In this video, Lynda Artesani of Artesani Accounting explains why law firms and solo attorneys should hire a bookkeeper or accountant who specializes in the legal industry. She outlines six key reasons: avoiding costly cleanup work, staying compliant with IOLTA and trust‑account regulations, accurately tracking retainers, case fees, and expenses, using time‑tracking to assess billable versus non‑billable work, managing accounts receivable to prevent missed invoices, and leveraging industry‑specific software integrations (e.g., QuickBooks with LeanLaw or Clio) for a more automated workflow. Artesani emphasizes that a legal‑focused bookkeeper understands the terminology and nuances of law practice, freeing attorneys to focus on higher‑value work and personal time. She concludes with a brief promotion of her services and a call to subscribe.
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Hi there, Lynda Artesani, Artesani Accounting. So I'm going to go through the top 6 reasons why you probably should hire a legal bookkeeper or an accountant. And by legal bookkeeper or accountant, I mean someone that has the expertise and knowledge of your industry, because you can hire anybody. You can hire QuickBooks Live, you can hire Botkeeper, you can hire that generic person to handle your records. For the most part, I see attorneys that are brand new starting out, they just try to find ways to cut corners and they do it themselves. Why should you not do it yourself and why should you hire somebody that knows what they're doing from the start? You'll save on cleaning up any mess, right? So this is going to help you stay compliant, which is key. Legal bookkeeping or accounting by its nature is difficult. It is a Complex situation. You're receiving the retainer up front, so you're collecting that deposit from the client before you've done the work. And then you have to track the case fees, and you have to track the money that you're spending because you put that money in an IOLTA or a trust bank account and it sits there until you use it. And then when you start to invoice, you, you use your own money to spend money on the expenses. You need to track that in great detail so you don't miss one of those. And then you invoice the client for the time that you worked on the matter, the research, maybe you did a deposition, whatever you've done. And then you add in those expenses. Maybe you had a case or matter fee. Maybe you're an attorney that does malpractice, you know, takes care of malpractice cases and you have a lot of other fees. Maybe you work with an outside counsel. Maybe there's a reason why you have a lot of extra fees that you're extending your own Firm's money to cover until you do the invoice. So all that has to be tracked, and all that has to be pushed over at the time of invoicing. You really ought to invest in, especially if you're a new attorney. It's important and pretty critical. And in this case, the software will even pay for itself by any missed time that you didn't it didn't track. So you may think that you don't need to track time. Maybe you're doing fixed fee billing, but tracking the time and making it not billable will help you realize whether or not you're Spending— you, you kind of have an idea of what the fees will be, but maybe you're putting more time in than expected. So you track the time, and in the right software you can track it and make it not billable, but track the expenses, track the time that it took you to prepare the case or matter. And then maybe you find out later down the road that you didn't really have that pricing right and you need to adjust it. And then there again is where a good, good accountant or bookkeeper is going to come into play, because that bookkeeper is going to help you track these things. They're going to help take that off of your plate so you're not doing it at 10:30 at night because you're starting to get busy, you're starting to get a lot of clients, and it's hard to track and manage. And that's when some of those things fall into that black hole. Tracking accounts receivable, also super important. And you'll find a lot of times that as attorney starts to have those growing pains, like any other business, You might miss invoicing someone. You may miss tracking it if someone hasn't paid you back. Maybe it's an accounts receivable moment and you're not tracking that. So these are all things that that extra set of eyes and that person with the expertise can help you with. And that's where using the right software and getting the right person in place to help you with that kind of work will alleviate and give you more time on your plate to Be with your family, maybe do more work where you can bill at a higher fee than you're paying that accountant or bookkeeper. And it just takes that pressure off of your shoulders. So you've got somebody who knows the industry, knows what they're doing, understands the language that you use— case matter, IOLTA, any of those things, deposition. Those words are familiar to us as accountants that work exclusively with attorneys. So that's my little spiel today on why you should hire, why you should consider hiring if you're at your max capacity and you're doing all this accounting and bookkeeping on the weekends. And, you know, maybe you missed billing something back or you missed tracking the time because you were so busy, maybe trying to save money by not buying the right software or tools. We know exactly what works, what platforms work best with QuickBooks if you're using that software. QuickBooks and LeanLaw, QuickBooks and Clio. It depends on what software your— what your software needs are, but both are really great solutions for your firm. If you have any questions, comments, feel free to reach out. We're more than happy to help you. We do the accounting, we do the bookkeeping. We have a one place that we can help you get off of maybe a software you're not happy with and get more into a more automated workflow. We know what works. And we can help you. Have a wonderful, wonderful week, and I'll see you next time. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button so you don't miss any of my videos. Bye now.
