For small law firms, manually tracking time or following up for payments can add more tedious tasks to an already busy schedule. This can often lead to situations where you’re working late to finish everything or putting off these non-billable tasks for client work. However, delaying invoices can make it difficult to serve clients in the long run.
With a small staff, you may manage some or all aspects of billing by yourself. DIY efforts can eliminate costs for expenses and software, but you lose out on valuable time you could have spent on clients. Splitting your time between clients and administrative work can also result in errors and lost revenue.
The right invoicing solution can help your small law firm save a significant amount of time. According to our 2025 Legal Industry Report, 80% of law firms implemented software with invoicing features, with 43% reporting saving up to 10 hours each month.
In this guide, we’ll go over the steps to selecting the best legal billing software for small firms and key features that can support an optimized invoicing workflow.
1. Identify How Billing Impacts Your Firm’s Goals
Evaluating the impact of your law firm’s billing process can help your team understand the need for software and how different automations can support a more efficient billing process.
Let’s say your law firm’s primary goal is to grow its client base. To accomplish this, your firm should focus on improving client retention and referrals for the next quarter.
At first glance, small law firm billing software doesn’t seem related to this goal. However, a poor billing experience may discourage clients from returning or recommending you to friends. Frustration can arise from recurring invoicing errors, unclear time entry descriptions, or bills that arrive months after the work is complete.
2. Assess Your Law Firm’s Current Billing Process and Software
Many small law firms face common billing issues as they grow, with each new client adding more tasks and responsibilities to an already limited staff. While juggling an increasing workload, some lawyers may find it difficult to keep track of billable expenses, while others might struggle with manually creating invoices.
To understand your law firm’s specific billing challenges, find a recent invoice and review the steps your firm took before, during, and after creating that invoice. This includes evaluating:
Client communication
Time and expense tracking
Invoice generation and review
Invoice delivery
Payment processing
Accounts receivable
Payment disputes
Financial reporting
From here, you can identify bottlenecks, missing or inconsistent steps, and common points of confusion or frustration. You can also solicit feedback directly from clients and staff to shed light on the sources of these issues.
For example, with firm growth, you may begin receiving more frequent billing disputes.
After talking to clients, you learn they’re most consistently frustrated by the lack of transparency around time entries. They say many lawyers use vague descriptions for large blocks of time.
After speaking to staff, you learn that most struggle to consistently manually keep track of time as they switch tasks throughout the day.
3. Create a Priority List of Features
Prioritize features based on the long-term impact for your firm and its goals. Below are a few example scenarios and what features may be most important for your firm:
If your firm encounters this… | Consider this feature |
|---|---|
Your staff spends too much time manually creating invoices or correcting data entry errors | Auto-populated time and expense data in invoices |
Your staff forgets to log time | Passive time trackers that run in the background |
Your staff consistently sends late invoices and payment reminders | Automated invoice scheduling and payment reminders |
4. Consider Integrations and Usability
Comprehensive billing tools can help you eliminate overlapping solutions and simplify the process for your firm. For example, many legal billing software solutions for small firms include features like time tracking, expense tracking, and invoice generation. If you have tools that you need to keep, prioritize billing solutions that offer seamless integrations.
Usability is another factor that can impact your firm’s adoption and productivity. Vet the level of automation and customization each tool provides and whether it meets your needs. You can also check how often the software is updated to see if it accounts for customer feedback and proactively improving the product.
Furthermore, you can review the tool’s level of accessibility for staff members with different abilities. For example, check if the tool is compatible with your team’s assistive technologies or includes native features that improve accessibility (like changing font size).
5. Evaluate Your Budget
Next, follow these steps to begin reviewing your budget:
Review how much your law firm currently spends to complete the monthly billing process for each client. Spending includes the cost of existing software and the amount of non-billable hours your staff spends on invoicing.
Evaluate your firm’s monthly budget to find other discretionary spending you can cut or reallocate towards this solution.
Consider the return on investment (ROI) of a pricier option. If you choose a solution at the higher end of your budget. For instance, does the solution free up your staff to complete more billable work, and does the additional revenue make up for the cost? Is it valuable to transition to a robust solution now while you have a small staff?
