The National Creditors Bar Association Law Practice Management Blog

Managing a ccounts receivable is all about timing; and so, you can’t view it simply as a lump sum that you are owed.  Ideally, you’re running and reviewing aged accounts receivable reports – which most bookkeepers will do as a matter of course @ 30-day, 60- day and 90-day+ intervals.   That will give you a sense about a lot of things, related to the financial management of your business, including how your cashflow projects, on a go-forward basis.   But, most importantly, you’ll get a sense of how those dollars escalate in your law practice .  That escalation, of course, needs to be matched by your collection process .  When clients don’t pay you, as they should: you can’t just watch the dollars st ack up .  You need to meet that escalating mountain of cash, with a more aggressive collection program .  And, that collection process should be established in your engagement agreement.     There are template clauses accessible online...

Lots of small and solo law firms have staggering amounts of accounts receivable; and, even if those numbers are not sky high , for you – smaller amounts are still vexing .  Accounts receivable end up counting against your profitability, because these reduce the amount of gross revenue you collect = the top line for your profit margin .  So, the more you collect : the more you make.   But, what if you have existing accounts receivable ?  Do you just write them off, entirely ?  Now, while it rarely makes sense to sue your clients for unpaid legal bills – there are a whole host of things you can do short of that, which may help you to recoup (at least, some) of your billing .  And, as with most things related to business management, it starts with a process – that you likely don’t have now .  So, the very first thing you can do is followup with folks who have unpaid invoices .  Build up a strategy, same as you would for trying to get someone ...

If you hate taking notes for meetings – and, really, who doesn’t : it’s the w ors t – there are lots of AI-based notetaking apps proliferating across the webconferencing world .  If you haven’t tried them yet, now would be a good time, to test out the options.   If you use Zoom , Microsoft Teams or Google Meet – each of the products have built-in notetaking features.   Zoom’s AI Companion has a number of useful features, including for notetaking .  Microsoft Teams Premium features AI notetaking .  Google’s Duet AI overlay features notetaking tools .     There are also standalone AI noteta king applications that you can use in conjunction with video conferencing tools, like the ones I mentioned, including Otter and Fireflies .  Additionally, there are browser extensions, for Chrome, Edge, Safari and other popular browsers, that could also be leveraged .   In other words, you have no shortage of choices.     So, if you loath...