For law firms, as with any other business, billing is an inevitable process.  

But unlike other industries, law firms face unique billing challenges that can cause significant bottlenecks in your billing process, costing you precious time and money.  

An efficient legal billing process is critical for a law firm’s operational success. From liquidity to client satisfaction, it can serve as a barometer of success in your business goals. And when done right, it can also save time, money, and more than a few headaches. 

For many law firms, a key part of an effective billing process includes automation. Let’s take a look at how you can use CosmoLex’s automated billing features to improve your billing process today, so you can dedicate more time to serving your clients.  

Comparing traditional billing and CosmoLex’s billing automation 

Traditional billing is a manual process in the legal world. You start by manually recording your time, creating client invoices one by one, mailing your bills out through the post office, and waiting for client payments to (hopefully) return in the mail.  

Each of these steps involves time-consuming and repetitive administrative tasks that are open to human error. 

CosmoLex’s automated billing tools are designed to help law firms simplify their billing process, reduce errors, and automate some of the manual repetitive tasks, giving them more time to focus on their clients.  

Developed specifically for the legal field, CosmoLex’s billing integrates automation into daily legal workflows where it makes sense, not just where it’s trendy. This ensures that law firms use a tool that actually makes their team’s lives easier, and helps maintain compliance. 

What specific tasks in the billing process can be automated with CosmoLex? 

Cosmolex’s legal billing software automates tasks every step of the way, including: 

• Time and expense capture 
• Customized billing templates 
• Batch email invoices 
• Facilitating online client payments 
• Automated past-due reminders 

Each of these individually helps save time and money, but all together, they provide a simplified, standardized billing process that helps increase accuracy and the rate of on-time payment.  

A close look at how to use automated billing to enhance your law firm’s efficiency 

An efficient billing process reduces manual tasks and human errors while saving your firm time.  

In practice, here’s what it can look like:  

• Instead of recording your time manually and uploading it from your notes, capture your time across matters and clients in real time with CosmoLex. Once recorded, this automatically syncs your time with your client records to provide a detailed, context-rich history of billable hours.
   
• Instead of spending hours creating customized invoices, use CosmoLex to generate branded invoices that include everything you need, from an itemized listing of legal services to alternative billing arrangements.
   
• Instead of manually building invoices, review prebills in CosmoLex before batch emailing invoices to multiple clients with personalized messages.
   
• Instead of waiting for checks to come in the mail, process client payments (even trust accounts!) online with CosmoLexPay to ensure compliance and enhance the client experience.
   
• Instead of calling each client to check on payment status, automate past-due invoice reminders with just one click to stay on top of late payments. 

Each of these individually provides improved efficiency, but cumulatively, they can transform your billing process for the better.

3 benefits of automated legal billing with CosmoLex 

Automating legal billing creates a more cohesive billing process overall, but what are some of the other benefits law firms can experience? Here are three important ones to consider.  

More accuracy for less effort  

Lawyers don’t need automation gimmicks that cause more problems than they solve. What they need are automation features that help them maintain consistency and accuracy.  

This is where CosmoLex’s time and expense tools shine.  

They allow attorneys to capture their work without distracting them from it. As a result, they can record hours and costs in the moment rather than waiting. This is critical because lawyers who wait to record billable hours are more likely to misremember how they spent their time.  

What’s more, if you’re transferring your records from the classic sticky note method, the manual information transfer provides another point of failure: You may enter the wrong client code or fail to provide a detailed record of how you used your billable hours. 

CosmoLex’s timesheets allow lawyers to retain one record of truth in real time, capturing their time in detail for every client. By automatically syncing with client records, it removes the chance of human error.  

A clear record of billable hours can reduce the likelihood of client payment disputes and resolve them more quickly if they do. Detailed invoices that provide a transparent view of billable hours also provide consistency across client interactions and build trust over time.  

Quicker invoicing 

Manually creating invoices each month is tedious, time-consuming, and more than a little inefficient. It’s also not the best way to showcase your firm’s professionalism.  

On the other hand, using customizable billing templates makes quick work out of invoice generation. With CosmoLex’s billing templates, you can:  

• Set up unique templates for different practice areas, services, client groups, attorneys, and more 
• Update rate information like hourly rates, fixed fees, contingency, etc.  
• Tailor header and footer information with your branding 
• Add cover pages 
• And more 

Once built, these invoices can be reused each month. Simply populate them with data from CosmoLex’s time and expense tracking, review them for accuracy and details, and email them to clients.  

Increased client engagement 

Every hour you spend sorting out the back end of your billing process is one hour you can’t put toward your clients. Some of these hours will be necessary every month, but many of them aren’t a permanent sunk cost.  

By spending a few hours setting up the CosmoLex system, you can shave hours off of every billing cycle moving forward. While your billing process still needs oversight and review, many of the tasks can be automated. 

Under this system, this block of hours can be reallocated to other pursuits, such as business development, generating new client leads, or managing the client experience.  

Are there any notable examples of law firms that have successfully adopted and benefited from automated billing with CosmoLex? 

Don’t take our word for it.  

Learn how a solo law firm in Toronto increased their productivity and saved time with CosmoLex. Explore how other law firms have optimized their time management and improved their client experience through transparent billing.  

Elevate your firm’s billing process with CosmoLex 

Don’t lose hours every month to a cumbersome billing process. Improve your time management and client experience with automated billing.  

To see the potential for yourself, schedule a demo or start your free trial of CosmoLex today.