which quickbooks for solo attorney

What is QuickBooks for law firms?

QuickBooks simplifies legal billing and accounting for lawyers. Track billable hours, record expenses, bill clients, send reports, and more. Access everything 24/7, from your office, your car, or the courthouse. Free 30-day trial.

How does QuickBooks for Attorney billing work with case management software?

Apr 01, 2022 · The right accounting software—like QuickBooks for lawyers—can help. QuickBooks Online is a useful accounting software for lawyers on its own. But its advantages multiply when you pair it with Clio’s legal practice management software.

Which accounting software is best for a small law firm?

Sep 05, 2017 · QuickBooks provides a wide range of accounting features that work for solo lawyers or medium-sized firms, alike. In order to do this, Intuit offers multiple pricing plans. Not all plans include the above features. Security Client information security is a real concern for lawyers.

Is QuickBooks good for tracking time for lawyers?

Sep 26, 2018 · QuickBooks for lawyers makes it easy to track individual client balances and the total balance for a back account. Security and Access. Smokeball with QuickBooks for attorney integration keeps your data secure while still giving you full access to client and case information from anywhere.

Can I use QuickBooks to manage personal finances?

Business and personal expenses QuickBooks is not set up to manage personal accounts, budgets and investments. You can manage business and personal transactions with Quicken, but it's still best to keep the two separate and use a business checking account and business credit card.

What is like QuickBooks but for personal use?

Some of the most popular alternatives to QuickBooks include Xero, FreshBooks, Sage, Zoho, and Wave.

Can an individual use QuickBooks?

Using QuickBooks for your personal money management is a sound idea. You can easily track any expenses and income from a range of useful sources. Here are just a few ideas for some of the different ways you can use QuickBooks for personal money management. Yes.

Which QuickBooks version is best?

One of the four QuickBooks Online plans will likely be the best choice for most small businesses....QuickBooks Desktop ProFeatures cover accounting, inventory management, invoicing, billing and more.Over 200 third-party integrations.Annual subscription price may be more affordable than QuickBooks Online in some cases.

Is there a non subscription version of QuickBooks?

Can You Still Buy Quickbooks Without A Subscription? QuickBooks Desktop will be available only as a subscription product by the end of this year, as Intuit announced. Licenses can only be purchased once. You will need to subscribe to QuickBooks Desktop each year in order to get any of its products.Nov 30, 2021

Is QuickBooks desktop being phased out?

Your access to QuickBooks Desktop Payroll Services, Live Support, Online Backup, Online Banking, and other services through QuickBooks Desktop 2019 software will be discontinued after May 31, 2022.

Can I use QuickBooks for both personal and business?

In QuickBooks Online, your check and credit card accounts should be business-only accounts, but if you run into a situation where business and personal finances mix, the following articles can provide guidance on how to record such transactions.Aug 24, 2021

How do I set up QuickBooks for personal use?

6:077:55Using QuickBooks for your Personal Finances - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipIt's important to find that balance. So you want to put it in detail here when you're creating theseMoreIt's important to find that balance. So you want to put it in detail here when you're creating these accounts but not too much because remember within each account I might have multiple payees.

How much is QuickBooks personal use?

QuickBooks OnlineNamePriceSimple Start$25/month.Essentials$50/month.Plus$80/month.Advanced$180/month.

What versions of QuickBooks are supported?

The 6 Different QuickBooks Versions. There are six QuickBooks versions that allow business owners to manage their accounting and finances: QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Self-Employed, QuickBooks Pro, QuickBooks Premier, QuickBooks Enterprise, and QuickBooks for Mac.Feb 3, 2022

How do I know what type of QuickBooks I have?

How can I tell what QuickBooks version I haveLogin to your account.Go to the Gear icon. Then, choose Account and settings.Select the Billing & Subscription tab. From there, you can see the version of QuickBooks you're using.Mar 6, 2021

Are there different versions of QuickBooks?

There are currently four QuickBooks versions available in their desktop solution:QuickBooks Pro.QuickBooks Premier.QuickBooks Enterprise.QuickBooks Accountant.Jan 31, 2021

What is QuickBooks?

QuickBooks is a popular accounting platform that many solo lawyers and small to medium-sized law firms use. It integrates with a wide range of Law Practice Management Software providers, and has a host of helpful add-ons to its core system.

Core Features

For Accounting & Bookkeeping, the following are essential features, and you should therefore expect to see a check in every box in this section.

Connect Bank Accounts

Link your bank accounts for up-to-date transaction information with little or no manual data entry.

Online Payments

This means the ability to accept credit card or echeck payments within your accounting software, either through its own payment portal or via a third-party integration like PayPal or Square. Most online payments involve a separate processing fee.

