Customised Legal Billing

All firms bill differently and LAWFUSION Accounts will allow you to customise your legal billing procedures to suit the way you work.

• Your billing process can be started manually or on any pre-set condition including the WIP, Disbursement or Lockup (WIP, Disbursement and Unpaid Invoice) limit being reached.
• Billing templates can be set-up to allow production in the firm’s style.Comprehensive Management Reporting
• Billing guides and Time reports can be produced and used as the basis for billing. Alternatively, the system can be used to bill and produce a printed bill for the value of WIP (when it has reached a certain figure) or a set amount.
• Multiple Fee Earner apportionment options are available including automatically apportioning fees based on time booked.
• Disbursements not yet incurred can also be added into the bill.
• LAWFUSION Legal Accounts software integrates fully with LAWFUSION Time Recording and Billing to make life easier for fee earners and provides fee earner billing.
• It offers automatic billing and comprehensive legal aid billing for crime and family work too.

Comprehensive Management Reporting

LAWFUSION Accounts comes with approximately 100 standard reports and Key Performance Indicators as well as a sophisticated report writer. Reports can be exported to Excel, PDF and also attached to e-mails.

The LAWFUSION Accounts Report Writer supplements the standard reports that are available on the system. Information can be selected from any area of the Accounts system, filtered according to your specific selection criteria, and incorporated into a report. The layout of these reports, e.g. content, grouping, sequence, etc., can be tailored to meet your exact requirements.

The Report Generator can be pointed at any part of the LAWFUSION system. The system is supplied with a standard set of reports and utilises the industry standard Crystal Reports software. For users who require tailoring and analysis of data the report generator can exploit the powers of Microsoft Excel.

• The content of many reports can be specified by the user. This means that larger reports can be filtered down into more meaningful information.
• Any number of conditions can be used for each report. Conditions can be based on information you provide at run-time, e.g. WIP greater than £100, or based on a static comparison with another piece of information, e.g. Client balance greater than Office balance.
• Each report can also be Grouped and Ordered, e.g. Group by Fee Earner, Ordered by Account Reference.
• Once a report has been created it can be stored in the report library and re-run at any time. Each time you run the report the information you provide can be re-entered or remain as the original report.
• Reports can be produced overnight and in a variety of formats. They can be seen as a pie chart, as graphs and interactive tables, these can be distributed electronically to Fee Earners and other users as necessary.

Legal Aid Accounting

LAWFUSION is very strong on legal aid functionality right across the board. In the Accounts module all legal aid claims, which have fees and disbursements agreed, are instantly billed through the system and all bills are paid from a pre-configured legal aid account on the system of your choosing. Within the legal aid billing process in LAWFUSION the system can allocate fees to accounts in the P&L based on Fee Earners or the type of work. Comprehensive reports are available to accurately monitor the legal aid franchise in terms of the profitability of its legal aid work.

Cash Flow Management

Cash flow and working capital requirements are probably high on the list of business concerns facing any law firm. This is especially true for smaller law firms. LAWFUSION Accounts has been developed to help you collect money from your clients as quickly as possible.

• The system incorporates flexible aged debtor reports and a debt reminder letter module which can produce up to 4 reminder letters as standard. This uses Microsoft Word and can be set-up and implemented across the firm or for specific Work Areas/Fee Earners in a matter of minutes.
• For the more commercial firm the system can also produce client statements.
• Support for telephone based debt collection procedures is provided through specific screen displays linked to a computerised debt diary for keeping on top of debtor’s responses and the follow-up actions needed.
• A configurable cash flow report is provided as standard.

Bank Reconciliation

LAWFUSION provides automatic bank reconciliation so you can compare your accounting records with your bank statement. It also provides comprehensive bank reconciliation reports and you can even run historic reconciliation reports.

Client Ledger

LAWFUSION Accounts contains a dedicated client ledger for holding client accounting information. This is divided into client, deposit, disbursement, office and in-house expense ledgers for each matter/case. If required, the disbursement ledger can be combined with the office ledger.

All of the standard posting types are available and include payments, receipts, invoices, credit notes, journals, write-offs and in-house expenses.

Professional Nominal Ledger

LAWFUSION Accounts contains a full commercial multi-level nominal ledger. Two sets of budgets are available for each nominal account (such as projected, worst / best case) so you can quickly compare nominal balances against budgets or previous years’ actual figures.

• Budgets can be set up quickly and easily by specifying a percentage split, or user-defined calculations, i.e. seasonal.
• All of the standard posting types are available and include payments, receipts, journals, write-offs, batch journals, recurring journals and reversing journals.
• Key accounts can be password protected. Standard reports such as Balance Sheet, Profit and Loss and Trial Balance are available and using our report generator any other type of report can be produced.
• Integration with Excel is provided as standard. Year end journals provide a quick and easy method of clearing down the revenue and expense accounts.

