{"id":8753,"date":"2022-01-31T11:00:11","date_gmt":"2022-01-31T18:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nqzw.com\/?p=8753"},"modified":"2023-03-09T19:30:17","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T02:30:17","slug":"law_firm_cash_flow_billing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zebraworks.com\/en_gb\/law_firm_cash_flow_billing\/","title":{"rendered":"Law Firm Billing Process is a Four Stage Relay"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Where we started<\/h1>

Automating the cash process started in the middle of the relay, in the third stage. Your time & billing system is the core, and it\u2019s hard to remember what it was like getting bills out before the process was automated. It\u2019s like trying to talk to my teenagers about life before the Internet.<\/p>

Attention then turned to the first stage: doing a better job of tracking time. The equation is simple: being better at capturing time results in more billing going out and more cash flow coming back in.<\/p>

Then, it was time for some refinement, reducing the time lapses between the work being done and getting the bills out. Many firms have used paperless proformas to let attorneys craft their edits directly, speeding up the second stage.<\/p>

Time to Focus on Stage Four \u2013\u00a0A\/R and Client Communications<\/h1>

All of this investment in technology and automation had made the billing process vastly more efficient. Ironically, the last step \u2013\u00a0communicating with clients about their bills \u2013\u00a0is still primarily a manual process in most firms.<\/p>

I don\u2019t mean that firms aren\u2019t utilizing A\/R Reports and tracking follow-up calls (sometimes in the docketing or CRM system, or a spreadsheet). But that isn\u2019t real automation. Most of the firms I\u2019ve worked with the process looks like this:<\/p>

  1. Bills, even when emailed, are still sent manually one by one.<\/li>
  2. A\/R reports are generated to identify overdue statements. Crafting the emails for follow-up is often a one-off process, including pulling up PDFs of the past due statements, summarizing the totals, and attaching them to the email.<\/li>
  3. Attorneys care deeply about the communication with their clients, with the approval process adding extra delay to follow-up.<\/li>
  4. Electronic payments aren\u2019t available, or place the burden on the client, or use staff time to do over the phone (which introduces a different set of issues around security).<\/li><\/ol>

    The whole billing process used to be full of manual steps like this. Now that we have the first three stages well automated, it\u2019s time to tackle the last stage. It not only saves significant staff and attorney time, but it improves client relationships while reducing the time it takes to get paid.\u00a0<\/p>

    Read more in Billing Workflow Automation ROI<\/a> or learn about applying workflow and automation to the final stage of your billing process with\u00a0BillingQ<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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    Bill Bice<\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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    CEO | nQ Zebraworks\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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    Recognized as a legal tech industry visionary, receiving Thomson\u2019s innovator of the year award. Founder of ProLaw Software (acquired by Thomson Reuters), West km (used by 70% of the top 1000 law firms worldwide) and Exemplify (acquired by Bloomberg Law).<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Where we started Automating the cash process started in the middle of the relay, in the third stage. Your time & billing system is the core, and it\u2019s hard to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":12532,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zebraworks.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zebraworks.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zebraworks.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zebraworks.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zebraworks.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zebraworks.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zebraworks.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zebraworks.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zebraworks.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zebraworks.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}