There seems to be a distinct population of attorneys who don’t think anything the ABA offers is worth the fee. I disagree, even though some of the publications prove me wrong every now and then!  I was catching up on my reading- it was a great 70 dg. day yesterday and I needed to be outside in that lounge chair- and I found something interesting in the Winter 2007 issue of SOLO magazine. SOLO is a small quarterly newsletter sent to members of the GP/Solo Division. The topic of this one is “How to Write Bills Clients Rush to Pay”- all 5 articles are good.  I have to also reference here my all time favorite book on time-keeping and billing- Foonberg’s How to Draft Bills Clients Rush to Pay. (it’s on my very short “just buy it” list)

To the point- it’s always made me crazy when solos spend little bits of time here and there doing billing activities.  Unless we’re talking large, non-repetitive bills, I’ve advocated monthly billing, done consistently on a standard monthly timeline. I still advocate that, but I’m willing to increase the frequency with the input from SOLO. To be clear, good timekeeping should be done daily, using quality descriptions- that’s still a commandment, as far as I go.

 As Foonberg and Jennifer Rose, who wrote the SOLO article “Seven Essential Billing Tips”, point out- you make more money if you bill more frequently. Jennifer gives the numbers: if you bill every 28 days instead of once a month, you create one extra billing cycle per year, if you bill every 21 days, you’ll have 17 billing cycles. The “gratitude curve” also reminds us that clients are more willing to pay closest to the time the service was rendered. (of course, retainers are best, because at that point the client still has a problem that you are going to solve)

So, while I will still insist on a standard, organized, mostly painless billing process- I’ll back off of the monthly standard.  If it makes sense for your firm, with your client base and the resources you use- consider billing more frequently. I know one client who is going to give me great grief over my change in position- but hey, knowing when you’re wrong is a required life skill!

(BTW, if I could link to the article in SOLO, I would, but either it isn’t available online or I couldn’t find it!)

Final thought:

If you haven’t taken a critical look at your billing process with improvement in mind, do it.  Be sure that the timekeeping data has the right amount of detail at the point it’s entered. Insist on a daily standard for entering time. If folks are doing a lot of time editing on draft bills- then you need to have a conversation about what is and isn’t eligible and reasonable for billing. (You might also need to know why you aren’t getting paid for that time and change something else!) If you’re getting questions from clients or clients who are slow to pay, then you need to improve the quality of your descriptions and be sure you are setting expectations during the client agreement conversations. Your invoices are marketing material, take a look at what your firm is communicating.