Bill4Time

Legal Time Billing Software

Bill4Time Staff

How Small Law Firms Bill Without a Billing Department

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Customer story from Cynthia Monaco, from the Law Offices of Cynthia Monaco, New York, NY:

The biggest headache for a small law practice is keeping up with billing without a billing department, Bill4Time solves this issue.

Before transitioning away from a large firm into my solo law practice, I asked other attorneys for advice on the challenges ahead. Most of them told me that their biggest headache was keeping up with billing without a billing department and a secretary to chase billables to be entered.

As a Harvard University and Harvard Law School graduate, I started my career as a clerk on the Second Circuit, then worked in the Clinton Administration as an appointee for Janet Reno. I then did short stint at Ropes and Gray then became a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn. Leaving government for a law firm in the midst of a large recession was eye opening. It taught me that the large law firm model isn’t well suited to the type of law I wanted to practice, representing individuals and smaller investment advisers in connection with SEC and criminal investigations.

As a prosecutor, I learned to work with limited resources in terms of manpower and support staff in putting together cases. I learned in private practice that my clients wanted to hire me and not my entire firm. Given the explosion of web based technologies, there was no reason why I couldn’t be equally effective in the private sector. Web-based time and billing software like Bill4Time made small firm management efficient in time consumption and cost.

So I left large firm life taking my loyal clients with me.

I acted carefully and read a number of reviews from the ABA and other legal sites before choosing Bill4Time. The iPhone application makes all the difference in saving me time and making sure I capture my hours. Yesterday I had a long day in court followed by a drink with colleagues. If I hadn’t logged my hours in via my iPhone during breaks in the proceedings, I would have missed much of the detail and the time worked. I now work with fewer clients but have seen receivables grow.

Small law firm life has taught me to share the efficiencies I practice with my clients and colleagues.

Join Cynthia and Try Bill4Time For Free…

The need for cloud based time billing is becoming more and more a necessity for small to medium sized firms. Bill4Time improves the way lawyers manage their firms by enabling them to enter time and expenses on the go using their mobile devises. Bill4Time clients earn more money because they track more time with accurate detail, and look professional and modern by sending invoices and getting paid electronically.

Bill4Time has all the basic features a general law practice requires, plus more sophisticated features for specialized firms including ABA Task Codes, LEDES invoice exports, conflict checker, Trust accounting, Trust reports and summaries on invoices.

Sign up for your free 30-day trial today!

New Features: Email History, Customized Client IDs, and More

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Additional Emailing Features

Now you can email your invoice to as many contacts as you like. Bill4Time has now added a CC field to the Email Invoice screen. Choose from your Contact Management list or just type in an additional email address, and separate them with a semi colon and a space.

Bill4Time also provides email history. Hover over any envelope icon, and see either the date and email addresses that the invoice was sent, or the status that the invoice hasn’t been sent yet. Click on that envelope icon and see the full details of the email history for this invoice.

  

 

 

 

 

Contact Management Centralized

Add your contact in Bill4Time once, and you don’t have to put it in again. Click the blue “Clients” tab and then click the “Manage Contacts” button. Here you can search through ALL of your contacts in one place. Add or remove them from specific clients or projects. They’ll still stay in the Contact Management list until you delete the contact all together.

Edit Contractor Rates

Just like you can change contractors’ billable rate per client or project, you can now change the contractors’ rate to your company. Now your Bill4Time system can reflect the contractor’s rate change on the client or project level. Learn how to edit your contractor’s rates here.

Customizable Client IDs

With the latest system update, you can now choose your own client identification numbers. The numbers will be displayed in the Client Management list and throughout the entire system. Learn how to edit client IDs here.

Invoice Summary Flexibility

Now you can split up your invoice summary to apply to just the labor, just the expenses, or both individually. Learn how to apply an invoice summary here.

Bootstrapping a Business to Fabricate a Debt Free Company: Steps to Take

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Guest writer of this post is Marlon Powell who writes on finance related matters such as debt consolidation, settlement and other aspects of handling debts to keep you debt free.

Lines of credit, business loans, venture capital and personal loans all exist for those business organizations that need to purchase equipment and inventory, and also grow and expand their services. It is most commonly seen that much of the initial growth of a business firm is basically funded on borrowed money but such steps can cost you dearly in the long run. However, with the present debt situation in the US, a large number of businesses suddenly began to move away from incurring business debt, either by their own choice or by circumstances. The tightening of credit standards and the general skittishness among the investors has recently made bootstrapping a business the most viable option. But running a business debt free and growing it in such a manner has some downsides too. Read on to know more on it.

Starting from Scratch – Bootstrapping Your Business

Well, big business tycoons are also of the opinion that starting a business firm without borrowing money can often become a challenging task. The only thing that the business owner should come to terms with is that he has to start off small and allot a longer time to reach his desired goals in the long run. Though you may see your competitors gaining market-share and flourishing with increased business revenue, you must remain slow with your business plan. As you have to maintain this debt free strategy throughout, you must not get demotivated by seeing the success of your competitors. You have to be financially diligent and dedicated in order to run a debt free business.

Steps to Take in Order to Start Off with a Business without Running into Debt

You can sense brewing financial trouble when your business revenue is not more than the investment that you made. If you want to make money from your business without incurring too much debt, you must be sure about the financial decisions that you take. Here are some of them.

