For any business to be truly successful, they must truly understand their workflow, that is why my #1 mission with any new client is to help them establish a system that will work for them.  Every industry requires a unique workflow custom tailored to their objectives and law firms has always been one of my favorite workflows.

As you know, I love to share my workflows and today I would like to introduce my custom process with all the lawyers searching for a more efficient way to get the old job done. Now it is important to know that I dedicated a lot of time learning about the numerous applications on the market before selecting which pieces would be combined to achieve the best results.  It is my hope that by sharing, those hours spent will provide additional value to others as well.

But first, my Story….

One time per month, I have to travel to one client and work at their house on their Dell PC (I am a Mac user). They are my last hold out QuickBooks Desktop client. This customer is fearful of anything online. However, it’s a good reality check to realize how vital automation is and how far we have come. Working at this clients location reminds me of how much I dislike entering every single transaction by hand. Yes, they don’t use any online banking at all! So every check, every credit card transaction, every freaking transaction has to be manually entered. (And yes, there are tools for automation in Desktop, check out the app Vendorsync to have desktop bank feeds work like QuickBooks Online).  

But this client will not connect anything to the Internet.  Even when their bank statement does not arrive in time for my visit. I tell them their bank account is online whether they choose to log into it or not, but they just wait to reconcile the next month!  So yes, I have tried to convince them that moving to the cloud is the way to go. They won’t have it.

law firm workflow for QuickBooks

My Legal App Stack:

Liscio: Moving Beyond Inbox Zero

What I love about this part of the workflow is the high-security level between the client and I used my newest app in the stack, Liscio. It is the app I’ve been waiting for as it is now my all in one tool! It’s going to be my communication tool between my client and myself. It’s highly secure. It gives me the ability to have the client upload documents, and the documents are stored right on the clients’ account. In the past, I used ShareFile for this feature. What I love about Liscio is that it’s going to tame the email beast. I can assign tasks to the client into my team that works with this client. So no longer will I need to Sharefile, Slack, Active Collab. Heaven!Now there is a bit of training with the client to get them to be encouraged to use Liscio. However, it won’t be a hard sell with working with law firms and attorneys. Compliance and security are number one in their minds as well. I am going to link this back to a great presentation by Chris Farrell of Liscio. He provides the importance of secure communication between the accountant and client. He also touches upon security breaches at law firms, especially the smaller solo firms or solo plus one firm.

Check out the recent SBAA Happy Hour webinar where we discussed the many features of Liscio:

Lean Law: Legal Time Billing Perfected

The next piece of the puzzle is Leanlaw. I love this app with working with law firms. It is straightforward for the attorneys to use; it’s easy for me as well. The way it works with QuickBooks online is a thing of beauty. Primarily when you work with a firm that has a lot of billable expenses, LeanLaw has two-way sync.  To see more about LeanLaw, see this other post.

Hubdoc: Document Fetching 

When you add Hubdoc to the pile, it’s a dream come true. Our use help dock for document collection. The attorney or the attorney’s admin upload the bills or other documents into Hubdoc. The next step is to code the bill to advanced client costs or the sub-account of “advance client costs,” LeanLaw collects that from QuickBooks and have it ready to be billed back to the client or matter. I do all my coding in hob dock. I add the essential details so that that synchronize over into LeanLaw but when it’s time to do the billing and create the draft invoices for my attorney-client.

LeanLaw Accounting Pro Partner….

Did I mention I am a LeanLaw Accounting Pro? I am! 

In the video below, I demonstrate the amazingness of the workflow.  Enjoy!

Feel free to follow me on Facebook and in our Facebook Group, QB Community Live!  We have so much good content and videos to share.  We also have a mentoring group.  

If you have any questions or would like to see a future video on another topic, please reach out to me on Facebook.