July 2011

How Retainer Reminders Can Improve a Law Firm’s Cash Flow

You get a new client. She engages you, and you deposit her retainer check. Then you start work on the matter.

As the months or weeks go by, her retainer amount gets depleted. Sooner or later (but mostly sooner), you find the amount approaching, well, zero.

At this point, most lawyers have no built-in system to replenish their retainer. So, they begin to bill forward as they go.

That’s a bad idea. It’ll leave you in a net-negative situation—and you’ll be doing work against future receivables. These receivables can rack up quickly—depending on the complexity and urgency of the matter.

Instead, we suggest leveraging technology to keep your retainers replenished—and stay net-positive in your cash flow. It’s easy with Easy TimeBill program, our legal billing and trust accounting system.

Easy TimeBill our billing software for attorneys allow you to see—at a glance—what your retainer balances are for each client and matter.

Low Retainer Alerts

For each client, you can set a minimum retainer balance. You can then open your client view, and view your low retainer reminders.

Reminder Letters

The system also generates an automatic reminder letter, notifying your clients that their retainer needs to be replenished. All you have to do is either email it, snail mail it, fax it, or give it to whom ever does your books.

This way: you stay one step ahead of your client. And your client stays one step ahead of your work.

Replenishment Amount Threshold

Legal time and billing software “ Easy TimeBill” has a smart threshold option. You clearly do not want to start sending notices for small replenishments say reminders for less than $100. It would be silly to send a $100 replenishment reminder the moment retainer goes down from $10,000 to $9,900. Well, you are covered. You are able to set the minimum cut-off threshold.

Easy, right? That’s why we call it Easy Soft.

If you’d like to learn more about Easy Soft and any of our law office management software, call us at 800-905-7638.

Posted by Rick Kabra on July 18, 2011 in Legal Billing | Comments Off
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Divorce Financials with 2011 Tax Changes Is Now Available

For U.S. divorce attorneys: we’ve updated Divorce Financials to account for 2011 tax changes.

Don’t worry: you still get child support-alimony tax tradeoff analyses, pension worksheets, and other customizable worksheets, forms, and guidelines.

You’re still entitled to download mEasySoft, our companion mobile app for your Smartphones and tablet computers. For free.

Our latest change? We’re unveiling Divorce Financials 3.0: with 2011 tax changes.

What this means:

•  You get a new combined (federal and state) 2011 tax table to reference through your divorce settlement negotiations.

•  While selecting the number of dependents, our family law software will prompt you to enter child tax credits (if any). It’ll then provide the selected tax year’s available credit amounts.

•  As part of Alimony-Child Support Tradeoff Analysis, you can now keep the child support amount fixed, and hypothesize different alimony values. This is an excellent tool for cases in which the parties have already agreed on child support, and are looking to discover alimony or spousal maintenance values, i.e. high income cases.

•  New York attorneys : If you select your client’s tax filing state as “NYC”, our family law software will combine NY state and city resident tax rates for state taxes. This eliminates the need to account separately for city and state tax in New York.

•  New Jersey attorneys : The child support calculation engine has been updated to account for:

•  Equal parenting adjustments (per Deffler v. Deffler)

•  Healthcare and child care expenses

•  The Self-Support Reserve/Poverty reserve test, and guideline amounts

Easy? You bet.

Easy Soft’s Divorce Financials software is used throughout the country by law firms, state agencies (such as legal services), law schools and paralegal programs.

To learn more about all of our family law software , call 800-905-7638. We promise you’ll get a real person on the line who can answer all of your questions.

Posted by Rick Kabra on July 16, 2011 in Divorce Settlement | Comments Off
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HUD-1 Closings: What’s the last thing you’ve got to remember?

You’ve just finished closing a deal. It went without a hitch. You prepared your HUD-1 closing statement, dotted your I’s and crossed your T’s in exactly the way that RESPA prescribes. Everyone brought the right checks, and buyer and seller left happy.

Now, go back to your office and perform the final step. Aside from 1099-S reporting (which Easy Soft can handle for you), don’t forget to enter your closing ledger data in your trust accounts.

