SPONSORED: Ten tips for improving your feeing efficiency

Find out the key things you can do to improve your feeing efficiency and bottom line.

Law firm feeing is the subject of much debate. Many small firms regard feeing as simply an automatic process. Then they wonder why they struggle to get paid.

There are a number of things you can do to avoid this unfortunate situation, including the simple steps listed below.

1. Manage your clients' expectations

When you go to a restaurant, you know how the billing procedure works. Either it’s pay after the meal in the more salubrious establishments, or pay up-front in your local chop-house. The point is you know what to expect.

When your clients come to you for legal help, they probably don’t know what to expect. So, set out your stall from the outset. If your feeing terms and timescales are nebulous, your payments will end up in the ether, too.

Feeing is usually regarded as the final stage in the relationship with clients, but it shouldn’t be. Managing expectations at the start of a piece of work will avoid problems arising when it is finished. Tell your clients how, when and how much they will be charged. Think also about using interim charging where you can. This will help to spread the burden for clients. It will also spread your own risk and improve your cashflow. It’s far better to be on the receiving end of non-payment for half your costs than for all of them.

Never forget, the older a fee is, the less chance you have of being paid.

2. Keep to your feeing schedule

Once you have laid the ground rules, stick to them. I have lost count of the number of times I have seen clients informed of the process up front, then witnessed those good intentions evaporate.

Clients are only human. If they expect an invoice and it doesn’t land, few are going to complain. The problem is compounded when certain clients, having seen your inability to stick to your own feeing timescale, decide that they can make you wait a little longer. Don’t create a rod for your own back.

If you are in any doubt about the status of your current outstanding fees, check them out on your practice management software. Good accounts software should allow you to check out your work in progress and your whole-firm accounts and cashflow statement. Make sure you look at these financial health snapshots regularly – very regularly.

3. Present simple, clear invoices

There is method behind the madness of this tip. Obviously, fees set out an outstanding balance to be paid, but what else do they communicate? Complicated invoices that are difficult to comprehend can lead to disgruntled clients. Fees that don’t match client expectations go the same way. Whatever the event, it is likely to lead to a challenge to the fee. Challenges slow things down and that means the fees are getting older and less likely to be paid.

If in doubt, keep them concise and make them reflect precisely the work carried out. Your practice management accounts system will provide more detail if it is needed.

4. Use timekeeping effectively

The test for all legal practices is the percentage of time spent doing chargeable activities. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the minutiae of admin when you work either in a small firm or as a sole trader.

Whether you charge an hourly rate or fixed fees, use the time-recording mechanism within your practice management software. This will help you to establish the extent of the issue and to make work prioritisation decisions.

5. Don't forget staff who do not fee

How support staff are spending their time can be equally important from a business perspective.

By tracking this, you can see how support staff contribute to non-chargeable activities. Armed with that information, you can establish what else they can do to allow you to focus on chargeable work.

6. Delegate non-chargeable tasks

This follows on from the point above. You didn’t enter the legal profession to spend your time doing administrative and minor managerial jobs. Concentrate on what you are good at and delegate the other tasks to people who are good at them.

7. Avoid habitual write-downs

It’s very easy to fall into the bad habit of writing down fees – even without this being demanded by clients. Goodwill is one thing, however, writing down will eventually reduce the value of the work you do for good. Clients will begin to expect more of the same and that kind of goodwill message soon gets around.

Write-downs for other reasons need investigating! If you find that client dissatisfaction is causing them, either you are picking the wrong clients in the first place, or you have some serious process and expectation management issues to address. In my experience, it’s usually the latter.

8. Accept multiple payment mechanisms

Back to the restaurant analogy. If you visit a restaurant and order your meal, you expect to pay for it by credit or debit card or smartphone. If they cannot process the transaction in that manner, they are in trouble. The same applies when it comes to your clients paying you.

Cash and Bitcoin aside for obvious reasons, open up as many payment options as you can for your clients – card transactions, direct bank transfers, mobile and online transfers.

It’s not just about mechanisms either. Where appropriate, consider payments by instalment or on a retainer basis for ongoing work. A variety of payment options makes life easier for the client and, as a result, easier for you.

9. Make your technology do the work

There is a plethora of tools and software on the market for all businesses when it comes to feeing and accounting. However, it makes sense to choose wisely.

The very nature of legal accounts and compliance means the sensible option is to choose software specifically built for the legal profession. In addition, if you wish to focus as much time as possible on legal work, it makes no sense at all to use different systems for accounts, time recording and case management. That often leads to duplication of effort when so-called ‘integrated systems’ are not quite as integrated in real life as the marketing blurb would have you believe.

Again, it’s a case of time is money. A single, purpose-built practice management system that includes everything from time recording and feeing, to case management and Microsoft 365 will save you both. Take a look at LawWare’s system for this.

10. Consider outsourcing

Lastly, there are plenty of options available for outsourcing non-chargeable work. Cashroom services and virtual assistants are the most popular. Cashroom services in particular are professionally set up and can remove the entire burden of bookkeeping and accounts from your shoulders – at a fraction of the cost of employing someone to do it or doing it yourself.

Before you choose any of these options, ask yourself a few basic questions. Will it free up your time? Will it work seamlessly? And will it save money? Take a look at YourCashier’s website for further details.

Summary

From the 10 points above, you can see there’s plenty to consider when it comes to how you manage your feeing. It’s not just about managing client expectations and getting paid on time, it’s a more fundamental question about how you go about your job and how you choose to spend your time.

The clock is ticking…

Contact: Michael O’Donnell, LawWare Ltd.

T: 0345 2020 578
W: lawware.co.uk
E: innovate@lawware.co.uk

Article submitted as part of a Journal partnership