In this presentation, the speaker outlines a comprehensive approach for bookkeepers who serve attorney clients, emphasizing that organization is a critical necessity in the fast‑paced legal environment. The talk begins by urging the creation of a structured workflow and detailed standard operating procedures (SOPs) that map out invoicing, expense tracking, reconciliation, and financial reporting within the first weeks of each month. It then recommends using practice‑management and project‑tracking tools such as Asana, Trello, or industry‑specific platforms like Financial Sense to visualize and streamline processes. The speaker stresses the importance of adopting cloud‑based accounting software (QuickBooks, Xero) and legal practice software (Clio) to automate tasks, set reminders, and generate reports. A disciplined document‑management system with clear naming conventions—using Google Drive, Dropbox, or Microsoft OneDrive—is presented as essential for keeping digital files orderly. Regular, dedicated reconciliation sessions are highlighted to maintain accuracy and prevent missed transactions. Effective communication channels (Slack, Teams, Google Chat) and visual tools (Loom videos, Zoom calls) are advocated to keep open, clear dialogue with attorneys, reducing miscommunication that can arise from lengthy emails. Calendar management, especially for recurring legal deadlines like 1099 season and tax filings, is recommended to avoid last‑minute scrambles. Finally, the speaker encourages continuous professional development through webinars, recertifications, and periodic reviews of SOPs and workflows to foster ongoing improvement. The presentation concludes with a call to implement these strategies, referencing a detailed accompanying article.
Chapters
This week we're going to talk about the importance of organization for bookkeepers that work with attorneys. And it's a topic that I think is going to save you some time, and it's also gonna help you with working with these clients and really being the most efficient in your workflow. So in the fast-paced world of legal services, organization is not just a preference, it's a necessity, especially as you start to build your practice. For bookkeepers who collaborate with attorneys, maybe you're not doing this as a niche, but you have multiple clients that are attorneys. You want to maintain an organized approach so you can enhance your efficiency, minimize any errors, and ultimately contribute to the overall success of the law firm. That's our goal as we partner with these firms. So this video is going to be— give you some effective strategies to help stay organized as a bookkeeper in working with attorney clients. And provide the best surface— surface profit— best service possible for your attorney clients. So my first tip is to just create a structured workflow. Really lay out your day. And as you establish this structured workflow, it's going to be the foundation of an effective business for you. Start by outlining the processes involved in your bookkeeping tasks. This is where SOPs are critical. Look at client invoicing. That can be something that you do monthly, and it can kind of crunch in that first week of the month, anywhere between the 1st and maybe the 10th. You get a lot of clients that are gonna ask you to do the billing. So try to get that as structured as possible to track the expenses tracking. Do kind of give it a quick review at the end of the month. Make sure that everything's in place so that you're able to run the billing. Then you'll be able to do the reconciling, and then you'll be able to give them the financial reporting. So you wanna get all those things done in the first couple of weeks of the month. So if you have a lot of clients, that can be a lot, a big burden. And then if you have clients that bill multiple times of the month, that can also be a big burden. So create these checklists and flowcharts to really visualize what you're doing in each step to ensure that nothing is overlooked. This is where practice management comes into play. We like to use Financial Sense, but there's Carbon. There's a lot of different companies out there that have, have the practice management for your firm. You could go even to Asana, which is free. Asana. Asana. I always call it Asana. That yoga teacher term. Yeah, Asana. So you could use Asana and do it for free. So there's ways of doing it. Trello is another one that you can do it. Just find a well-defined workflow that can help you streamline the processes. That leads me to the next tip, which is really utilizing software and technology solutions. So embrace technology. Don't fight it. Don't stay stuck in the rut, meaning don't stay with desktop products. You really wanna move to the future, be with cloud-based products. There's so many software out there, I couldn't even begin to tell you. Obviously start with a good ledger program like QuickBooks or Xero. And there's tools inside of both of those that can help you automate your tasks. There's workflows inside of QuickBooks, for example, that you can automate. There's lots of places you can even put reminders. You could actually build quite a hefty, robust practice right inside of QuickBooks itself. And there's a lot of other time-based solutions that would help you. If you're, if you work mostly with Clio clients, it's the number one software with attorneys. There's a lot there that you can actually work with in within that product to kind of make your life easier. There's ways of setting and, and really setting up reports and producing an SOP that outlines where everything is so that you don't have to remember something that you do once a month. It'll be written down maybe with some photographs or pictures that you can really track. You wanna maintain an open document management system. This is having an organized place for all the documents for all your clients. This can be as simple as a Google Drive. It can be on Microsoft Office. It can be