The Bill Manager is a tool designed to help law firms manage their draft billing process, and in particular to make sure draft bills do not get stuck in the system, or forgotten about. The focus of the bill manager is to ensure relevant users are aware of all draft bills, so they can ensure they are all finalised, posted and sent out to clients. A fee earner may use ‘the bill manager’ to check on the draft bills he/she still has to complete or revisit to address changes. A supervisor may use it to review his or her department’s bills. A Partner may need to look at his / her own bills, or the bills of colleagues awaiting approval.

Using the authorisation system, the user drafting the bill can select who is required to authorise the bill before it is produced. Once authorised the system will then forward the bill onto the relevant user/cashier for posting, and if necessary back to the author of the bill for re-drafting or correction. There is a whole raft of options allowing firms to run the billing processes the way they want to, for their firm.

As part of the ‘account enquiry’ functionality in LAWFUSION users can see outstanding draft bills that have not been finalised. They are highlighted in a different colour to other bills. Users can open and review draft bills straight from the account enquiry screen.

The Priority Action List (PAL) in LAWFUSION can be used to alert fee earners when they need to draft bills for interim billing. For those matters that require a regular interim bill (bi monthly, quarterly, whatever) the PAL can be configured to notify the fee earner which matters are due a bill and when. The fee earner can then use the fee earner draft billing system to draft the bills when required, a few at at time, rather than letting them build up.

The Draft Billing system caters for monies on account and receipts in advance. Users can also offset disbursements by client transfer, fully or partially, when drafting their bills in LAWFUSION.

Many law firms today send their bills to clients by email, but some still print their bills. LAWFUSION caters for both.

But if you are striving to become paperless or paperlight, LAWFUSION is the ideal legal practice management system to help you on your way. You can transform your processes gradually to bring your whole team on board to change the way you send out your bills to clients.

The Fee Earner Draft Billing System is just one of several specialist billing modules in the LAWFUSION suite. Other billing modules on offer are:

– Crime Billing
– Billing For Family Work
– Billing For Immigration Work
– Billing For Mental Health Work
– Legal Aid Billing
– Auto-Billing

To arrange a demonstration of any aspect of LAWFUSION billing please call 01482 567601.

Family Law Group
In this video, which lasts 7 minutes, senior executives and fee earners from Family Law Group explain how the firm had outgrown its previous system and why they chose LAWFUSION to help streamline its expanding business.

Cartwright King
This 7-minute video features an interview with Rupert Hawke, who was the MD of Cartwright King, at the time of filming. Cartwright King chose LAWFUSION for its sophisticated crime functionality and its fee earning billing system.