You know it and it is a fact that your business actually can select from a number of the billing software available in the market though in reality for the best of the systems, it is important for you to ensure that you have those software that are special to the legal industry to have the best of the services of the software. It is important that you have indeed in mind the fact that generic business software will work perfectly for generic business. However for the law practices and concerns, there is a need for there to be a dedicated billing software as they do have a billing requirement that can only be served by the equally special billing software and system. An example of such is Matter-based billing.
The business software of the common type will be good at handling the client billing and the other multiple billing tasks like the hourly rates and the flat rates. These are however somehow inappropriate for a legal practice in the sense that they handle the billing in terms of client and not in the nature or class of assignment. For the best organization of the matters for a legal practice, as a n attorney you must have the matters you are dealing with separated into separate billing systems.
Read on for this example that will further expound on the point we are trying to put across for the need for a billing software special to a legal practice. We will have a character in the name of Tim Parker getting a divorce and your firm is taking them through this. On top of the fact that they have contracted you to handle the divorce case, the same character has seen it fit to hire you as well to handle the need to update his will and the other estate paperwork to reflect the dissolved marriage they were in. Your firm accepts the divorce case is agreed on at an hourly rate with a retainer guarantee and for the will updating services, you agree to charge fees at a flat rate. In order to ensure that you remain as professional in your dealing with your client(s), these two cases before you by the same client must be kept separate. Particularly take a case where the planning case ends up getting to cost more in expenses related to it which you will want to bill the client, it will not be possible and any professional taking that from the retainer in the divorce case.
Do not think it possible curing this problem by having two separate files for the same client as you will still may not quite deal with it, as some clever attorneys attempt.