Law firm software for the partner who has to know what is unbilled
Law firm software is usually sold on everything it can do. This one is built around the four numbers a partner in a two-to-forty-person firm actually has to answer for: which matters are open and who is on them, what has been worked and not yet billed, whether the bills went out and were paid, and whether client money is held correctly and separately. The free worksheets on this site do that arithmetic on your own figures before you buy anything, and the paid plan keeps every matter, timesheet and bill as a record with a history you can show.
For firms that bill time against matters
If your work in progress lives in a spreadsheet that one person maintains, the risk is not that the spreadsheet is wrong. It is that nobody else can answer from it when that person is on holiday.
Everything a firm has to answer for, kept in one record
- Every matter open, with who is on it. A firm's work is not projects or tickets, it is matters, and the question that gets asked in a partners' meeting is which ones are open and who is carrying them. That is a lookup here, not an afternoon of asking.
- What has been worked and not yet billed. Unbilled work in progress is the number most small firms cannot state on the day they are asked. On the worked example this site publishes, 38 days of it at $8,736 a day is $331,968 sitting in the firm rather than the bank.
- Whether it went out, and whether it was paid. Recording time is only the first half. Realisation is what survives the write-off and the slow payer: at 86.5% on the same worked example, $183,456 of recorded value becomes $158,689 collected, a gap of $24,767 a month.
The free tools
Two worksheets, each doing a job a partner currently does in a spreadsheet or not at all: what a matter's bill actually comes to once write-offs and disbursements are in it, and what the gap between target and recorded hours is worth as money rather than as a percentage. They run on your figures, not ours, and neither asks for an account.
- Law firm invoicing software: Build a matter's bill from what was actually recorded: hours, blended rate, the write-off taken on the line rather than the total, and disbursements passed through unmarked, into the fee, the bill total and your effective rate per recorded hour.
- Law firm billing systems: Price the gap between target and recorded hours: fee earners, blended rate, target and actual hours a day and the working days in the month, into what the gap costs a month, a year, and per fee earner per week.
Partnro Pro
Keep this month's answer, and every month after it, without rebuilding the spreadsheet each time. $79 a month for the whole firm, not per user. Cancel yourself any time.
