CosmoLex vs. QuickBooks®
QuickBooks is an accounting software solution that’s designed for businesses of any size from any industry.
While many legal professionals choose to use QuickBooks for their accounting needs, it’s important to remember that a generic software solution might not be the best choice when it comes to keeping your firm compliant with local regulations and supporting your law firm with critical legal practice management needs. With that in mind, we’ve created this side-by-side comparison of CosmoLex and QuickBooks to give legal professionals a hand with making the right choice for their firms.
CosmoLex vs. QuickBooks: Features
When choosing a software solution for your firm, it’s important to make sure you’re getting all of the features you need for daily work. Below is a list of commonly used features for law firms.
| Features | CosmoLex | QuickBooks |
|---|---|---|
| Cloud/remote access | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Matter management | ✔️ | ✖️ |
| Payments | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Billing | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Trust accounting | ✔️ | ✖️ |
| Matter cost accounting | ✔️ | ✖️ |
| Client payment accounting | ✔️ | ✖️ |
| Three-way reconciliation reports | ✔️ (built-in) | ✖️ (must be done manually) |
| Time tracking | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Document management | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Reporting | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Document management | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| CRM | ✔️ | ✖️ |
CosmoLex vs. PCLaw: Reviews
| Reviews | CosmoLex | QuickBooks |
|---|---|---|
| G2 | 4 of 5 stars | 4 of 5 stars |
| Capterra | 4.7 of 5 stars | 4.3 of 5 stars |
| Trustpilot | 4 of 5 stars | N/A |
CosmoLex vs. QuickBooks: Pricing
| Pricing | CosmoLex | QuickBooks |
|---|---|---|
| Free trial | 10-day | 30-day |
| Monthly plan | $99 per user per month | $42 per user per month |
| Annual plan | $89 per user per month | N/A |
CosmoLex vs. PCLaw: Testimonials
Many companies promise the world when advertising their products, but sometimes promises and results don’t stack up. Here are testimonials from actual customers for each company.
CosmoLex vs. QuickBooks: User satisfaction
One of the easiest ways to find out if a software solution is right for your firm is by finding out what other consumers think about it. Below are ratings for various aspects of each service, rated from 1 to 10.
| User Satisfaction | CosmoLex | QuickBooks |
|---|---|---|
| Meets requirements | 8.3 | 8.3 |
| Ease of use | 8.1 | 8.1 |
| Ease of setup | 8.5 | 7.9 |
| Ease of admin | 8.7 | 8.1 |
| Quality of support | 8.8 | 7.8 |
| Has the product been a good partner in doing business? | 9.2 | 7.8 |
| Product direction (% positive) | 7.7 | 7.4 |
CosmoLex vs. PCLaw: Integrations
| Integrations | CosmoLex | QuickBooks |
|---|---|---|
| Outlook | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Gmail | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Apple Mail | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Dropbox | ✔️ | ✖️ |
| Google Drive | ✔️ | ✖️ |
| OneDrive | ✔️ | ✖️ |
| Net Documents | ✔️ | ✖️ |
| Google Calendar | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Office 365 calendar | ✔️ | ✖️ |
| Payments | ✔️ | ✖️ |
| Chrometa | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Unity | ✔️ | ✖️ |
| LawPay | ✔️ | ✔️ |
CosmoLex vs. QuickBooks: Support
When you’re choosing your software, it’s important to know that you’ll be covered should anything go wrong. Below are support options provided by both companies.
| Support | CosmoLex | QuickBooks |
|---|---|---|
| Live chat | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Phone support | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Availability | Chat: M-F 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. ET Phone: M-F 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET | 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday |
CosmoLex = The Right Choice for Law Firms
With CosmoLex, you get a comprehensive practice management solution that has legal-specific compliance safeguards and makes trust accounting and matter cost tracking a breeze—not to mention 24/7 mobile access, from any location or device.
To get started, book a demo or try CosmoLex for free for 10 days.
Frequently Asked Questions
CosmoLex is the #1 Alternative to QuickBooks®
It doesn’t take long for law firms using QuickBooks® for accounting to understand that general accounting software presents a lot of challenges. Using separate systems requires you to constantly check that the data is in sync between your legal billing system and QuickBooks, which is time-consuming and task.
QuickBooks is also not built to handle the unique and strict legal accounting compliance requirements, forcing you to rely on cumbersome workarounds.
CosmoLex has legal-specific business and trust accounting with compliance safeguards built-in, so you never have to worry if your books are clean and current.
Separate Billing & Accounting
- Duplicate data entry
- Imports/exports that never seem to reconcile 100%.
- Multiple software subscription fees & required training add up to a real cost of both money and time.
- With billing and accounting data scattered, you have no reliable way to get a grasp on the productivity or profitability of team members, clients, or the firm itself.
Trust Accounting
- QuickBooks allows Client Trust Funds to be posted incorrectly to any account — even to rent or payroll.
- No built-in protection against overdrafts or commingling.
- Three-way reconciliation reports are not built-in. They need to be assembled manually from multiple reports, making reconciliations time consuming and error-prone.
Client Cost Tracking
- Accurate matter cost accounting is challenging because it’s up to you to manually check the correct posting of all items, all the time.
- Tracking of cost recovery between direct and indirect cost reimbursements is also a tedious manual process.
- Inflated revenue is common due to the difficulty in differentiating between income & cost recovery.
Client Payment Accounting
- Partial payments against invoices are applied proportionately – rather than first to costs and then to fees. This requires constant manual adjustment.
- Applying payments from a trust account to an invoice requires multiple steps.
- Online Payments – when QuickBooks does not know which invoices are paid, the money trail is lost. Reconciliation becomes a daily headache.
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