Financial management capabilities of QuickfIle

[jasonn]

Hi,

I’m a self-employed legal consultant and I’m looking to switch accounting software from Lawsoft to Quickfile as it seems a bit ‘neater’. Essentially I’m trying to find out if Quickfile has the same basic financial management capabilities of Lawsoft.

I’m looking for software that allows me to record billable units of time (1 unit = 6 mins) with a client as individual items/sessions and then appended it to a “Matter” (i.e. matter ID/the whole job). I then need to be able to generate the following documents from the Matter:

-Fee Narrative (a simple itemised breakdown for clients to explain what was billed when and why. eg. “Chargeable Non Specific: Phone call to explain Completion Schedule / 5 units / 28/07/2020”)

-Billing Guide (a compilation for individual billing entries. Similar to the Fee Narrative but more detailed for my accounts)

-Invoice (single item invoice that advises the client to refer to attached Fee Narrative)

In Lawsoft I achieve this by going to “Time Sheet Entry” where I can add a new entry which gets assigned to either a pre existing Matter ID or I create new one. The entry when completed looks like this:

Activity Date: 28/07/2020
Matter ID: 12345-678
Activity: Chargeable - Non Specific
Rate: Standard Rate
Start Time: 16:00
Units: 5
Narrative: Phone call to explain Completion Schedule
Comments: N/A

Once this has been saved then it is appended to all the generated documents mentioned above.

So can this (or something similar) be achieved with Quickfile / Quickfile Projects?

Thanks

[QFMathew]

Hi @jasonn

QuickFile is a generic accounting package rather than tailored to a specific industry, so it may be the case that things don’t fit “neatly” into an area you need. But, there’s an opportunity for quite a bit of customisation.

Billable time is possible on the invoice, and you can change the unit of that time. So changing the name of “Hours” to “Units” would certainly be possible.

Likewise, the fee narrative could possibly be individual lines on the invoice.

While the billing guide isn’t something that can be generated in QuickFile, would you be able to export a PDF from your timekeeping package? You could certainly attach this to an invoice and send that to a client.

@jasonn

In Lawsoft I achieve this by going to “Time Sheet Entry” where I can add a new entry which gets assigned to either a pre existing Matter ID or I create new one.

Time entries isn’t something that’s currently supported within QuickFile unfortunately. But you could certainly use an external package and as I mentioned above, perhaps attach an export from that package to the invoice itself.

@jasonn

So can this (or something similar) be achieved with Quickfile / Quickfile Projects?

Projects are a way of grouping invoices/purchases/estimates together. If everything is recorded as separate invoices, then this could be possible.

That all said, this is an open forum, so another user may be in a similar situation as yourself, and may have other suggestions.

[jasonn]

Thanks very much for such an informative response!