Mileage Tracking

Keep track of miles traveled visiting clients or heading to the courthouse, making it easier to tally for taxes or billing purposes or add to your expense reports.

Statement Reconciliation

Helps with the complex task of balancing your business accounts. Does not necessarily include more advanced reconciliation features like three-way trust account reconciliation.

Payroll

Payroll includes automatically calculating employee taxes, printing checks, and paying by direct deposit.

What is Quickbooks legal?

QuickBooks legal allows you to generate financial statements and share them with partners. Get information about your law firm’s cash flow, profit and loss, and more. Combined with Smokeball law firm insights reporting, you can have a complete picture of your firm’s financial health.

Why do associates make errors in accounting?

They may enter data late or forget. Or, they may make a lot of errors because they’re forced to enter data twice.

Is Quickbooks legal software good?

QuickBooks legal is a good choice for your legal billing software needs because it will grow with your law firm. QuickBooks for lawyers, when integrated with Smokeball, will remain easy to use no matter how small or large your law firm becomes. This scalable accounting solution for lawyers will allow you to keep the same system as you grow ...

Can you use Smokeball to track a law firm's workflow?

Manage Workflows. When law firms are using QuickBooks as a standalone application there’s no automated way to track their workflow. Fortunately, QuickBooks legal makes it easy to track your associates tasks using Smokeball — see who did what and when. You can also assign tasks to members and add due dates.

Can you track retainers in QuickBooks?

You can easily track retainers and the invoices due for each client in QuickBooks for attorneys. Set your law firm rates. For each client, you can set specific rates and make other adjustments to your billing as QuickBooks for attorney billing offers maximum flexibility. Using Smokeball integrations for QuickBooks legal, you can set flat fee, slip, ...

Does Smokeball integrate with QuickBooks?

Fortunately, by integrating QuickBooks into your legal practice management software such as Smokeball, QuickBooks is transformed into “QuickBooks Legal” allowing law firm billing departments to easily use the program. Here are just a few benefits of using QuickBooks integration with Smokeball: Track your firm’s money.

Is QuickBooks good for lawyers?

QuickBooks is a powerful accounting software program that can help law firms wrangle their billing issues, but because QuickBooks out-the-box isn’t an accounting solution specifically tailored to law firms, many lawyers believe that QuickBooks isn’t a good solution for their legal billing software ...

What is QuickBooks for law firms?

QuickBooks is industry-neutral accounting software, which means it can be (and is) used by many different industries, including law firms.

What is included in QuickBooks?

QuickBooks includes the fundamentals of accounting, including a complete Chart of Accounts, P&L accounts and Balance Sheet accounts. Bank Accounts and Credit Cards. QuickBooks includes registers for managing bank accounts (operating accounts) as well as for credit cards and lines of credit. Financial Reporting.

What do law firms need?

However, law firms have unique needs when it comes to accounting. Most law firms need: General / Business Accounting. Trust / IOLTA Accounting. Cash Basis (vs. Accrual)

Is QuickBooks Desktop or QuickBooks Professional?

QuickBooks Professional. QuickBooks Professional (sometimes also referred to as QuickBooks Desktop) is the traditional, desktop-installed version of QuickBooks. The advantages of QuickBooks are a more robust, more developed set of features. Broadly speaking, QuickBooks Professional is a good fit for law firms that:

Is QuickBooks Online good for law firms?

Broadly speaking, QuickBooks Online is a good fit for law firms that:

Is QuickBooks Online web based?

QuickBooks Online (Web-based) Your third option is to simply use of the editions of QuickBooks Online, which is web-based and lightweight. This involves simply signing up for a QuickBooks Online account (pricing information is below), and creating logins for each person in your firm that needs it.

Does QuickBooks have time tracking?

Track billable hours and related expenses for a particular client or matter. However, time tracking is very limited, and best managed in dedicated Law Practice Management software.

What is the main liability account in QuickBooks?

The main liability account for the law firm will be the client trust liability account , which should correspond to the trust account and to the retainer service item (discussed later). Depending on the method of trust accounting chosen for QuickBooks, you may also need to set up separate liability accounts for each client.

What is equity in QuickBooks?

The default equity accounts in QuickBooks include the opening balance equity account (which should be used as a clearing account), retained earnings, an owner's contribution account for each owner, and an owner’s distribution account for each owner. Equity accounts should be set up with your CPA and based on how they are tracking equity on the tax returns.

How to track trust liability?

To properly track trust liability, a service item for retainers needs to be set up and mapped to tie to the trust liability account. By doing this, whenever you invoice for a retainer, a liability is automatically created in your liability account. Note, however, that the amount of the liability will be the amount invoiced, not always the amount collected. So if a client does not pay a retainer in full, make sure to note that when reconciling the liability with the trust bank account.

