As a lawyer serving many different legal clients, it’s important to offer flexibility in how you bill all of them. We get asked a lot about how to charge different hourly rates for different clients. Luckily, TimeNet Law has you covered, no matter how you need to bill. Whether it’s a discounted rate, pro bono work, or an expedited case that requires special handling and extra work. Let’s go over the different ways to customize your rates.

Client-Specific Billing Rates

The first option is to simply set a custom rate for a client. This is a good option if you want to charge that client the same hourly rate regardless of who is performing the work:

Keep in mind that setting a client’s custom rate will override all other timekeeper rate settings. New entries will default to the Client Rate, but can be changed manually.

Timekeeper-Specific Billing Rates

Often, you’ll want to offer different hourly rates for every timekeeper in your office. TimeNet Law lets you assign hourly billing rates to each timekeeper, and timekeepers can have as many as they need:

1. Go to Preferences > Timekeepers, and then double-click a timekeeper to edit their rates.
2. From here, you can select one of their rates and click Set Selected Rate as Default to set this rate as the default for all clients and matters. Only do this if you want to use the selected rate for every client and matter.

But what if you want to charge different rates for different clients? No problem. After you’ve created billing rates for your timekeepers, you can assign those rates to specific clients or matters as well:

1. Edit a client, or open a specific matter and click the Matter Settings button in the toolbar, then click Timekeeper Settings.
2. From here, you can choose a default billing rate for each timekeeper individually. After that, any new entry for that timekeeper will default to the chosen rate, either for that specific matter, or for any matter under the entire client.

Now you can offer flexible billing rates for all of your clients, and all types of work. Just set up and assign your billing rates once, and TimeNet Law handles everything for you.

Contingency Billing

You can also offer your clients contingency billing. Simply set a matter to use Contingency Billing under Matter Settings, and TimeNet Law will take care of the rest.

1. Open a matter and click the Matter Settings button in the toolbar.
2. Click the Billing tab and enable the Contingency Fee Billing option.
3. Enter the percentage of the earnings/recovery you will charge your client, and then enter the recovery amount. If you do not know the recovery amount yet, you can come back here and add it when the case is finished.
4. If you want to charge normally (full price) for specific entries, such as expenses, you can set that as well.
5. Choose whether to calculate your fee based off of the full recovery amount, or the recovery amount less the entries you already charged the client for.

Split Billing

Sometimes you may wish to split a client’s bill between two or more parties. TimeNet Law makes this easy.

1. Open a matter and click the Matter Settings button in the toolbar.
2. Click the Parties tab and add each party that will be responsible for paying the invoice.
3. Set each party’s percentage responsible.

Now when you create invoices from this matter, TimeNet Law will automatically create multiple invoices addressed to each party, showing their individual balance due. Payments can be applied and assigned to each party (using the From field in Payment Center).

TimeNet Law also handles evergreen retainers, automatic payments, late fees, automated invoice emailing, automated payment reminders, and much more.

It’s the end of a long week. You’re ready to go home and relax — but you haven’t entered your time for the week yet. Maybe you have a notepad or a spreadsheet where you’ve entered some tasks throughout the week. Or, even worse, maybe you scribble out your tasks right then and try to remember how much time you spent on them. Does this sound familiar?

The Ugly Truth

Time tracking is a frustrating chore — one that is often neglected. Attorneys dislike doing it because it is tedious, the technology available is difficult or cumbersome, and often they have to double or even triple-enter their work across multiple applications: task managers, time trackers, invoicing systems, etc.

Every single how-to article and “case study” about attorneys and time tracking says the same thing: the best way to take notes or record events is contemporaneously. As a lawyer, you already know this.

Reconstructive time entry is a recipe for disaster. It is dangerously easy to under-bill or over-bill your client. Both can harm your law firm.

Imagine a Better Way

What if your task manager was your time tracker and your invoicing system? Imagine sitting down at your desk, seeing all of your tasks and events laid out in front of you, and as you progress through them, your time is automatically tracked and assigned to your client, ready to bill. Now it’s Friday afternoon, and it’s already done.

You need a system that integrates everything. You already have to manage deadlines, events, and tasks for your clients. Why shouldn’t that system also track your time, and automatically bill that time to your clients? And why shouldn’t that system easily create invoices from your schedule? Suddenly, time tracking becomes a handy side-effect of simply managing your calendar and to-do list.

The One True Time Tracking Hack

There’s really only one way to truly boost time tracking:

Remove Friction.

Implement a system in your law firm that integrates your task management, scheduling, time tracking, and invoicing all in one.

One system that does this is TimeNet Law. Built from the ground up for attorneys, TimeNet Law will help you bill more accurately — guaranteed. We made time tracking so good, you’ll actually use it.

Giving a discount to your client can go a long way towards boosting client satisfaction and ensuring repeat business. It’s a small gesture that can have a big impact, both for your law firm and for your client.

TimeNet Law offers several ways to provide a discount to your client. Take a couple minutes to learn about them, and be sure to use them to increase client satisfaction at your law firm.

Discount vs. Markdown vs. Write-off: What’s the difference?

They all achieve the same end result — your client gets a discount. The difference is on the accounting side. If you’re not familiar with these terms, it can be confusing, but it all boils down to this:

• A discount is applied to the total fees and/or expenses before invoicing.
• A markdown is applied to a specific task before invoicing.
• A write-off is applied to an invoice’s balance after invoicing.

If you want to give your client a 10% discount on their next invoice, use a discount. If you want to give your client a $50 discount on one specific task, use a markdown. If you want to give your client a $100 discount on a balance they already owe, use a write-off.

Using “No Charge” Tasks

One of the simplest ways to provide a discount is to set one or more tasks to No Charge before invoicing. This will show the task on the invoice, along with the normal billing rate, but show that this task was performed free of charge.

Remember — dealing with the legal system can be a very scary and stressful time for your client. Giving them a discount is a powerful way to build trust and client satisfaction for your law firm.