  • Hire a book keeper: If you’ve thought of managing every spick and span of your company alone, then you’ll be more prone to making mistakes. Accounting or book keeping is the most important part of your business and you must hire a professional who has an expertise in doing such jobs so that you can attain perfection.
  • Follow a commercial budget: There’s no substitute of following a commercial budget. Just as a consumer needs to follow a budget in order to keep his finances on track, so does a business firm. Track your pennies so that your hard-earned dollars don’t run into water for your carelessness.
  • Save money on marketing: When it comes to spreading the word about your product, you can leverage some DIY methods like networking and social media marketing as this will enable you to save your bucks. You can promote your products through a blog or even through social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

As a business building strategy, bootstrapping will become a success in any kind of economic climate. Don’t be a budding entrepreneur who gets lured by credit, overextends his budget and then falls into debt. Harbor a solid business plan so that you can run a debt free business and boost your revenue at the same time.

 

New Feature: Improved Scheduler

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This latest system release gives your Scheduler a whole new look. All information in the old version is carried over to this new one. From here, you can still create a Scheduler Report and export your events to your other calendars (eg: Outlook, Google Calendar, iCal, etc).

See the Entire Month
The calendar is now expanded where you can see your entire schedule for the month. System Administrators will have further access to multiple users’ schedules. Although the calendar is refreshed regularly, a manual way to refresh the calendar is also available.

View Just the Week
The new Agenda view shows the weekly events. System Administrators will still be able to see multiple users’ schedules, and everyone can scroll to any week they want. This allows you to have a better idea of the week’s agenda. From here, you can print out the week’s events.

Create Events Faster
From the calendar, click on any day you want to schedule a new event. Just like in the older version, you can assign it to a client/project, or keep it as an internal event. You can also invite others to this event and it will show up on their Scheduler too. Set the event to “private” and only the attendees can view it.

Convert to Time Entries
Click on any event and change it to a time entry. The user, client, project, start and stop time, duration, and description are all carried over. It’s just one more way to track your time!

The Key to Optimizing Bill4Time’s Technical Support

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The key is in the details. The more information you provide, the faster our technical support team can resolve it. A lot of back-and-forth dialogue us wanting a better understanding of your situation. Let’s reduce the dialogue!

Many questions are on a case-by-case basis. Specifics are the key! Here are some very important details we need from you:

  • Company Name
  • Firm ID – When you click on the blue “Dashboard” tab, you will see your firm ID in grey letters, next to your company’s name at the top right corner of the page.
  • The name of relevant client and project/case/matter
  • The invoice number – Sometimes invoices are included in batches, not making them easily visible on the Invoice Management screen. The invoice number is the best way for us to find the invoice and take a deeper look at it.

Should you call us at 1-877-245-5484 or chat with us, make sure you also provide this information too.

Help Directly from the Software

If you have a quick question while you’re working in Bill4Time, peek into the Knowledge Base by clicking on “help” at the top of the screen. Once you click on it, you will see a pop-up window. Put in your question, just like this:

You will then see Knowledge Base articles pertaining to your question.

 

If none of the articles answer your question, click on the bottom right button and submit your support ticket with your name, company, firm ID, invoice number, client/project name, and any other details to your question.

Try Video

We also have some great learning materials at your fingertips! This may provide you with a faster answer. Our short YouTube videos walk you though basic functions, while our webinars give a more thorough video tutorial through the system. We have a few recorded webinars for your viewing pleasure and a few live ones where you can ask your questions to the presenter and they can demonstrate the answer right there!

Simply Billing Webinar

Moving to the Cloud – an Informative Commentary

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I’ve recently come across David Freeman’s articles about moving to the cloud. Freeman admits it’s not a black and white issue when deciding between traditional software and software as a service (SaaS). He sees it’s all about functionality. Depending on the company’s needs, either one is a viable choice. What I got out of it was the following:

Again, this is not all black and white where you can’t keep your traditional QuickBooks software for your accounting while moving to Google Docs for your data analysis. Businesses make up their own rules. Technology allows this. Many of our customers use Bill4Time to keep track of their time as they work in the cloud, and then transfer their set invoice balances to QuickBooks. Others use Bill4Time strictly for time tracking and client management, as they use custom software for their invoicing needs.

Then there’s the question of an upfront fee versus a month-to-month fee. In the end, it’s all about cost and benefits. If the upfront cost is affordable and you don’t plan on switching to a newer version, then perhaps this is the best fit for you. The month-to-month expense only makes sense if:

  • It buys you time so you can pay as you go rather than have a large up-front expense.
  • The total monthly fee is well absorbed into the monthly generated revenue.
  • You intend to use it for a limited time.
  • You are test-driving software.

What I find fascinating in all of these case studies that Freeman presents, is that every one of those companies who chose the cloud-based software route reported some transitional time. They all admitted there were a few bumps and difficulties along the way, but in the end it was worth the time and effort to move in this new direction. It shows that businesses are willing to keep up with technology, as long as the long-term benefits out-weigh the invested costs of time and money.

One of the only risks Freeman pointed out was Internet connection. However, with this day and age of internet technology, smart phones, and Wi-fi access at almost any coffee shop or McDonalds around the corner, it’s an assumed risk when you use the Internet on a daily basis.

But cloud-based companies should pay attention to the avoidable risks that customers assume when trying out their software. It would be a wise investment for a SaaS company to:

  • Provide a user manual
  • Invest in technical support to accept and quickly return phone calls and emails
  • Update your FAQ pages on a regular basis to include answers to new questions

At the very end, Freeman addresses the data security issue. I’m assuming the shortness of that section shows how comfortable people really are with the cloud. With all of our email messages accumulating through the years, I’m sure there’s been more than one email there that contained sensitive material in that long list of archived emails. Freeman points out that cloud-based customers “felt satisfied that their cloud providers were doing at least as good a job as the owners themselves could in keeping data safe.” That’s definitely a statement worth noting! We’ve come a long way from the time when PayPal first surfaced.

I look forward to more of Freeman’s articles on the subject of moving in the cloud. I believe it’s an inevitable movement with this current economy of businesses reducing their costs and software providers optimizing their distribution.