AutoTime is a powerful feature for Estate Planning law firms because it helps you understand exactly how much time you are spending on your matters and in turn what is your profitability on each matter. Even though you are may be charging a flat fee for the matter, it can also be helpful to send an invoice or invoice receipt that helps your client understand exactly everything you did along the way. Boost allows you to show all of your non-billable activity and generate an invoice for your services.
Understanding exactly how much time goes into Estate Planning matters can help you better draft engagement agreements (example: if time spent exceeds the flat fee rate, charge hourly rate for additional time).
Whether your matter is flat fee or hourly, AutoTime helps you understand exactly how much time you are spending on your matters and in turn what is your profitability on each matter.
How to utilize AutoTime and Smokeball for Estate Planning Attorneys
- Set up your default billing rate and deselect "mark my time entries as billable" under the billing tab in Staff and Users.
- When calculating the annual cost, take into account all expenses including rent, salary, and other bills. If unsure, try adding 10-15% to salary as a starting point.
- Smokeball will track all your Smokeball activity (documents, emails, calendar events, etc.) in Activity and create billable entries for invoices in Smokeball or non billable entries to show on an invoice in Smokeball.
2. Create a flat fee entry for flat fee matters. When you are ready to send an invoice to your client, create a time entry for your flat fee. You can also create an invoice in Smokeball. Note: you can set up an Activity Code for your services based on each matter for quick entry of the flat fee. Below is a flat fee activity code.