secure-socket layer) to ensure your data is encrypted in transit. Credit card and social security numbers are converted to tokens or encrypted. QuickBooks secures its data centers with 24/7 personnel and video surveillance and has backup generators to keep data available during power outages.

Quickbooks for the Modern Lawyer

Online Advanced

Although Quickbooks, in general, is not specifically built with lawyers in mind, they recently released their Advanced product. This customized product addresses many of the small to medium-sized law firm’s pain points. For example, Advanced has complex billing terms, billable hours, and time-keeping abilities. Additionally, it has strong Key Performance Indicator (KPI) reporting—which is something we think every law firm needs.

Integrations

Quickbooks has also made its product more enticing to lawyers by integrating with products like Clio, LeanLaw, TSheets, and many popular CRM applications. These integrations can save you time and make your office more efficient.

Page edited by the Lawyerist editorial team. Last updated November 11th, 2020.