That way, you won’t have to wonder if you did it, backtrack, and take chances with your accuracy.

Luckily, the process is seamless: with two crucial pieces of software.

First, Easy HUD 5.0 software : the choice of thousands of settlement agents, real estate law firms, and title companies for seamless, accurate real estate closings.

Second, Easy Trust, a complete trust account management system that tracks all client funds and bank reconciliations, and generates required trust accounting reports.

Once you’ve completed your latest closing, you can simply transfer the HUD closing ledger to Easy Trust. The software minimizes data re-entry, thereby ensuring seamless accuracy.

If you follow these steps to prepare all real estate documents, HUD settlement statements, disbursements, trust account management and 1099-S reporting, your firm can reap significant savings in time and money.

To learn more about Easy HUD software and our trust accounting software, call 800-905-7638. We promise you’ll get a real person on the line who can answer all of your questions.

Posted by Rick Kabra on July 15, 2011 in Real Estate Closing | Comments Off
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Stop Admiring & Back up Your Data!

You’re done. You step back like a painter, and observe your work.

If you’re a NY divorce attorney , maybe you’ve just created a Statement of Net Worth. A complicated beast of a document that would have taken days took mere hours with our automated calculations, and auto-populating client intake form.

If you’re a real estate professional, you’re looking at a perfectly created, dead-accurate HUD-1 settlement statement.

Or maybe it’s the end of the month, you’ve completed your trust accounting, and reconciled each client ledger.

And so forth.

Now stop admiring for a moment. What’s the first thing you have to do?

That’s right: back up your data. No excuses.

If your software goes awry, we are there to help with our live tech support. We can always fix it—and if we can’t, we can replace it.

The same goes for your hardware: your PC, tablet computer, printer, or Smartphone. You’ve got the manufacturer, cell phone service provider, and other IT support personnel to help with these things.

But even we at Easy Soft cannot re-create lost data. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Make regular backup copies of your database/files and store them at a remote location, on an external hard drive, or in a data cloud (look it up: it’s the newest, hottest thing in IT).

For trust accounts, also maintain a hard copy of each client ledger on a monthly basis.

For family law software, backup your worksheets. Ditto for your real estate practice.

To learn more about our software for law firms, call 800-905-7638. We promise you’ll get a real person on the line who can answer all of your questions

Posted by Rick Kabra on July 14, 2011 in Legal Software | Comments Off
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New Jersey’s Bestselling Child Support Software Gets 2011 Tax Changes

For New Jersey family law attorneys: we’ve made improvements to Case Information S tatement (CIS)!

Don’t worry: you still get accurate child support calculations and worksheets (for both sole or shared parenting situations), fully customizable forms, and guidelines.

You’re still entitled to download a companion mobile app for your Smartphones and tablet computers—for free.

Our latest change? We’re unveiling CIS 2.2 with 2011 tax changes .

What this means:

•  You get a new updated combined tax table

•  The updated worksheets reflect major social security tax withholding (FICA) changes

•  We’ve made updates to the Self-Support Reserve/Poverty Guideline Amounts

•  We’ve made updates to the Shared-Parenting Primary Household Net Income Thresholds

•  We’ve incorporated all federal Circular-E changes

Caution! Almost all the support amounts are expected to go higher. 2011 tax changes 2% reduction in FICA which results into lower taxes, higher net income and thus higher support amounts.

Easy Soft’s New Jersey CIS software is used throughout the state by more than 1500 law firms, state agencies (such as legal services), law schools and paralegal programs. It’s so popular that it’s become synonymous with family law—and we intend to keep it that way.

New Jersey family law attorneys choose CIS because they get all the tools they need to prepare child support worksheets and Case Information Statements in record time and in accordance with New Jersey Guidelines —all in one package.

And now, you can rest assured that all 2011 federal and state tax changes are incorporated and reflected in the program.

Easy? You bet.

To learn more about our family law software, call 800-905-7638. We promise you’ll get a real person on the line who can answer all of your questions.

Posted by Rick Kabra on July 13, 2011 in New Jersey Family Law | Comments Off
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