I appreciate your input. We get retainers up front, in addition to a trust fund amount (for example: $1500 general retainer plus $2000 going into the trust account. However, at $295 per hour, they use up the money quick and we ask for more money as we go. We do not collect AFTER the work is done necessarily. And some clients get a refund of what's left in their trust account. Every case is different. So we need to know which of a client's slips are paid and which are not. They can have $500 left in their trust account, and we can go to court for three hours ($885). So, now the client owes $385 and the slip for court is NP (not paid). We keep track of all of this for various reasons. We track every tiny detail -How much time did the attorney record for the month total? Do they need more work assigned to them? Do you have excess capacity? Are they overworked and you need to hire more people to keep up with the demand? Are they turning in their time? Timely? **All valid points -How much of that time was billable vs. unbillable? Are they being efficient with their time, or spinning their wheels? Do they need more mentoring/management with their work? **Doesn't really apply to us. -Has the firm billed out all of the time? Are you leaving time on the table that then gets stale and cannot be billed? **We bill as we go, this isn't a problem -Which clients owe the firm $$$? Who is in charge of that client? Do you sort your A/R by the attorney responsible for managing that client? Have they called them to discuss collections? ** One attorney per client. We have a collections department (me) and the attorney steps in sometimes. However, they think it compromises the attorney-client relationship and want me to do it. -If you don't get paid on an invoice, why? It isn't always the attorney's fault the client doesn't pay. Could be a deadbeat client you should have never undertaken representation on in the first place. ** I've never used invoices in Timeslips. Do you mean "bills"? Yes- we have deadbeat clients that we have to chase down. Not sure there is a solution to that problem. The problem is that payment is the LAST thing that happens, and so gets clouded/muddied up by everything that precedes it from marketing, to engagement, to managing the work and expectations of the client, to whether the client has any $$$ to pay, to collection efforts. **The attorneys are supposed to make sure the client's account is funded before they do work, but that isn't always possible. So hopefully you can see how marking the slips would be so helpful. For now, I create spreadsheets of their daily and monthly time and mark the slips with a red X. I can't think of another way to do it, the partners are not willing to change the program.
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