Invoices are the cornerstone of a firm’s billing process. Not only are they crucial for the obvious purpose of communicating with your clients about expenses they’ve accrued with your firms, but they are also a vital element in your firm’s financial record-keeping. For this reason, an efficient and well-executed invoicing process is among the most important billing features that billing software for law firms can have. What is it, exactly, that renders a software’s invoicing features world-class, as opposed to simply passable? Though the needs of each law firm vary, attention must be paid to a special set of invoice-driven functionalities. Read on to determine the invoicing features with the potential to do wonders for your firm’s billing automation.
Custom Invoice Templates
Some firms, often smaller ones operating within the bounds of one practice area, can get by using one invoice template. Even in these scenarios, involving the smallest of firms with the least varied billing structures, attorneys often find themselves facing challenges in appropriately itemizing their clients’ expenses to fit the invoice template available. This is a clunky, limited, and inefficient form of invoice generation, and a practice management solution should do better. Rather, look to a solution that offers its users customizable invoice templates able to fit the billing structure of any kind of matter.
One-click Invoice Generation
The objective of practice management software is to automate, thereby making your firm’s daily operations as seamless as possible. Therefore, once the necessary invoice templates for your firm have been created, make sure your practice management solution allows its users to generate accurate, organized invoices in just one click. There should be no need for time-consuming restructuring, manual entry, or template editing. Rather, the best billing software for law firms do all of the work for their users, producing beautiful, customized invoices at the click of a button.
Read Notifications
Law firms rely on clients’ ability to make payments. This is a central means of revenue production, and can also be an unreliable solution. Often, attorneys are left to hound clients for unpaid fees, at best, or locked in nasty billing disputes, at worst. Though no automation platform exists that can ensure every client makes their payments, every time, the best billing software for law firms do offer features to assist attorneys in remaining on top of their billing process. Not many features are as useful to this end as “Invoice Read” receipts. With these features, attorneys receive instant notifications once their clients open an invoice that has been sent via the practice management software. This keeps legal professionals on top of their invoicing process and clients’ receptivity.
Law Firms Must Prioritize Billing Software
Invoices are an essential element of a law firm’s billing process and, for this reason, must be prioritized by billing software for law firms. By looking for the features mentioned above, legal professionals will vet their practice management options for efficacy and performance, arriving at an optimal solution for their law firm’s billing.
