Billing Debacle

Billing: a Never Ending Problem

One of my least favorite things to do as a lawyer is billing.  It is a simple task, but it is tedious and takes forever.  It is never ending and can quickly become overwhelming if you don’t stay on top of it, which I rarely do.  I am very good at keeping detailed notes of what I do on a day to day basis, but unfortunately I am very bad at imputing my daily tasks into my billing software which means I’m always behind.  Our firm handles most clients on a flat fee basis so it does not affect our bottom line, but it is still important to have current and correct records.

In the beginning, it would have been easy to stay on top of the billing.  But also, everything is a learning experience in the beginning.  So, of course I can look back and ask, “what if?”, but the truth of the matter is that I didn’t do it then compounded the problem now.  I am behind because I’m always playing catch up. 

As a part of my 2013 job related goals, I am going to get caught up on billing by implementing a daily chunk of my time to billing and hopefully as the year goes by I will catch up.  I plan to bill at least one client per day, which means that I should bill each client approximately every two months which will be a giant step up from last year.

With this attainable goal, I will be able to get rid of the looming billing cloud, which drags me down.  Like anything else looming over your head, the longer you leave it unattended the bigger the problem will become.  If I've learned anything in the past, you DO NOT want to push those “problems” aside because they do not go anywhere – they just get bigger and much harder to deal with.