6. Begin Evaluating Platforms
Choosing the right legal tech software can feel overwhelming due to the number of choices and information available for each tool. To begin narrowing down your list of billing software for small firms, check out the following resources:
Read review articles about the best legal billing software solutions for small firms. They’ll often include ratings for different categories and honest evaluations of key features.
Ask for recommendations from colleagues about the best small law firm billing software solutions that worked for their firm. You can also ask how their tools changed as their firm grew and what features helped them scale.
Review testimonials from firms similar to your firm’s size and practice area.
Compare pricing models, contract terms, security measures, and support and training resources for each solution.
You can ask a few others on your staff to assist with the initial vetting process. To get organized, create a rubric, template, or shared document to standardize everyone’s notes for easier review.
7. Try Demos and Free Trials
Once you’ve narrowed down to your top three or four best small law firm billing software solutions, you can begin signing up for demos and trials to get hands-on experience with each solution.
To prepare for product demos, invite staff members who will use the software the most. Ask them to review the product’s website and come prepared with questions and demo requests for your sales representative.
To prepare for free trials, dedicate a few staff members to learn and use the tool. Ask them to note what they liked and didn’t like so you can quickly compare notes between solutions.
Involve staff members with different roles or experience levels for a more comprehensive review. Diverse perspectives can also help you gauge how future staff members may use the tool. For example, if you plan to hire new lawyers, you can ask a newer lawyer on your staff to test drive the tool. The frustrations or roadblocks they experience may be similar to what your future new hires may encounter.
Standalone Small Law Firm Billing Software vs. Practice Management Software
Some legal billing software solutions for small firms are standalone, while others are part of comprehensive practice management solutions. Both solutions can work for small firms, depending on your budget and needs.
Standalone solutions like LawPay are a great option for firms not ready to commit to a practice management platform, or if budgets can only permit a standalone product. With this route, it’s helpful to prioritize tools with integrations to other solutions you currently or anticipate using in the future.
Comprehensive practice management platforms like MyCase are a great option for fast-growing firms that can afford higher upfront costs. With MyCase, law firms can centralize case and financial data in a single platform for seamless billing and client work.
Regardless of the option you choose, legal billing solutions can scale with firms and help small firms quickly streamline their invoicing and billing workflows.
Key Features of the Best Legal Billing Software for Small Firms
Many billing software solutions for small firms have similar features, but some may offer more user-friendly experiences or more advanced capabilities than others. For example, some tools may offer more automations or AI-enhanced workflows to avoid manual data entry. Below, we’ll go over key features to prioritize.
Integrated Time Tracking
Law firm time tracking software centralizes time tracking data in one source to standardize time entries and create invoices more easily. Lawyers can start and stop timers wherever they are to track time more accurately without constantly glancing at the clock. This includes capturing billable time for impromptu phone calls or drafting emails.
Integrated time tracking solutions automatically link time entries to client data and invoices, eliminating errors from manually tracking and transferring time entry data from multiple sources. Automation also helps law firms standardize time entries to ensure they align with the firm’s billable hours chart.
Below are a few examples of helpful capabilities:
Use built-in timers to begin tracking time easily.
Start multiple timers at the same time when multitasking.
Automatically link entries with client data to generate invoices.
Auto-populate default billing descriptions to standardize entries.
Set time tracking goals for each team member.
Leverage a comprehensive dashboard view of time tracking data.
Spend Management
Legal spend management solutions can help small law firms track billable and non-billable expenses in one place. This includes hosting receipts and notes relevant to each expense.
In addition to more accurate invoices, centralizing spend management data helps small law firms review spending in real time. Comprehensive dashboards help firms easily find opportunities to reduce spending or highlight expenses that they should bill to the client.
Below are a few examples of helpful capabilities:
Access the software on mobile or desktop to log expenses anywhere.
Automatically link entries with client data to generate invoices.
Set spending limits and easily lock and unlock company cards.
Leverage detailed dashboards to review spending at a high level.
Store supporting receipts and other documentation.
Invoice Creation and Management
Legal invoicing features can automate invoice creation by pulling existing time tracking, expenses, and client data logged in the billing platform. Many solutions can also deliver invoices directly to clients.
LawPay’s Quick Bill feature takes this a step further by allowing users to quickly generate and send multiple invoices in a few steps. Once sent, clients can view the invoice and complete payment through a personalized payment page. We’ve found that 57% of Quick Bills are paid the same day they’re sent.
