Reclaim Your Time in 5 Steps with Paperless Billing

What is paperless billing?

Paperless billing means leveraging electronic recordkeeping and automation to reduce or eliminate paper-based work. Going paperless is good for the planet, your pocketbook, and your workload.

Paper-free processes can speed up time entry, eliminate duplicative work, reduce the chance of statement errors, and streamline collections. You can also reduce the paper needed for trust account compliance and general accounting tasks.

The following sections describe the five steps of a paperless billing cycle.

Step 1: Generate draft statements electronically

Attorneys in firms without modern billing software tend to get stuck doing time entry via hard-to-use programs, spreadsheets, or handwritten notes. Billing clerks translate the time entries to draft statements via manual data entry.

The process creates problems. Generating draft statements takes too long, which ripples out across the firm, because billing clerks are less available for other support tasks. It is easy to misread a time entry or introduce a typo. Fixing errors costs billing clerk time (if the error is caught early) or attorney time (if the client finds the error). Delays compound; they slow the whole firm down and add unnecessary friction to everyone’s work.

The solution is an integrated, paper-free timekeeping and billing solution like Tabs3 Billing:

• Attorneys enter their time digitally via an interface built for their unique needs.
• On the back end, the billing clerk efficiently extracts the time entries.
• The software automatically translates the time entries into a draft statement. You can set up multiple templates in advance so no manual data entry is needed, even if you create statements in many different formats.

Step 2: Manage pre-billing digitally

The traditional statement approval, or pre-billing, process wastes time and paper too. The billing clerk prints draft statements, and stacks of paper are circulated among approving attorneys. Corrections are typically made by hand, introducing interpretation errors when the billing clerk types them in. There is also no central tracking of where each prebill is in the approval process.

Electronic pre-billing solves those problems while eliminating paper. With Tabs3 Billing:

• The billing clerk hands off the draft statement to the attorney by changing the statement’s status in the software. The approval process is tracked automatically, so authorized users can instantly see its status.
• The reviewing attorney gets a notification and opens a digital preview of the statement. They can type corrections or comments directly into the software. Then they mark the statement as reviewed.
• The billing clerk goes into the digital draft statement, resolves any outstanding issues, and finalizes it according to your firm’s procedures.

Step 3: Send paperless statements

Paper statements introduce costs and delays: postage, envelopes, printing, paper, and a process that cannot be fully automated. Even if you are unable to fully eliminate paper statements, you will likely find that some clients prefer electronic statements. Paper statements introduce costs and delays on their end as well.

Tabs3 Billing offers optional email statements, reducing paper and wasted time:

• Email statements consist of a short email with an attached statement in PDF format.
• You can create multiple templates for statement emails ahead of time. You have the option to personalize templates by inserting fields with a simple drag-and-drop interface.
• The fields pull in personalized information, like client name, balance due, and electronic payment links, and automatically insert it in the email’s subject line or body.
• When you set up email statements for a client, you choose an appropriate template.
• The billing clerk can send the approved statement with a single click. The software chooses the selected template, inserts the personalized information into the correct fields, generates a PDF statement, attaches the PDF, and sends the email.

Step 4: Collect payments electronically

In some practice areas, paper checks are the norm. Even in B2B transactions, however, electronic payment use is growing. Most consumers strongly prefer to pay electronically. Getting paid by check generates its own costs: on average receiving a paper check costs $1.01-$2.00, and check fraud is common.

Tabs3Pay integrates with Tabs3 Billing for faster, paper-free collections:

• You can include a live payment link in email statements.
• Clients can pay by ACH, debit card, credit card, PayPal, Venmo, or PayPal Pay Later. They never have to hunt for the checkbook or a stamp.
• The secure, PCI-compliant payment processor is built for law firms, so trust account compliance is baked in. Transactions automatically go into the correct account.
• Payments may be processed more quickly than paper checks.
• You may be able to manage the firm’s costs with surcharging. (Check state and local rules first, as they vary.)

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Step 5: Simplify compliance and recordkeeping

When your accounting processes are done on paper (or in a disconnected set of spreadsheets), it is easy to miss steps or get out of sync. Managing the recordkeeping burden of trust accounting without modern software increases the risk of errors, with the potential for serious business consequences. Paper-based three-way reconciliations are also time-consuming and error-prone.

Tabs3 Billing works with Tabs3 Financials to reduce paper and the risk of ethical breaches:

• Time entry, billing statements, accounts payable, and trust account management modules securely and automatically share the appropriate information.
• Your systems securely communicate with your financial institutions so you can keep a close eye on trust accounting.
• Three-way reconciliations are faster and more accurate with built-in reporting that automatically pulls in bank statements, your trust ledger, and each client’s individual trust ledger.
• By storing records electronically, you can reduce storage costs while making records more accessible to authorized users.

Cut out paper waste and wasted time with Tabs3

With Tabs3 Billing and Tabs3 Financials, available inTabs3 Cloud, you can create a virtually paper-free invoicing process. That works out to streamlined workflows, a faster revenue cycle, and happier clients. Schedule your free demo today.

👉 Paperless Invoicing: Why Your Law Firm Should Embrace the Digital Age