TIQ Time Uplifts Your Law Firm’s Processes & Profitability
Publicaciones del blog - 27 julio 2021
Savvy law firms are investing in legal technologies that address multiple legal challenges. In this blog, we want to show you how a time tracking solution is reducing leakage, improving client relationships, and providing data that can inform better decision making about staffing and investment in technologies.
TIQ Time Reduces Time Leakage & Increases Productivity.
TIQ Time automatically captures the time your lawyers spend on tasks during their workday.The application integrates with the software your lawyers use, including most practice management systems, document management software, email, and online communication platforms. Then, TIQ logs the amount of time your lawyers spend using those platforms while also taking note of key details related to the usage. By noting details like who the email is being sent to, keywords used, or matter numbers contained in documents, TIQ is able to automatically populate your lawyer’s timesheets with all the tasks they complete during the day. This significantly reduces the amount of time your lawyers spend tracking their time. It also reduces time leakage, since those quick emails sent between meetings are automatically captured, instead of forgotten.
"TIQ has made a significant improvement for the lawyers in their time tracking. One issue for our lawyers was to remember all the small things, like responding to an email, in between the larger tasks. TIQ Time automatically captures time entries, like when our lawyers send an email in between meetings. But the two biggest benefits we’ve noticed are that TIQ reduces the amount of time they spent tracking time and that the lawyers can review and approve all their time entries quickly at the end of the day." Kristoffer Giro, IT and Administrative Support Officer at Molt Wengel.
Customer Satisfaction Through TIQ’s Narrative Billing
TIQ Time reduces the time spent on filling out timesheets by using narrative templates. These narrative templates tell your customers the ‘story’ of your services, via consistent and detailed entries.
TIQ’s Narrative Builder can be configured according to your firm’s time and billing guidelines. You can include client and other stakeholder names, which reduces time spent creating entries while also promising fewer spelling mistakes and other billing errors. All templates can be set in multiple languages, making it an invaluable feature for firms operating across multiple countries.
With automated time capture and narrative
billing, you can expect fewer corrections, greater consistency and predictability, and a decrease
in billing rejections. Billing typically takes your finance department less time too. In short, TIQ Time saves lawyers time while facilitating better communication with your law firm’s clients.
Access Data That Drives Decision Making
TIQ’s software tackles data challenges from two angles. First, the automated time capture functionality and reduced time leakage give your firm a more complete picture of the time being spent on its matters. This means you have access to better data which drives better decision making.
Second, TIQ supports a suite of customisable reports that provide insights into your business performance. You can use the data insights to determine how long your team is taking to perform certain functions. This positions you to assess the value of investing in other legal technologies. You can check in on individual and department workloads to assess whether you need new staff to support growth or workplace wellbeing (or both).
"We believe that in a futureproof office we have to put even more emphasis on the lawyer’s work environment. We want our lawyers to be able to focus on the client and the case. TIQ Time is a win-win, it makes it easier for the lawyers to fill out the timesheets and on the other hand, the system provides more insight for both the firm and the client." Knut Glad, Managing Partner at Føyen Torkildsen
An ROI on TIQ Time from Day 1
TIQ increases your firm’s profitability and competitive edge from the moment you integrate the software.
1. Cut time spent on accurate time entries.
The average lawyer dedicates 50 minutes to managing their timesheet each week. While creating time entries with a clear narrative is essential, the amount of time many lawyers spend completing that task isn’t. We typically expect a firm of 100 lawyers to receive a cumulative 33 hours of additional staff time each week following the integration of time tracking software. TIQ’s software also fully integrates with your firm’s Practice Management Software, so there’s no duplication of efforts. Any time entries your lawyers approve are pushed back to your PMS and billed as usual.
2. Reduce time leakage.
Lawyers who attempt to recreate their days often forget about the 5-minute phone call they had with the client while running to court, or the short email update they sent. While these might seem like minor oversights, the reality is that 12% of billable time is lost to leakage.
Given that approximately 17% of hours worked on a matter won’t end up being billed and a further 12% of those bills likely won’t be collected (according to the 2020 Legal Trends Report), reducing time leakage can have a tangible impact on your bottom line.
"With our previous system, we found that time management was very time consuming. It was a manual process - with manual search and manual entry. By automating the process of time tracking, TIQ saves our lawyer’s time. More importantly, we’ve already noticed that our lawyers are tracking their time more consistent and we’re expecting to see an increase in revenue as a result." Paolo Grandi, Partner and Member of the Board RP Legal & Tax
3. Improve Profitability on Alternative Fee
Arrangements
To meet changing client demands, alternative fee
arrangements (AFAs) have become increasingly
commonplace in the legal industry. Yet, most law
firms don’t have the tools needed to confidently
predict matter budgets. Lawyers tend to
underestimate the amount of work that actually
goes into resolving a matter. Lawyers who base
the decision on data also tend to underestimate
the amount of work, since the data doesn’t
compensate for the 12% of billable hours lost to
leakage.
Accurate data about the amount of work that really goes into the average matter is essential
for setting fixed fee pricing in a way that will be profitable. TIQ Time helps lawyers maintain a complete record of their time, thereby improving the quality and quantity of data available to inform your firm’s AFAs. This leads to more profitable pricing schedules and more certainty for clients.
Schedule a demo to learn how TIQ Time can help your firm improve time tracking!