How to track time in QuickBooks?

There are two ways to track time within QuickBooks – the single time activity or the weekly time sheet. The single activity only allows the entry of one matter or block of time. It includes a timer feature with a “start,” “stop,” and “pause,” which could be useful in tracking billable time. However, if you want all the staff to use the timer within the single activity entry, each staff member would need to have QuickBooks open at the same time, which requires multiple QuickBooks licenses, which can get expensive, even for small firms. Third party applications may provide similar timer features with less cost burden. QuickBooks Online does not have this timer feature; however, it does have the single activity time keeper option as well as a weekly time sheet option.

How to add a new employee to QuickBooks?

To set up a new employee, go to the Employee center and add a new employee. QuickBooks allows you to add a lot of detail concerning the employees. If you’re planning on processing payroll through the QuickBooks software, it will be important to input all the information. If you’re not planning on processing payroll through QuickBooks, the basic information you want stored, such as name and hire date, is all that is necessary. You will only be using this as a field in time tracking and in the payee transaction field in the bank account.

What are service items in QuickBooks?

Service items serve two main purposes within QuickBooks – they create the line items you will use to invoice clients, and they create items that employees can use to track and enter their time within QuickBooks. Creating specific service items within QuickBooks will streamline your invoicing process, especially for flat fee services. The easiest way to create your service items is to break down the practice into its main areas. Take a look at the second list of service items. The main service items include commercial, conference, estate planning, litigation, probate, and tax matters because those are the firm’s main areas of practice. Underneath those services, they create sub-services to provide more detail on their invoices to clients. They were also able to associate a price per hour with each item or a flat fee for the service. Additionally, they created items for common costs, for retainers, subtotal, and common discount items.

How to add a new client to a law firm?

To set up a new client, go to the Customer center and add a new customer. Law firms often have the potential to handle multiple matters for clients. Therefore, it may be good practice to set up “jobs” under each customer for each separate case per client. To add a new job/case for a client, in the customer center, right click on the client’s name and hit “Add Job.” When you create invoices and receive payments for clients, make sure it’s created and received to the appropriate job. If you decide not to use jobs, keeping track of multiple cases per client will be more difficult.

What is a general retainer in QuickBooks?

In your QuickBooks chart of accounts, a General Retainer represents monies paid by a client for a service that has not yet been rendered but that is allowed by state regulations and the Client Retainer Agreement and you intend to deposit them in your Operating Bank Account. It is critical to check with the Bar Association in your state to see if they allow General Retainers. If so, you can setup a double sided service item (see below). Every item will now point to a Suspense general Retainer account for both income as well as expense. Typically it is not necessary to have more than one General Retainer account and not likely a good idea.

Can a lawyer's trust account be overdraft?

Be certain that your bank gets this set up as an Interest on Lawyer’s Trust Account so the interest will be handled properly. Check your state regulations, however in the majority of states the account is not allowed to have ATM accessibility or automatic overdraft protections in place.

Can you set up single income accounts in QuickBooks?

You can also set up single income accounts and then use items to report and track on various kinds of income. Our recommendation is to separate your income accounting in your QuickBooks chart of accounts because it is much easier to see information you want to view. For every type of income in your income accounts, ...

Can a law firm have more than one matter per client?

In the event your law firm has an individual Matter Per Client, it may be wise for you to set up the Matters as Customers without using Jobs. If your law firm generally has in excess of one Matter per Client, it is recommended that you use Jobs. Whatever you decide you must be consistent.

Can you track a soft cost in QuickBooks?

QuickBooks currently does not have the ability to track as well as charge clients for any Soft Costs incurred. A soft cost is a cost you need to charge a client for, however you do not actually write them a check for the cost. This might include something like photo copies for faxes. We recommend you setup a single sided service item for every soft cost. The service item should point to an expense account being used for the cost, i.e. lease for copier expense. If you point it to the expense account, using the item reduces total expense.

How confident are you in your Trust Account Recordkeeping?

One of the first questions we are asked is “Do you have experience with IOLTA / IOLA Trust Accounting?” When we ask attorneys if they understand Trust Accounting, they confidently reply “of course.”

Do you leverage Online and Dynamic Systems in your practice?

Let’s face it, the legal pad did not get named by office supply stores! We understand the value of proven systems. Yet also realize the power of redundant online dynamic tools. Software and systems continue to evolve and improve with time.

Do you receive timely reports? Do you honestly understand them?

Many lawyers have no idea how much money they are making or how the firm is doing. (Really!) At best, they have financial information but it’s too late to do anything.