Whether your firm utilizes a practice management software, a more specific legal billing software, or is finding success keeping track of expenses the good old fashioned way, it might benefit from any number of the countless legal billing resources that are available in the brave new cyber-world. We all know that effective client invoicing and billing are two cornerstones of running a successful law practice. However, another essential piece of the elaborate puzzle that is running a successful law firm is the series of internal accounting procedures that must run smoothly. Efficiency, accountability, and intuitiveness are key when it comes to the tools that keep your accounting processes running. Lucky for you, we’ve rounded up some of the best:
Toggl
Toggl is an excellent option for firms looking to streamline their time tracking and to stay abreast of employees’ productivity. This platform allows individuals to track the time they spend working on each project throughout their day, subsequently generating reports that can be utilized by the employee themselves or their supervisors to evaluate the speed at which tasks are completed. This app is also extremely useful if your firm is looking for options to manage employees working remotely. This provides employees having a sick day, family emergency, or other extenuating circumstance that might affect their attendance with the opportunity to avoid getting behind on work. This app not only streamlines productivity and allows employees to be held accountable for their billable time, but it provides businesses with avenues to uphold productivity in situations where it might have otherwise been halted.
PomoDoneApp
Not unlike Toggl, PomoDone is a platform geared towards simplifying your law firm’s time tracking. However, unlike Toggl (and virtually any other app out there), PomoDone utilizes the Pomodoro technique, serving as both time tracker and time manager. The Pomodoro technique is structured with 25-minute intervals of productivity, followed by short breaks in between these intervals. This technique is valued by professionals in various areas, who assert that it keeps them focused without burning them out. Attorneys looking to incorporate efficient time management techniques into their time tracking would be well-served by this unique application.
Freckle
Yet another option for firms looking for efficient, streamlined time tracking options to consider, Freckle is a platform whose bright, intuitive interface is extremely appealing to a number of professionals. It’s also not your average time-tracking app, designed with efficiency in mind in order to help attorneys and professionals across fields measure productivity from a variety of angles: from the distribution of participation across team members to work rhythms and the ratio of billable versus non-billable time used up.
Wave
This app is perfect for small- and medium-sized firms looking to optimize the organization of their accounting department (or lack thereof). Wave is an app designed with smaller businesses in mind, providing an array of accounting services to clients. The usefulness of these services culminates in Wave’s intuitive, uber-efficient expense tracking. The app allows users to photograph receipts of their business expenses, then proceeds to auto-scan the receipts for the necessary information to ensure that employees are reimbursed as quickly as possible with minimal error. By eliminating manual data entry in a process as imperative as billing, Wave keeps both firms and their employees happy.
Xero
Another mobile accounting app, Xero provides services similar to those offered by Wave. This app takes accounting accountability to the next level, generating reports for its users based on the expenses logged for their business. These reports track both bank account and credit card activity, allowing users to monitor all of the financial goings-on throughout their firm. Xero also automatically categorizes all expenses into different sections for supervisors to review, and their elevated security protocols keep all information encrypted and safe.
Your Legal Billing Game (Changer)
All of these apps make the arduous process of streamlining a firm’s legal billing considerably easier. After all, it’s not just your firm’s client-centered expenses that are crucial to track; those incurred internally are just as pivotal.