Purchase Ledger

LAWFUSION Accounts purchase ledger integrates to both the nominal and disbursement ledgers and also provides for the posting of counsel fees.

• All of the standard posting types are available and include bills, credit notes, payments, receipts, journals and write-offs. Bills and credit notes can be split to multiple nominal and/or disbursement ledgers.VAT Ledger
• Key accounts can be password protected. Standard reports such as Aged Creditors and Cash Required are available so you can see what you owe and to who. Using our report writer any other type of report can be produced.
• Integration to Excel is provided as standard.

VAT Ledger

LAWFUSION Accounts contains a full VAT ledger system for completing the VAT 100 form and provides a full VAT audit trail. The VAT Ledger can be configured for either cash or bills delivered VAT accounting. Using our report writer any other type of report can be produced.

Cash Book

LAWFUSION Accounts supports numerous bank accounts (client, office, petty cash) with simple to use bank reconciliation facilities. Bank reconciliation reports and cash book reports are provided and these can be produced historically if required. Using our report writer any other type of report can be produced.

• You can design your own cheque layout and printing singly or in batches using dot matrix or laser printers.
• A monthly bank reconciliation statement allows you to conform to the Solicitors Accounts Rules.
• Standing orders and direct debits can be set-up to automatically post when due.

Debt Management

LAWFUSION Accounts incorporates flexible aged debtor reports and a debt reminder letter module which can produce up to four reminder letters as standard. This uses Microsoft Word and can be set-up and implemented across the firm or for specific work areas/fee earners in a matter of minutes.

• Where a client has multiple matters a client statement can be produced instead.
• Support for telephone based debt collection procedures is provided through specific screen displays linked to a computerised debt diary for keeping on top of debtor’s responses and the follow-up actions needed.
• A configurable cash flow report is provided as standard.

Deposit Interest Calculator

LAWFUSION Accounts removes the need to keep separate deposit accounts. All monies can be held in one high interest bearing account and any deposit interest due to clients is calculated by the system as per Law Society Rules.

• Calculations can be produced on a single matter, all matters for a specific client or across the entire client ledger.
• The system caters for multiple interest rate tables and any number of rate changes. Use of a clearance period table for different types of transactions ensures calculations are applied to cleared balances only.
• The interest can be automatically posted to the account ledger if required. It will also post the appropriate inter-bank transfer for you.
• Full screen and optional printed reports shows all interest calculations for audit and verification purposes. A printed tax file can be produced for reporting high interest client accounts to the Inland Revenue.
• The interest calculator can be pointed at the debtors’ ledger for interest to be charged on outstanding bills. It will automatically post the appropriate interest to the bill and to your nominal ledger.
• The interest calculator also allows the entry of manual transactions for ad-hoc calculations.

Cheque and Remittance Printing

To maximise cash flow and improve the management of payments to suppliers, LAWFUSION Accounts includes a comprehensive cheque and remittance printing facility. All remittance advices and electronic cheques can be produced through the purchase ledger.

Cheque requisitions can be raised by Fee Earners and sent electronically to the cashiers. The cashiers can then post them instantly to the ledger to generate the actual cheque, provided they have the appropriate security. This can significantly speed up the cheque generation process and reduce errors.

• Cheque requisitions can be raised by Fee Earners and sent electronically to the cashiers.
• Office and client account cheques can be requested from multiple locations, against multiple matters.
• Cheque numbers are automatically updated on the ledger enquiry so that users can see when they were drawn.
• When cheques are reconciled or cleared, the date is also cleared and shows on the ledger.
• Cheques can be printed with a laser or dot matrix printer.Anti-Money Laundering Compliance
• Cheques can be produced in batches or individually.
• Cheques are totally configurable with different layouts for different banks, if required.
• Additional information such as file/case/matter numbers and Fee Earner details can be printed on the cheque.
• Cheques can include remittance advices for suppliers, and advertising or information to raise a practice’s profile.

Anti-Money Laundering Compliance

The flexibility of the LAWFUSION Accounts software allows you to write your own anti-money laundering procedures into the system workflows, making sure you easily satisfy the due diligence for anti-money laundering.

