Maximize Your Billable Hours: How LEAP’s AutoTime Captures Every Minute

In the legal profession, every minute counts. Billable hours are the lifeblood of a law firm's revenue, yet many firms still struggle with the inefficiencies of manual time tracking. Human error and forgotten tasks can significantly impact the amount of unrecorded time and, ultimately, a firm's profitability. Accurate time tracking is crucial not only for accurate billing and client satisfaction but also for maximizing a firm's earning potential.

Unfortunately, manual time entry is prone to errors, with lawyers often forgetting to log tasks, leading to unrecorded and consequently unbilled time. This not only affects the firm’s bottom line, but can also create disputes with clients over billing accuracy. LEAP’s AutoTime is a revolutionary legal timekeeping feature designed to ensure that every minute spent on a matter is captured and billed accurately. AutoTime addresses these challenges by eliminating human error and forgotten tasks, ensuring transparency and trust between the firm and its clients.

Overview of AutoTime

LEAP’s AutoTime is a powerful tool that addresses the challenges of manual time tracking by capturing every minute of billable work automatically. Key features include:

• Intelligent Activity Recorder: Tracks time spent on various tasks without needing a timer.

• Locate Lost Fees: Identifies unrecorded billable hours through the Variance Report.

• Fixed Fee Insights: Provides productivity and profitability insights for fixed fee firms.

• Billable Toggle: Allows users to choose which activities should be tracked as billable.

• Payments Integration: Enhances billing with LawConnect’s interactive invoicing and LEAP Online Payments.

These features ensure that all billable activities are automatically and accurately captured and billed, eliminating lost time and increasing revenue.

Intelligent Activity Recorder: Capturing Every Minute

The intelligent activity recorder of AutoTime automatically tracks time spent on tasks without requiring manual input. It distinguishes between merely viewing and actively working on documents, ensuring precise time capture. Activities such as document handling, sending and receiving emails, drafting documents, booking appointments, and making comments are all recorded automatically. This comprehensive tracking ensures that no billable minute on case management is missed.

Locating and Recapturing Lost Fees

The Variance Report is a powerful tool within AutoTime that compares manually entered hours with those captured automatically. This report highlights discrepancies, enabling firms to identify and recover lost billable hours. By pinpointing where time was previously unrecorded, firms can recapture significant revenue. The financial benefits of this feature are substantial, as it helps law firms maximize their billing potential and ensure fair compensation for all work performed.

Enhancing Efficiency for Fixed Fee Firms

Fixed fee billing offers a predictable pricing model that many clients appreciate, but it can pose challenges for law firms in terms of managing profitability and workload. AutoTime is not just for firms that bill by the hour—it also offers significant benefits to those operating on fixed fees.

Gaining Insight into Workload and Profitability

For fixed fee firms, understanding the actual time and effort involved in each case is crucial for setting accurate fees. AutoTime captures every minute of work, even on fixed fee matters, providing detailed data on the resources dedicated to each case. This insight allows firms to evaluate whether they are underquoting or undercharging and adjust their fees accordingly, ensuring they maintain profitability while delivering high-quality services.

Justifying Costs with Detailed Activity Records

One of the key advantages of using AutoTime for fixed fee matters is the transparency it provides. In cases where a firm may need to justify its fees—such as during a cost assessment—AutoTime’s comprehensive activity records offer clear evidence of the work performed. This level of detail helps in demonstrating the true value provided to clients, even when the billing is not based on hourly rates.

Flexibility and Control

AutoTime’s features are designed to support the unique needs of fixed fee firms. While it captures time in the background, it also allows for customization, enabling firms to track work that goes beyond the agreed scope. This flexibility ensures that all aspects of a case are accounted for, helping firms make informed decisions about fee adjustments or additional billing when necessary.

By integrating AutoTime into their operations, fixed fee firms can enhance their efficiency, improve their pricing strategies, and maintain transparency with clients—all while focusing on delivering exceptional legal services.

Customizing Time Tracking with the Billable Toggle

The Billable Toggle feature provides flexibility in time tracking, allowing users to select which activities should be recorded as billable. This customization ensures that the feature aligns with the specific needs and preferences of different practice areas. Whether working on Word documents, emails, PDFs, calendar tasks, phone calls, or LEAP integrated apps like InfoTrack, the Billable Toggle makes it easy to track relevant billable time accurately.

Enhancing Client Relationships with Transparent Billing

Transparent billing is essential for maintaining strong client relationships. LawConnect’s interactive invoicing and LEAP Online Payments enhance this transparency by providing clients with detailed, easy-to-understand bills with online click-to-pay options. Firms can create custom invoice summary templates and share them with clients, who can then view important documents and pay their bills online or through payment plans. This convenience improves client satisfaction and fosters trust.

Start Capturing Every Billable Minute

Maximizing billable hours is crucial for the success of any law firm. LEAP’s AutoTime ensures that every minute is captured and billed accurately, addressing the common challenges of manual time tracking. By implementing this feature, law firms can enhance their revenue, improve billing transparency, and strengthen client relationships.

Explore the benefits of LEAP’s AutoTime and book a demo today to see how it can transform your practice.