Best Online Accounting Software for Law Firms

These cost-friendly solutions, available anytime from anywhere, are capable of handling multiple things at once without the need to download anything to your computer. You can create estimates/quotes that you can turn into invoices and easily manage your clients and even track the time based on their respective cases. If you think the solution is not enough in itself, you can always rely on the integration with third-party apps.

Features

Online accounting solutions come with a bunch of features that you’ll never need in your law practice, but there are some that are indispensable for legal practitioners. Let’s take a look at the features that are an absolute must:

Inventory

With online inventory management you can keep track of all types of services your law firm provides and determine their respective price tags as well. This feature is also the key to easily create new quotes and even invoices: you just have to pick a service from the inventory and add it to your quote/invoice.

Estimates/quotes

Legal services have no consistent pricing, therefore clients always want to know approximately how much they have to pay if they retain your services. Your accounting software can help you in that too: pick a client, choose your service and your quote/estimate is ready to be sent. What’s even better is that if your client accepts your terms, you can easily turn quotes and estimates into full-fledged invoices.

Expenses

With accounting software you can easily track all your expenses and attach them to the final invoice. Had to pay extra for a legal document? You can have the accounting solution process the receipt for you to be turned into a claim in the form of an invoice.

Time tracking

Not all accounting solutions have this feature, but if you have such a solution, or your software allows integration with a third-party time tracking app, consider yourself very lucky. The time tracker allows you to invoice billable and unbillable work times to your customers based on the delivered work time.

Cashflow

You can have a real-time view of your business on the dashboard of the online accounting solution with just one glance. You’ll stay informed when you are paid, what is due for you, how much money you have on your bank account and so on.

Integrating other software and services

You can integrate PayPal to your accounting solution which can substitute your bank account (the feed of which is constantly displayed on your dashboard), while also giving you the option to get paid faster and in a much efficient way. You can also use WorkflowMax which is not just a time tracking device and CRM, but it can also create quotes, invoices and reports too. You can manage your inventory in TradeGecko, and use the powerhouse that is Google by using Google Apps for file storage, business report exports and even real-time video meetings.

Online accounting solutions recommended for you

When you select an online accounting solution, it must contain all features you deem necessary or it has to be capable of integrating solutions you use. Here are two fine examples of accounting solutions for law consultants: Xero and FreshBooks.