To help you, useful anti-money laundering features are included in the software as standard:

• Warns you if you accept funds and the anti-money laundering checks have not been completed for the client.
• Warns you if you accept funds over a certain value.
• Reminds you if your anti-money laundering checks are out of date.
• Reminds you if the anti-money laundering checks are incomplete.
• Allows you to enter the checks done and also to scan in documents, papers, etc.
• Optionally, integrates to external identity checking and KYC services such as Call ML and the Law Society endorced 192.com service.
• Produces a “suspicion letter” to the Anti-Money Laundering Officer (AMO) in your firm.
• Optionally, passes on your suspicions to The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).

Key Performance Indicator Monitoring

LAWFUSION Accounts has improved management reporting through key performance indicators built into the workflows. Key Performance Indicator Monitoring can reduce a firm’s exposure to risk at the same time as providing some valuable business intelligence.

The following is a list of just some of the KPI reporting tools available:

• Fee Earner Performance Report – This report is used to detail the Work In Progress (WIP), Time and Fees for each Fee Earner. The information may be grouped by Department or by Branch or by both. The information is provided for a selected period and the totals for the year up to, and including, that period are also shown. Budget figures are also given together with the variance from actual figures.
• Fee Earner Management Report – this report is used to detail the WIP and Fees Delivered broken down by Fee Earner and grouped by Department. The Chargeable and Non-Chargeable time booked for each Fee Earner are also given. Budget figures are also given with the variance from actual figures so this report may be used to check on how close to budget the separate Fee Earners are, and to compare performance of Fee Earners and Departments.
• Fees Delivered/Received Report – this report allows you to track the Fees Received or Delivered in a single period. The data is presented in MS Excel® spreadsheet format which enables the user to manipulate and/or reformat the report information. You may use one of the supplied Excel® templates, or create one of your own.
• Matter and Billing Statistics – a powerful tool which enables the user to view a range of numerical billing details. The amount, range and format of this detail are all user definable.
• The Targets System – allows a user to monitor their time usage, fees and fees received. A user friendly, graphical representation of your progress towards your targets for Time, Fees and Fees Received is also available.

Expense Management

When a fee earner claims an expense, such as mileage and car parking it is available immediately for billing as a disbursement (if appropriate), for submitting to the LAA (for legal aid claims) and also for analysis and reporting.

As the expense is entered it becomes part of an expense claim that is later submitted for approval (where necessary) without any duplication of effort. A single payment is made to the fee earner for all the expenses claimed.

The Fee Earner ticks a box to indicate she has a receipt for the expense and for those striving for a paperless office receipts can be scanned in and attached to the expense claim.

The system handles different rates for mileage i.e. if a Fee Earner is paid mileage for example, at 25p per mile, but the firm has agreed mileage will be charged out at 40p per mile to the client – the system picks up the relevant rates and bills the client and pays the fee earner accordingly. The software also handles the public and private mileage rates required for LAA work.

This is one of many time-saving, accurancy enhancing features of LAWFUSION that frees up your fee earners to earn fees.

Microsoft Integration

LAWFUSION Practice Management also integrates with third-party applications such as Microsoft’s Office. E-mails, tasks, appointments, documents and spreadsheets can be created within LAWFUSION and automatically saved against the case/matter file. In the same way they can also be saved to the case file directly from the appropriate Microsoft application. Use of familiar tools such as Microsoft Office Excel, Word and Outlook enables you to reduce the time and cost of development and helps you to maximise your return on investment and increase your IT efficiency.

Visit our Microsoft Integration page to find out more.

E-Chitty Posting Requests

Fee earners can issue requests to the accounts team for payments or incoming funds by saving an e-chitty into the case document tray in LAWFUSION. The acceptance / rejection from Accounts is instantly visible to the fee earner.

Inhouse Expense Billing

Fee earners can record their incidental expenses as they incur them and a regular submission can be submitted to accounts for payment. This can include an authorisation phase if management approval of expenses is required and all expenses entered link immediately to the billing module in LAWFUSION ensuring all relevant expenses are recouped. Acceptance / rejection of the expense claim is instantly visible to the fee earner and a paper form can be produced if required.

Auto BACS Transfer

This simple but popular LAWFUSION feature allows firms to quickly and easily upload their list of daily BACS transactions to the bank for payment. It is a simple click of a button at the end of each day, saving the cashiers a significant amount of time.

Fully Compliant

With LAWFUSION you have one, complete and fully integrated system that ticks all the right boxes in terms of compliance.

• It is fully compliant with the solicitors accounts rules of England & Wales
• It is fully compliant with the LEXCEL standard
• It meets all the the Legal Aid Agency’s franchise requirements.
• Select Legal Systems is also a member of the Legal Software Suppliers Association (LSSA).

LAWFUSION also  provides the tools your Compliance Officers (COLP & COFA) need to fulfil their responsibilities in terms of enforcing robust controls enabling the firm to adhere to the SRA Handbook.