May 6, 2007
Attorney Billing and Collection Cycle
I spent a good bit of time in the Juris exhibit booth during last week’s ALA conference in Las Vegas. Just about every fourth attendee was an administrator from a law firm using Juris software. One of those attendees had read some of my posts dealing with realization and the benefits of faster billing and better collection efforts. They wanted to see something that could help them in their effort to encourage improved billing attorney performance in these areas. The Juris team member they were talking with used the company’s new Active Information application to create the report shown below.
The report not only gives the viewer a quick snapshot of unbilled and billed-but-uncollected fees, but it shows the average days that each billing attorney is taking to bill and then collect from their clients.
Now here is the important part: all the viewer has to do is highlight and click on a field in the report to see the details. Click on WIP over 90 days and view the clients, then matters, and then the transactions that represent those unbilled items. Likewise, click on A/R and view the bills that comprise the billed-but-uncollected balance.
It is one thing to get a snapshot report like the one above. But converting that into actionable information is a different story. A report can show you a problem, but you can’t do anything about it unless you can get at details to identify the reason for the problem. That is what makes Active Information so valuable. The information is actionable. You can spot a problem and then drill down to its source so you can do something about it.
Why should firm leaders have to waste billable time digging through traditional reports that just tell them what has already happened when they can start getting targeted actionable information in time to change the outcome? If you are not a Juris law firm, talk to your software vendor to find out if they have anything with similar capabilities. If not, you might check into Handshake Software. Handshake, a Juris Alliance Partner, has similar capabilities and works with both Juris and non-Juris software.
Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris, Inc. For information about Juris® products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income contact Juris National Sales Center at 877/377-3740, e-mail info@juris.com or go to www.Juris.com.
Related posts
Filed under Cash Flow Issues by Tom Collins
Leave a Comment