Law Firm Accounting Software

Attorney Finds BillingTracker is a Perfect Fit for Sole Practitioner Needs

When Bruce Zeftel was planning to open his own law practice in Buffalo, NY, he already had a very clear idea of the sort of billing system he needed – and what he didn’t need. After 30 years of working in large law firms and organizations he was looking for billing software that is easy and fast to use and that has solid time tracking, invoicing and reporting capabilities without being overloaded with unneeded features.

“I downloaded and played with several programs but I found they all had too much and weren’t particularly intuitive,” recalls Zeftel.

Then, he came across BillingTracker. “At first I was skeptical because BillingTracker was a quarter of the price of the others. But I played with it; did some fake bills and such, and right away I found that it did what I needed. Regardless of price, I found that, of all the billing programs, BillingTracker was the best and easiest to use.”

Once he started using BillingTracker to help manage real business, Bruce Zeftel’s initial good impression of the billing software was confirmed – and more.

“I’ve entered clients, projects, time, vendors and expenses. I’ve received payments and logged them. And I use the reports on a daily basis. And it has all been very fast, and easy, too.”

Zeftel uses BillingTracker as a way of making sure he is working at an appropriate level – from the perspective both of his clients and of his business. “I like the way it stacks up time entries for each client or project. So I can see how much work I’ve done and if maybe I’m doing too much for the project and it’s going to overrun the budget. Also, I use the detailed project hours report constantly, to see immediately how much I’ve done that day and what’s left that I have to do to meet my goals.”

At the end of his first month of business, Zeftel readied himself for a marathon session to produce his first set of invoices, expecting to spend a great deal of time creating, fine-tuning and sending out his first 21 bills. To his surprise, the whole process took only about three hours.

“I created each invoice, looked it over on the screen, and edited time entries and anything else as needed. Then I saved it in my 2008 billing folder as a PDF file and emailed it straightaway to the client. That was the first time; I’m sure it will take me much less time next month,” says Zeftel.

Zeftel uses BillingTracker’s online automated backup service, valuing the peace of mind it brings him. “I back up every day onto my own hard drive, but this is so important that I decided it was worthwhile to have the automated backup service,” he says. “I set it up and that’s it. It just runs. From time to time I just click on it to check the data file is there.”

“The system of choice for small firms” Summarizing his experience with BillingTracker, Bruce Zeftel says: “My first month all went quite well. The input was flawless and I love the stability of the system and the variety of reports. I got out my first set of bills by email in only a few hours, making corrections on the fly. I really think BillingTracker is the system of choice for the sole practitioner and small firms.”

Business snapshot