The Legal Back Office

The Back Office

For more information or to schedule a no obligation conference call, contact us by phone or email. Time and Billing The importance of having an effective time and billing system for your law firm cannot be overstated. Obviously, time that is not captured cannot be invoiced to the client. There is ample evidence that firms who implement timekeeping best practices earn more. It is as simple as that. However, everyone also recognizes that effective timekeeping is more process centric than technology centric, despite all of the technical advances over the last thirty years. We recommend QuickBooks Online Edition (OE) because of its integrated timekeeping and billing functionality. It also provides all the features required for a firm's general accounting needs including the ability to effectively manage trust accounts as discussed below. We help clients setup their timekeeping and billing systems on QuickBooks OE with a law firm specific methodology so that a firm can quickly begin managing its books online. Trust Accounting One of the more complex aspects of setting up a law firm's accounting system is the question of trust accounts. Trust Accounts are a critical aspect of law firm accounting because of the fiduciary role that a firm has with respect to managing client held funds and because trust accounts are tightly regulated by most, if not all, state bar associations. Each association usually has a specific set of rules that must be followed. Therefore, it is not simply a matter of following generally accepted accounting principles in order to ensure compliance. A review of the respective state bar guidelines and rules are essential to maintain compliance. These requirements usually involve how the trust account is setup with the firm's bank and specific reporting requirements that the firm's accounting systems must meet. We recommend QuickBooks OE because it readily meets a firm's trust fund requirements. We help our clients setup their trust accounting to ensure compliance with state bar rules with QuickBooks OE.  Phone & Fax Telephone, fax, and related equipment purchases can be expensive monthly operating costs. Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol (VOIP) provides a proven and reliable alternative to traditional phone and fax services at a fraction of the cost. We recommend the services of RingCentral for a unified communications solution. Our RingCentral expertise allows us to quickly help you set up your phone system, including 1-800 phone and fax numbers, with your unique welcome message, extensions, and voice mail. Not only that, but you can have one service that will redirect calls to extensions that may be located anywhere in the city, state or country. Want to send your calls to your cell phone? No problem, RingCentral provides a full-suite of reliable services at a fraction of traditional phone and fax services. Unified communications mean you will receive email notice of incoming voice mail and faxes. An on-screen viewer allows you to review faxes, listen to messages, and respond with only the effort it takes to look at your computer screen. VOIP also provides you with the ability to go "paper-less" with most of your incoming and outgoing facsimile needs. Incoming and outgoing faxes become electronic (PDF) files that can be stored within your Intranet. If handwritten notes or signatures are required, no problem. Just print, sign, scan, and fax. Business rules provide complete control of the systems operational features. Online Payments Want to offer credit card payments for invoices, retainers, or fixed fee offerings? We recommend the use of PayPal, an eBay partner, for online credit card processing. PayPal accepts all major credit cards, plus online checks, without the requirement for your clients to set up a PayPal account. Over the years, PayPal has created a secure, online credit card processing service with reliable processing and low merchant account fees. If you don't accept credit card payments today you probably should. Most online consumers prefer to pay for products and services using credit cards. But...how do you avoid costs for the purchase of a "credit card machine" and the time and effort required to set up a merchant account with each of the major credit card services? Using PayPal's proven services we help clients set up their accounts that enables them to quickly and securely accept funds and transfer money into the firm's operating or trust account. So how would it work for your law firm? We can provide a custom, secure web page exclusively for credit card receipts. Intranet Although a firm's Intranet is often used for its KM initiatives there are a number of other functions that it can serve. These include supporting purely administrative functions and making visible the firm's policies and procedures. While these may not appear to be "big ticket" items, any efficiency related to non-billable time goes directly to the bottom line. Of course, not all staff interactions with an Intranet are non-billable, but efficiencies across the board will increasingly become more important as firms are forced to improve competitiveness. Google Apps makes creating and updating an Intranet a simple point and click exercise. There is no need to purchase any additional software or pay for specialized training. This is a prime example of the power of enabling horizontal technologies and their ability to handle unstructured data. We help firms launch their Intranets in a matter of hours. Extranet An Extranet is a private secured online area for sharing documents and otherwise collaborating with clients and other stakeholders. These private collaboration spaces are especially important in complex litigation and transactions where thousands of documents may need to be shared. The value proposition surrounding legal Extranets is by now well understood. That said, until fairly recently Extranets required special technical expertise to setup. For this reason, Extranets were,  for the most part, only leveraged by larger firms. No more.  makes setting up secured Extranets drop dead easy to do. The simplicity is derived from the fact that Google Apps provides out-of-the-box functionality necessary to actuate secured collaboration. We help our clients establish cloud collaboration spaces that eliminate most, if not all, of the advantages that large law firms have touted vis-à-vis their technical capabilities. These enabling technologies are leveling the playing field more and more each day.