Even though general accounting programs such as Quickbooks were not specifically designed for legal billing, law firms can still use these programs to create legal bills that show the date, time spent, a description of services, the rate per hour, and calculate the total amount charged for each entry.[1] Some of the more sophisticated desktop […]

[simple_tooltip content=’A journal entry, in accounting, is the logging of a transaction in an accounting journal that shows a company debit and credit balances.’]Journal entries[/simple_tooltip] are used to record a law firm’s business transactions onto its books.[1] The term journal entry comes from the times before computers existed, when businesses recorded their business transactions in […]

Journal entries, the entries recording the law firm’s business transactions on its books, are made up of at least one debit and one credit. A [simple_tooltip content=’A debit is an expense, or an amount of money paid from an account, that results in the increase of an asset or a decrease in a liability or […]

The [simple_tooltip content=’A general ledger contains all the accounts for recording transactions relating to a company assets, liabilities, owners equity, revenue, and expenses.’]general ledger[/simple_tooltip] is a book that contains all of the accounts where business transactions are recorded. The list of all the accounts contained in the [simple_tooltip content=’A general ledger contains all the accounts […]

The process of transferring financial data from one accounting program into a different program is called [simple_tooltip content=’Data migration is the process of selecting, preparing, extracting, and transforming data and permanently transferring it from one computer storage system to another.’]data migration[/simple_tooltip]. The detailed steps for migrating financial data into a new accounting program are as […]

You can protect your law firm from embezzlement by setting up [simple_tooltip content=’Internal controls are the mechanisms, rules, and procedures implemented by a company to ensure the integrity of financial and accounting information, promote accountability and prevent fraud.’]internal controls[/simple_tooltip], getting to know your employees, and looking for suspicious behavior. Setting up Internal Controls Internal controls […]

A profit and loss statement (P&L), also known as an income statement, sets out the revenues earned and the expenses paid by a law firm during a specific period of time.[1] The statement also shows the firm’s profit, the “net income”, which is calculated by subtracting the expenses paid from the revenues earned. Since the […]

A general ledger is a grouping of all of the accounts that a law firm uses to categorize and track the firm’s business transactions.[1][2] The information found in the general ledger accounts is used to generate the firm’s balance sheet and profit and loss statement.[2] In the past, the general ledger was a book in […]

A profit and loss statement (P&L), also known as an income statement, sets out the revenues earned and the expenses paid by a law firm during a specific period of time.[1] The statement also shows the firm’s profit, the “net income,” which is calculated by subtracting the expenses paid from the revenues earned. Since the […]

In a recent poll, small and solo attorneys named billing and collection matters as among the top three challenges in running a law firm. [1] Reports tracking clients with overdue balances, such as the aging accounts receivable report, are the starting point of all collection activities. [2] These reports allow law firms to print a list of […]