They say that time is money, and nowhere is that more literally true than the law office. Keeping proper track of billable hours and charging each client appropriately is an essential part of running a profitable law practice.
Unfortunately, that time tracking can be quite tedious and labor intensive, requiring hours of administrative time and taking staff away from more productive tasks.
That is why so many attorneys are turning to time tracking applications to keep track of the hours spent on each case and the time expended on behalf of each client. There are many different time tracking apps on the market, but five of the most popular are reviewed below.
Time Master – A Good Choice of the Busy Lawyer
Time Master is available for download from software publisher On-Core, and its features make it an excellent choice for everyone from the solo attorney to partners in a large legal practice. Time Master is easy to learn and use, without the long learning curve some other products have.
One of the most useful features of Time Master is the ability to do a quick billing while on the go. Busy attorneys will certainly enjoy the convenience of being able to print a bill in a client’s office or submit billable hours on the fly.
The only real downside of Time Master is that it forces lawyers to track their time in a session format. While some attorneys may like this feature, others would prefer the ability to enter direct increments of time instead.
Time Master is available for download to the iPad and iPhone.
Timeslips – A Good Choice but a Bit Pricey
Timeslips by Sage has been a staple of legal billing for more than 25 years, and many legal practices use it religiously. Timeslips includes a number of user-friendly features to make timekeeping easy, including reporting features with simple dashboards and integration with a number of popular accounting programs.
The standard Timeslips application uses a central database to store all its billing information, with a client piece provided for each user on the network. That makes the product best suited for large legal offices; solo practitioners may not need all of the advanced features the product has to offer.
Timeslips also provides a web interface attorneys can use to enter client time and produce billing information. This feature is quite useful for those on the go, since attorneys can use their smart phones to enter billing information after visiting each client.
Timeslips is a good choice for law practices, especially since it has become somewhat of a defacto standard. Even so, solo attorneys may want to economize by choosing a less costly alternative for their practices.
TimeClock – A Time Management Tool for the Android Market
While there are many time management apps for the iPhone market, the number of applications for the average Android user is somewhat smaller. One of the best time management apps for Android powered phones is called TimeClock.
The TimeClock app includes a number of features attorneys will find very useful, including the ability to enter various time increments and generate detailed invoices and billing histories for each client.
The TimeClock app is very intuitive and easy to use, making it a good choice for lawyers who have been frustrated by the steep learning curves of other time management applications. The app allows attorneys to track billable hours while they are working, and then use that information to generate detailed spreadsheets, invoices, reports and other documents. The ease of use and flexibility makes TimeClock a good choice for any lawyer who carries an Android phone.
Enter Your Hours – A Good Download
The Enter Your Hours app is available for download at EnterYourHours.com. This app is easy to use and efficient, and it has been designed with the needs of the legal profession in mind. This popular time keeping and time entry application is entirely web-based, making it easy for lawyers to track their time while on the go.
The app also includes a handy invoicing feature, making it easy to import client hours, provide a detailed billing report and generate a professional invoice in a matter of minutes. Unlike some competing products, the Enter Your Hours application comes with a fully functional 14-day free trial, allowing lawyers to try the product out before they make an investment.
Simple Time Tracking – An Easy to Use Choice
Simple Time Tracking is available from GetHarvest.com, and it has a number of features lawyers and other professionals will appreciate. The software makes it easy for attorneys to track time on a per client or per case basis, making it easier to accurately reflect the time spent in each area.
The application also allows attorneys to easily analyze the amount of time spent on each case, as well as the nature of that time. That analysis feature makes it easier for operators of law firms to direct their individual resources where they will be the most profitable. Attorneys can also use the application to bill time to each individual client, and to provide each client with a detailed billing summary that shows the number of hours worked for the month.
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Hey,
I think there are other good to use time tracking software solutions as well available and one such wonderful application is Replicon’s time tracking software which is easy to use hassle free cloud based application.
Thanks for these applications.
If you want to save a lot of time at work especially in meetings , I’d like to recommend a great one which integrated an interesting concept; saving time from your notes. This app, Beesy, generates automatically ToDo lists from a smart note taking. Also, the advantage is you can easily generate professional minutes from your notes and send them by email. Besides, you can browse your ToDo by actions,projects or people.
I strongly recommend Beesy for people which often have meetings and want to appreciate them again 😉 http://www.beesapps.com/beesy-ipad-to-do/
Hi!
Of course there are lot of other nice time tracking tools. There are so many such applications that’s it’s impossible to try them all 😉 but I would also recommend checking http://www.timetrack.eu – very simple layout, which is quite important at work. It has also reports with available filters e.g. on projects, subprojects, users etc, you can download it for free for windows, linux, mac and mobiles, so I think it’s worth of mentioning 😉
Most important thing is probably that lawyers track time in intervals, usually tenths of an hour.
This feature is present in MrTickTock.com online time tracker.
It is successfully used by lawyers and consultants and solves the most painful issues described in the article.
First, you can simply start/stop time counter with a button so switching between tasks is trivial and natural – just one click.
Second, it stores time in minutes and shows 6 (or 15) minutes intervals in the reports if wanted – no need for manual conversion.
Third, it support minimum number of intervals.
Fourth, it allows to store notes per every time report.
Probably someone will find it useful: http://mrticktock.com
If you have a Android phone, check out Timesheet from LlamaLab. It’s a free app with features like hourly rates (overtime, off-hours), expenses, automatic mileage calculation, customizable itemized or aggregated time/expense reports and much more.
Free download at the Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.llamalab.timesheet.free
Most of them work on flat fees and time tracking is critical. You may lose or make money. Effectively billing time is important and inevitable part of working firms. As clients are cost conscious and tech savvy it makes us easy to adapt to a tool which handles smoothly.
I checked out some of the apps mentioned in the comments and some of them look really good and definitely worth considering but i just want to mention that if someone was looking for timetracking and also other features like accessing documents, etc. on their mobile device there are other resources that may work as well. For example abicusmobile, practicepanther, and others offer mobile ready applications so you could use their timetracking apps as well as other features on your mobile phone which is cool if you wanted to do more on your phone.