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How to Bill Your Time Before You Forget About It
What do all the world's greatest creative minds have in common? They jot down their ideas lest they forget them. For example, Albert Einstein always asked for a pencil and notepad to keep by his bedside whenever he spent the night away from home. There's a corollary in the legal profession. If you record your billable time as it occurs, you eliminate the possibility of forgetting to bill that time, resulting in more revenue for your law firm. One of the most popular accounting and billing applications for law firms has taken it upon itself to help lawyers prevent billable time from slipping into a proverbial black hole.
LexisNexis PCLaw Version 11 … in One Sentence
LexisNexis PCLaw Version 11 is an integrated accounting, billing, and practice management system with a new mobile component for recording billable time on the go.
The Killer Feature
Ten years ago, syncing seemed like magic. Today's syncing is a problematic technology prone to errors because it involves two or more data stores. By contrast, a single data store is a much more bulletproof and modern way to make your data available anywhere on any device.
That's the approach LexisNexis has taken with its new PCLaw Mobility service. Basically, PCLaw resides safely and securely on a server in your office. When you're out of the office — say at a client meeting — just whip out your smartphone or tablet after the meeting ends, launch your mobile Web browser, log into PCLaw, and enter the amount of time you just spent with your client.
Your time doesn't get recorded onto your mobile device and then synced. Instead, your time gets entered directly into PCLaw in your office. Thus, your data always resides in one location that you access securely via end-to-end encryption.
PCLaw Mobility employs Microsoft's Windows Azure, a secure cloud computing platform used by organizations such as 3M, General Mills, and NASA — and now your law firm too. The PCLaw Mobility service works on Android smartphones and tablets, iPhone and iPad, BlackBerrys, etc.
"The new PCLaw Mobility service meets the growing need of attorneys and billable staff to stay connected when they are out of the office, but without detracting from the office staff's productivity," LexisNexis Vice President Jonah Paransky told us. "In doing so, PCLaw Mobility helps all members of the firm increase their effectiveness."
Other Notable Features
Back in the office, PCLaw v11 is brimming with new features. For example, enhanced security protocols help prevent unauthorized access to your data. LexisNexis has improved the data export to QuickBooks for financial reporting and tax preparation purposes. Got a ScanSnap scanner? You can now scan directly into PCLaw and automatically associate scanned files with a client and matter.
Other features include QuickBill for faster bill creation (consumer-based law firms can hand a client a bill on the spot), credit card processing for faster bill payment, LEDES-enabled billing for corporate legal departments, trust accounting with rules you can apply depending on your jurisdiction's requirements, and ADP-powered payroll (extra charges may apply).
What Else Should You Know?
The PCLaw Annual Maintenance Plan entitles you to receive PCLaw Mobility service free of charge, as well as telephone technical support and exclusive access to Anytime Training on the Web. Learn more about LexisNexis PCLaw Version 11.
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