someplace safe. It could be Dropbox. There's lots of different software, but make sure you have a structured place. So everything's not kind of held loose at the bottom of, of the page that you're just kind of dragging and dropping and saying, oh, I'll do this later. Unless you have an assistant, maybe the assistant can help you. But that time spent on organizing the files and putting everything in the right place is well spent. So digital files are just like file boxes. And, and believe me, it's the same thing when you actually put a file aside like that. It's the same thing as having disorganization. So having a box on the floor of all the stuff to physically paper file is the same thing with a digital file box. So just kind of chucking them in one place saying, on a rainy day, I'll put them away. It's just not a good way to practice. And make sure you have a good— plan out a good naming convention for your files. That's also critical in how you keep the records and keep them nice and neat and orderly. Obviously, regularly reconcile is critical, and that's really a big part of the tasks that we do. So it's a part of maintaining accuracy in the bookkeeping. Set aside a dedicated time for each client each week or month to match bank statements and, and do keep the financials up to date. It's a proactive approach, but it not only helps you identify discrepancies, but also will help you maintain a sense of control over the financial processes. Again, SOPs, they're gonna be in there. You're gonna have that, that way no account is missed too. I've seen it sometimes where I look at a file at the end of the year. I'm like, why isn't this credit card been, been tracked and reconciled for a long time? And, and you kind of find out that later on that it really was just missed, and we don't wanna miss anything like that. I can't stress enough how important communication channels are. Whether you have a Slack channel, a Teams channel, whether you do Google Chat, wherever you're having the communication with the client, it's vital to maintain that open relationship between the bookkeepers and the attorneys. And that can be as much as easy as simple as a simple Loom video to communicate back and forth instead of having to type out a lengthy email. And that visual will help the client follow along. Maybe just a short meeting with them, whatever works best. I can tell you, I've had this conversation with a friend of mine a lot. Picking up the phone sometimes when you see that the understanding level is not happening, picking up the phone or even doing a quick Zoom meeting is far more effective than back and forth with email where some of the context can be lost and sometimes the messaging can be lost. So I highly recommend at least maybe a Loom or a Zoom video. Use your calendar to set up important deadlines or use your practice management tool to put those important deadlines on it, especially the annual ones. Those are the hardest ones to remember, right? When you have certain clients and you have certain things that each tax person wants. You want to make sure that you have those deadlines in place so that nothing's missed. 1099 season, for example, you want to really start pecking away at that now and not waiting to the end of the year for that. So have those deadlines on your calendar for tax deadlines, billing cycles, whatever's important for your firm. And utilizing that calendar system is really going to help you keep track of those important dates. And, and digital calendar obviously is the best because you can pick it up and look at it from your phone. It'll help you to prioritize the, the tasks and avoid those late scrambles where you're trying to, you know, last-minute scramble. You're trying to catch and get everything done for somebody. And obviously you want to stay in touch with the current situation of the software and technology in our industry. Stay on top of it. Stay educated. Oh, there's always time to learn more and grow. Every year when I have to do my QuickBooks recertification, I grumble and grouse about it, and I always walk away afterwards going, gee, that wasn't so bad, and I learned something about the product that I didn't even realize existed. So take a webinar every week or 2, and just try to stay on top of what's happening in the world of our business. It's really gonna help you enhance your skills, and it's also going to keep you organized and adept of any new challenges, and it might even save you some time if you find a software that can do something you've been doing manually. You want to create a routine and, and have regular reviews of the routine because it can evolve and, and change during the course of a year. So establish a regular routine and regular reviews of each client, each SOP, even your bookkeeping practice overall, and it can lead to continuous improvement in your firm. Set aside just some time monthly or quarterly to take a look at your processes and identify any areas for improvement and adjust your strategies as necessary. Maybe clients come and go. And I think that this form of practice is a reflective practice that will help you stay organized and efficient over time. So being an organized bookkeeper, if those two words kind of go together, right? That's our job, especially working with attorneys, is essential. It's essential for us to deliver a high-quality service, a high-touchpoint service, and maintain the trust with our clients. And if you implement structured workflows and then you're also utilizing technology to establish a clear line of communication It's gonna create an environment that will foster efficiency and accuracy. It's really what we're looking for. So I hope this will help you with your accounting and bookkeeping practice to find, kind of find time, finalize and fine-tune these rules. There's a detailed article that goes along with it. You can start to maybe implement some of the things I suggested. And until next week, I'll see you all then. Bye now.
