Time & Billing Software: Comparison Chart

Time and billing management is a necessary task for all attorneys, regardless of practice specialty and firm size. Time & Billing software organizes time management, budgeting, and client billing. If you or your firm would like to take the guesswork out of your billing and budget preparation, consider investing in this software solution.

Some Features and Functions of Time & Billing Software:

Time Tracking

Tracks billable time; some programs may create reports for individual billing attorneys; Stopwatch feature accurately times tasks; Billable time can be recorded on an hourly, contingent, transactional, or user defined fee individually or firm-wide

Bill Preparation /Accounts Receivable

Generates client invoices from firm's billable time records; Immediate access to client's overall balance; Some programs allow for a customizable bill design, easy conversions to to PDF format, and secure delivery of bills via email.

General Ledger/Accounts Payable

Manage your firm's business; Records payments invoices to vendors; Helps prepare mandatory IRS filings; Some programs have a check writing feature

Trust Accounting

Manages clients' deposits on services not yet rendered

Works with Other Programs

Many time & billing programs are compatible with and can share data with email programs (Microsoft Outlook), financial accounting programs (QuickBooks), and Personal Digital Assistants (Palm Pilots and Pocket PCs).

A comparison chart is available in printer-friendly Adobe Acrobat format (PDF). This chart shows features available from a sampling of legal specific time and billing software packages. The features listed represent the vendor's solo/small law firm solutions. As vendors may offer other packages, please check each vendor's Web site for additional details and contact information. This chart is not a comprehensive review of time and billing software.