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Accept Online Client Payments Without Third-Party Integrations
August 4, 2021
Today's TechnoLawyer Buyer's Guide report covers a popular legal billing platform that has launched its own built-in online payments solution with no monthly fees and flat processing rates.
Accept Online Client Payments Without Monthly Fees or Third-Party Integrations
Not too long ago, archaic banking and credit card infrastructure made it difficult to add online payments functionality to legal billing software. This gave rise to specialized third-party services that offered integrations. However, no integration is ever as good as a built-in feature. Thankfully, it's now relatively easy to build payments into legal billing software and one the industry's titans just shipped its own offering.
TimeSolv in One Sentence
TimeSolv, a leading online legal billing platform, recently launched TimeSolvPay, a built-in online payments solution that dovetails with its Zero AR technology and eliminates the need for third-party payments services.
The Killer Feature
TimeSolv still supports third-party payments services such as its corporate sibling LexCharge and industry pioneer LawPay but TimeSolvPay offers several advantages owing to its built-in status.
TimeSolvPay offers same-day approval of new accounts in most cases. There's no monthly fee. By contrast, LawPay charges $20 per month on top of transaction fees ($240 per year).
Of course, transaction fees are where the rubber meets the road. TimeSolvPay offers a fixed processing rate for credit cards. New users get an introductory rate of 2.75% plus 20¢ per transaction regardless of which card clients use. After six months, this changes to 3% plus 30¢. Compare this to LawPay, which has credit card rates ranging from 1.95% to 3.5% plus 20¢ depending on the card with American Express at 3.5%. Both TimeSolvPay and LawPay charge $2.00 for payments via ACH (e-check) bank transfers.
Importantly, TimeSolvPay complies with IOLTA trust accounting rules. It can deduct transaction fees from your operating account when it processes payments. If you prefer, you can automatically pass along these costs to clients as a convenience fee if allowed in your jurisdiction.
"Accepting online payments means attorneys can provide more convenient options and get paid quicker," says TimeSolv CEO Raza Hasan. "With this type of tech in place, firms can better forecast cash flow and streamline management of receivables and trust-related payments."
TimeSolvPay has no monthly fees, flat rates, and administration tools, including this dashboard.
Other Notable Features
After activation, enter bank account or credit card information into each client's payment settings and you're ready to use TimeSolvPay to process invoices. Alternatively, clients can pay each invoice securely online using a link embedded in their invoice or from their TimeSolv client portal.
The ability to store payment settings lets you take advantage of technologies in TimeSolv designed to reduce collections and improve cash flow. Chief among these is Zero AR (read our coverage), which lets you process client invoices individually or in bulk in accordance with the policy your firm creates for all clients or specific clients. TimeSolv also supports recurring invoices, payment plans, and rules for how to process payments (e.g., use trust account first or as a last resort).
TimeSolvPay runs on Stax, a major payments infrastructure service. Administrators can access a TimeSolv-branded dashboard and other tools powered by Stax such as chargeback and dispute management. The dashboard shows gross and net fees, refunds, average invoice, number of transactions, and much more for any time period. This data also exists in TimeSolv's built-in reporting.
What Else Should You Know?
TimeSolvPay is the big news but TimeSolv continually adds small refinements too. For example, TimeSolv recently added Task Code Groups. Now you can require timekeepers to choose only from select task codes for more uniform billing entries.
Neil J. Squillante is the founder and publisher of TechnoLawyer, an award-winning network of free email newsletters for lawyers and law office administrators. Many consider TechnoLawyer newsletters the only ones they need. A Fastcase 50 award winner, Neil has a long track record of inventing successful advertising and publishing technologies and related best practices. Previously, Neil practiced commercial litigation at Am Law 100 firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher. He received his J.D. from UCLA School of Law and his B.A. from Duke University. At UCLA, Neil served as a Managing Editor of UCLA Law Review.
