A successful legal practice has as much to do with how you administer your business as how you practice law. It doesn’t matter if you win cases if you never get paid, if you end up being penalized for trust fund mismanagement, or if you don’t have time to find clients. To show you have important law office management software is, let us look at two hypothetical lawyers new to the business: John and Jane.

John’s Way

John just wants to practice law so doesn’t think much about how he wants his billing organized. He ends up with a pile of handwritten notes about hours and expenses, some of which get lost or unrecorded. He is smart enough to use time and billing software, but uses an outdated program that doesn’t have the specialized features a lawyer needs.

After a few months John has lost track of which clients have paid and which have not. Accounts are aging and his cash flow is dwindling. What’s worse is that he has lost track of his retainers, and that means he sometimes pays one clients invoice with another client’s funds. He spends all his time trying to figure out his books and doesn’t have time to meet with clients anymore.

Jane’s Way

Jane thought ahead. She knew she would need to use technology to keep track of her billing so she researched the software and found CosmoLex, the perfect cloud-based solution for solo and small practices. Now she can enter hours and expenses on her tablet or smartphone no matter where she is so no charge is unrecorded. She always has a 360-degree view of her practice’s finances, easily seeing who hasn’t been billed, who hasn’t been paid, and whose retainer balance is getting low.

The integrated trust accounting software ensures that Jane is able to keep track of her retainers whether they are in her operating account or a separate trust account. She reconciles her bank statements monthly and generates three-way balance reports her state requires. She doesn’t have to worry about installing or maintaining the software because CosmoLex takes care of that for her.

So which kind of lawyer are you, John or Jane? If you are John then it’s not too late. Try CosmoLex free and see for yourself how much easier your law office billing is.