Unlock the full potential of your law firm
Most law firms will time record, enabling them to keep a record of the time spent on handling matters for their clients, and to raise their charges, but how effective is your firms’ time recording policy? Other than charging client does your firm use the wealth of data that is available from your time recording system?
Time recording is not only essential in a law firm but it provides valuable information from which managers can access the effectiveness of their operations and general performance of their staff.
When a firm has mastered the art of effective time recording it opens up data that can be monitored and used to manage the business and make decisions. Some examples of how a firm can use their time recording data to make informed management decisions are:-
Performance management – as part of a firm’s performance management policy, time recording will demonstrate how effective each member of staff is when handling the work. As time recording is not just about the hours spent, but also about what was performed in the time, it is possible to assess common tasks to establish the optimum time to handle an issue. Management can direct their attention to particular issues or staff who appear out of keeping with standard tolerances.
Auditing – as the time recording platform will confirm what a fee earner has completed as a task this can direct an auditor’s time to particular issues or staff who appear out of keeping with standard tolerances.
Case/ task mapping and resourcing – by analysing time recording for particular case types and tasks, a firm can start to establish the optimum amount of hours that should be spent on a particular matter or issue and use this to benchmark the effectiveness and performance of case handlers. Regardless of the type of law being practiced, there will be tasks that are common across all work types (e.g. AML, compliance, file opening, file closure etc.). In addition, for cases that are largely the same in terms of case activity, it is possible to assess and set an upper tolerance of the time to be spent on the case and direct management time to cases that exceed this limit.
Fee setting – If a firm works to fixed fees, time recording for such work will enable the firm to assess the level of fee and if this needs adjusting, or in the alternative if the firm needs to focus on its operational effectiveness.
Fee caps – Where a client has been given a fee cap the firm will be able to immediately see when the time being spent on a case has reached a fee cap and therefore requires focus to bring the matter to a swift resolution.
Enable Solutions have brought RevenueManager to the legal market to assist firms in effective time recording.
Central to your time recording policy is for all in the firm to ensure that their time is recorded properly and effectively. Revenue Manager delivers a solution that ensures fee earners achieve effective time recording. Revenue Manager is a software solution that connects to your time recording platform and drives positive time recording behaviour through an easy to use dashboard. On first logon of each day, the Revenue Manager Software launches to ensure that the fee earner has entered all time for the previous day or period and ensures time is entered before the working day starts and earlier time information is forgotten.
Revenue Manager uses a clever technique to deliver the solution. To find out more, contact us and we will organise a demonstration of our software solution so you can see first-hand the power this brings and how it will work to ensure your firm has accurate time recording that works.
