Law firm billing software
- Fee on the bill
- $10,819.20
- Recorded value of the time
- $11,760
- Written off
- $940.80
Every figure printed on this site is arithmetic on the worked example we publish: 6 fee earners, a blended charge-out rate of $280 an hour, 5.2 recorded hours each per working day, 21 working days a month. Change any of those on the worksheet and the numbers change with them. Nothing here is a market statistic and nothing is quoted from a third party.
Law firm billing software is bought to get bills out faster, and that is rarely where the money is. The money is in the gap between what was recorded and what was collected: time never written down, time written down and then written off, and bills raised and paid late or not at all. This page sets out how to measure that gap on your own figures before you buy anything, and what a billing system can and cannot do about each part of it.
Open the Law firm invoicing software Free to use. No account, no card, no trial clock.
Measure recorded value first
Fee earners times recorded hours times your blended rate. On the worked example here that is $183,456 a month. This is the ceiling; everything after it is subtraction.
Subtract the write-offs, then the non-collection
Realisation is what survives both. At 86.5% on the same example, $183,456 recorded becomes $158,689 collected: a gap of $24,767 a month, or $297,199 a year, before anybody has argued about a billing cycle.
Only then compare systems
A system that gets bills out three days earlier is worth something. A system that surfaces time nobody recorded is worth more. Knowing which of those your firm needs is the point of doing the arithmetic first.
Will it do what you need for Law firm billing software?
Tell us how your firm bills and what is not working, and we will tell you plainly whether this is the right shape of tool for it.
Law firm billing software: common questions
What is a realisation rate? The share of the value you recorded that you actually collect, after write-offs and after non-payment. It is one number and it is the honest measure of a firm's billing.
Will billing software raise our realisation? Partly, and mostly at the write-off end: bills that go out closer to the work are argued with less. It cannot make somebody record time they never wrote down, which is usually the larger leak.
How much is an hour a week of unrecorded time worth? On the worked example (6 fee earners at $280 an hour), one unrecorded hour each per week is $87,360 a year. That is the number worth putting in front of the fee earners, not a lecture about timesheets.
Partnro Pro
Keeping what you make
Keep this month's answer, and every month after it, without rebuilding the spreadsheet each time.
- Download the finished sheet as a file
- Send it without the Partnro line on it
- Save a matter's bill and reopen it next month
- Put your firm's name and logo on it
- Export every matter, timesheet and bill at once
- Bills emailed to the client from the matter they came off
- Connect your own Stripe account and get paid online
- Connect your QuickBooks Online or Xero
$79per month, whole team
Start Partnro Pro PricingThe plan renews monthly on the day you started it, at the same price you signed up at. We tell you by email before any price change, and a change never applies to a term already paid for.