Cloud Accounting and Bookkeeping: A Must-Have for Legal Firms
Cloud Accounting and Bookkeeping: A Must-Have for Legal Firms
When cloud computing was first introduced, businesses were wary of sharing private documents and information on a seemingly distant save-point outside of their organization. Today, however, the number of companies switching much, if not all, of their IT to a private cloud is astounding, and is largely a result of people becoming educated on the safety and efficacy of cloud services.
Around the same time, many lawyers also found themselves reluctant to join the cloud computing revolution. And justifiably so, as law firms not only store confidential personal and case-related documentation, but they typically use in-house servers and computers for safekeeping items that include the entire spectrum of their firm’s backend bookkeeping.
Fast forward to today and you’ll find the growth of cloud computing to be steadier than ever before in businesses and firms across the globe. In fact, the number of smaller organizations using the cloud for storage and services is expected to double by 2020, according to Forbes, moving upward from its current rate of 37 percent to an expected 78 percent.
What’s more interesting about these numbers is the amount of companies who are now managing their accounting and bookkeeping operations over the cloud – which stands at 65% as of early 2015 – with nearly half of them (43%) performing these tasks from their smartphones and tablets.
The Benefits of Using the Cloud
From contact management and case tracking to task management and client collaboration, cloud-based software has quickly become the all-in-one administrative juggernaut for law offices. AbacusLaw was created with these and many other areas in mind. Yet, our case management software isn’t used solely for streamlining the way law firms do business, its primary aim is enabling lawyers and law firms to focus on growth and superior client service.
The Ease of Law Firm Accounting
With Abacus Balance, your law firm is given access to legal accounting experts who perform complete reviews of the financial information you’ve chosen to share over our cloud-based software. Doing so, our experts provide support with such tasks as balancing your books and reconciling trust accounts to ensure you’re in compliance with State and Local Bar Association. In addition, they also deliver accounting assistance on bank and credit card transactions, loan and general ledger reconciliations, as well as providing standard financial reporting.
Abacus Billing, on the other hand, works seamlessly with both Abacus Balance and AbacusLaw to make tremendous improvements in how you manage your firm’s cash flow from clients and other outside sources.
After setting up your firm’s preferences and completing your workstation options, which can be updated at any time, Abacus Billing allows you to manage hourly rates for clients, regardless of how many matters are undertaken. As with Abacus Balance, our legal accounting experts do the billing and invoicing for you, sending your clients consolidated invoices, in addition to providing you with a variety of customizable reports and more.
Beyond these advantages, the inherent benefits available in our private cloud for law firms includes access from any web-enabled device, robust protection against computer viruses and malware, and a fully integrated backup and disaster recovery to ensure business continuity.
Of course, there are countless other benefits made available by switching your firm to a cloud-based law firm software. Learn more about these benefits by scheduling your demo today.