Below are a few examples of helpful capabilities:
Automatically generate invoices using existing billing and client data.
Easily edit and customize invoice information.
Use a comprehensive dashboard to view invoices and see statuses at a glance.
Filter or search for specific invoices.
Payment Processing and Tracking
Finding a billing solution with integrated legal payment processing software can simplify payments for your clients and staff. Rather than relying on multiple third-party tools, you can securely collect card and eCheck payments on the same platform. Providing flexible payment options can also improve your firm’s cash flow. According to our 2025 Legal Industry Report, 59% of law firms said accepting credit and debit card payments increased their firms’ collection rates.
Choosing a comprehensive legal payments solution can help your firm avoid the complexity of managing and troubleshooting multiple processors. Legal-specific payment processors like LawPay are also better equipped to meet IOLTA, PCI, and other compliance requirements.
Below are a few examples of helpful capabilities:
Accept card, eCheck, and legal fee financing payments.
Create custom payment pages, QR codes, and notification messages tailored to clients.
Schedule, void, or refund payments.
Meet IOLTA and PCI compliance.
Enjoy quick access to funds after clients submit payment.
Accounting
Robust billing software can help expedite a law firm’s accounting process by automatically updating financial data as you send invoices and collect payments. Some platforms also come equipped with robust accounting solutions.
For example, MyCase’s accounting features can help lawyers comply with legal accounting standards. Even if your small firm is still getting familiar with trust accounting, MyCase’s accounting platform can automate reconciliation and other tedious tasks to save time, efficiently catch errors, and help ensure IOLTA compliance. LawPay integrates seamlessly with MyCase, and MyCase users can use LawPay with no extra monthly fee.
Below are a few examples of helpful capabilities:
Integrate with billing data to instantly match and generate entries.
Automate three-way trust and bank reconciliations.
Use comprehensive dashboard views to review client trust account balances.
Rely on safeguards to prevent commingling funds or misuse of client funds.
Meet IOLTA compliance.
Financial Reporting
Billing solutions with built-in legal financial reporting features can help your firm maintain real-time control and visibility into your profitability. Financial analytics can range from the total amount of outstanding invoices to the level of productivity from each member of your staff.
Robust data can also help your firm quickly identify issues without spending time combing through spreadsheets and emails. For example, a dashboard of payments and cash flow may highlight one client who recently started missing payments. Since you were able to catch this early, you can flag this to discuss with the client and potentially offer alternative payment options.
Below are a few examples of helpful capabilities:
Review real-time data for outstanding invoices, online payments, transactions, timesheets, and other areas at a glance with user-friendly dashboards and analytics.
Create customizable accounts receivable, trust account, and productivity reports to review financial data in-depth, spot trends, and gain insights needed to inform strategic business and financial planning.
Use integrations with other tools to connect data from external sources.
Export reports to share with stakeholders or to use for reconciliation in other platforms.
How Much Does Legal Billing Software for Small Firms Cost?
Small law firm billing software costs can vary depending on its features, number of seats, and billing method. Solutions can also include additional fees for setup and payment processing.
For example, LawPay pricing starts at $19 a month with no contract and for unlimited users. Payment processing fees vary, starting at 1% processing for eChecks.
Start Streamlining Your Small Firm’s Legal Billing Process With LawPay
The best legal billing software solutions for small firms can help streamline your workflow without spending time on extensive non-billable work. LawPay’s legal billing software features support each step of your firm’s billing process to help you create a more accurate and efficient invoicing workflow.
LawPay’s platform lets you track time and expenses, automatically generate invoices, and securely process payments in the same platform. You can also have peace of mind knowing that LawPay meets IOLTA and PCI compliance.
Schedule a LawPay demo today to see how your small law firm can benefit from an optimized legal billing solution.
Schedule a demo to see what LawPay can offer your firm.
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About the author
Esther ParkContent Writer
Esther Park is a content writer and Senior SEO Manager for leading legal software companies, including MyCase, Docketwise, and CASEpeer, as well as LawPay, the #1 legal payment processor. Her expertise lies in writing about emerging legal technologies and financial wellness strategies for law firms, among other topics.