Tips on Getting Paid Faster Using Smokeball and LawPay

One of the toughest parts of your practice is getting paid for your work.  If you want to get paid faster, you need be running a more efficient practice and be willing to offer more options to your clients. So here are three tips to help you get paid faster for all of your work.

Tip #1: Use Legal Practice Management Software 

If you’re not using Smokeball (or any practice management software for that matter) to manage your practice, your first step should be to find a practice management software.

We’ve written many times before on the benefits of using legal practice management software, but the gist is you’ll stay more organized, run a more efficient practice, and track all of the work you are doing. With legal practice management software, you can devote your energy to clients instead of wasting time on non-billable administrative tasks, such as searching for files, emails, and always playing catch-up.

Tip #2: Accurately Track Your Activities and Invoice Clearly

With Smokeball, activity and time tracking is done automatically for you, which means you’ll get credit for the work you were already doing, but weren’t tracking. Whether you are typing an email, reviewing a document, or attending a hearing, Smokeball will automatically track your activities and provide you a daily report. This fully automated activity and time-tracking system built into Smokeball will take all the effort and non-billable time of tracking your activities out of your day.

Also, provide your clients a clear and easy to understand invoice.  Descriptions on your invoices should be clear and simple for your client to understand and know exactly what they are being billed for. Don’t use cryptic descriptions or legalese. Be as transparent about your activities so there is no ambiguity or question about the invoices clients receive.

Tip #3: Make it easy for clients to pay you

One of the most important factors in getting paid for your work is to eliminate as many obstacles for your client to pay you. Your clients pay their utilities, mortgage and other bills using internet banking and credit cards. Offering your clients the option to pay their bill by credit card makes it second nature to them, and in today’s digital world — it’s what they expect.

With Smokeball Billing, and full law firm billing software within Smokeball, clients will get their invoices by email and can pay you online with a credit card with our new LawPay integration.

Once the client enters their payment information, the information is securely processed by LawPay and you will see the payment credited to the invoice and account immediately in Boost Billing. This automated process will save you time, keep you more organized, and cut down on the chance of human error.

Another advantage of using LawPay is that you can ethically accept retainer payments by credit card. LawPay understands the intricacies of your state’s trust accounting rules to ensure that you can direct payments and fees to the correct bank account. Payments for retainers are deposited into your trust account and processing fees are taken from your operating account.

That’s just one of the reasons LawPay is the recommended credit card processor by over 46 state bars.

Getting paid is challenging. Make it as easy as possible for both you and you clients using Smokeball.

Want to see how you can get paid faster securely and ethically? Click here for more information.