Accounting & Reporting

With payments trending as such a buzz-worthy topic in the legal industry, we were excited to sit down with Ari Kaplan, attorney, author and leading legal industry analyst, to hear all about the evolution of payment options for law firms on Ari’s podcast Reinventing Professionals. Our very own General Manager of Payments, Kevin Gallagher, sat down with Ari to talk about these trends along with the benefits of a practice management system with built-in payment options, and how firms can manage costs and maintain advanced security standards.

Let’s be honest: Billing and invoicing are no one’s favorite tasks. Manual processes have long made these tasks time-consuming and tedious. Nonetheless, they’re still critical to the success of any firm. Thankfully, there’s a better way, and many firms are starting to realize it. Manual processes are slowly giving way to automated online payments that result in faster and more secure payments. Abacus Payment Exchange (APX) is the automated, integrated, secure way to handle business payments that offers your clients the convenience they need while seamlessly working with the realities of a post-pandemic, virtual world.

According to a McKinsey Global Institute report, over 23 percent of a lawyer’s work can be handled by technology. In addition, half of all lawyers are already using some form of workflow automation. Legal practice management software is a valuable part of a law firm’s toolkit that will save time by automating tedious, low-value tasks, allowing attorneys to focus on substantive legal work instead.

Law firms have unique accounting requirements. Selecting the proper accounting system for a law firm requires an understanding of those unique requirements. For example, law firms are required by the code of ethics to account for any funds held in trust on behalf of clients.

Payment management is a critical workflow that every law practice must manage. The reality is that payment management is no longer just about invoices mailed to clients or waiting to receive payments by mail. It has evolved into something more mobile and flexible, which benefits both firms and clients.

Law firm clients increasingly favor the modern convenience and enhanced security of digital payments over paper checks. As this trend continues to accelerate, the payment options law firms offer will significantly impact clients’ choice of firms to hire. Read on to learn how enabling electronic payments through ACH bank transfers and credit cards can help your firm meet clients’ evolving payment preferences as well as get paid faster and hold on to more profits.

Each year, the CARET Legal development team releases hundreds of updates and dozens of new features to help law firms be more efficient and profitable. While this year was full of updates and changes, CARET Legal users have spoken, and we’re pleased to share our top 10 releases of 2021.

No business owner wants to deal with a financial emergency due to lack of planning. In order to monitor how a firm is doing financially year to year, every law firm should maintain an internal budget/forecast. A budget/forecast report provides the owner a monthly snapshot of how the firm is doing at least yearly with monthly updates.

Although many people think that customer management relationship systems (CRMs) are relatively new in existence, the practice of keeping customer records has existed for centuries. Merchants, even those selling their wares in ancient times, understand that it’s much easier to sell your goods to a current or past customer than to try to cultivate new business.