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Resources to Help You Survive – and Thrive – During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Posted on | by Ruby Watt | Leave a Comment on Resources to Help You Survive – and Thrive – During the COVID-19 Pandemic
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As the COVID-19 pandemic deepens its hold across the country, governments and industry leaders are stepping up to help those impacted. To help you make sense of the barrage of information out there, we’ve put together a summary of helpful resources. We will be updating our COVID-19 Resources page regularly, so feel free to bookmark it.

The latest news – Federal Stimulus

On March 27, 2020 the CARES Act was signed into law. This wide-reaching stimulus package is aiming to help families and businesses impacted by the coronavirus. Here’s what’s in that package:

Stimulus payments for individuals and families

Every U.S resident with adjusted gross income under $75,000* who is not the dependent of another and who has a Social Security number that allows them to work will receive a payment of $1,200. Married couples filing jointly will receive $2,400. Families with children under the age of 17 can receive an additional $500 per child.

The exact amount of the payment depends on certain details.

Help for small businesses

The CARES Act has many helpful provisions for small businesses, which the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship details in this helpful guide. Here’s an overview of the most important provisions:

Loans for small businesses

The CARES Act also expanded eligibility requirements for disaster relief loans from the SBA to make it easier for small businesses to access the funds they need to stay afloat. There are some new provisions which we’ve detailed here.

Emergency cash grants of $10,000

Another resource available through the SBA is cash grants of up to $10,000. These do not have to be repaid if the funds are spent on paid leave, maintaining payroll, costs of supply chain disruption or repaying lease, mortgage or other debt.

Paycheck Protection Program

The SBA is also working with a network of 1,800 local lenders who will extend funds to businesses with fewer than 500 employees. A portion of the loan proceeds can be forgiven for certain reasons.

Debt relief for SBA loans

Business owners who take out non-disaster loans from the SBA can have all principal, interest and fees paid by the SBA for six months. This includes 7(a), 504 and microloans, and includes new loans taken out within six months of the date the law was signed.

Payroll tax credit for wages paid

Employers can receive a refundable payroll tax credit for 50% of wages paid to certain employees. This is available to employers whose operations have been fully or partially suspended as a result of a government order or to employers who have experienced more than a 50% decrease in quarterly receipts compared to the previous year. Eligibility criteria is detailed here.

Payroll tax payments may be deferred

Employer portions of Medicare and Social Security taxes for 2020 may be deferred. All deferred amounts are due in two installments, one at the end of 2021 and one at the end of 2021.

There are also some state and other financial support options for small businesses which we have researched and summarized for you here.

Please get in touch if you have any questions.

All the best

FTSBlog

What The CARES Act Means for You

Posted on | by Ruby Watt | Leave a Comment on What The CARES Act Means for You
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Help for small businesses

The CARES Act has many helpful provisions for small businesses, which the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship details in this helpful guide. Here’s an overview of the most important provisions:

Loans for small businesses

The CARES Act also expanded eligibility requirements for disaster relief loans from the SBA to make it easier for small businesses to access the funds they need to stay afloat. These new provisions include:

  • Loans can be approved based on the applicant’s credit score. No prior year tax returns are needed, and a previous bankruptcy won’t disqualify an applicant.
  • Loans smaller than $200,000 don’t require real estate as collateral or a personal guarantee.
  • Sole proprietors, independent contractors, tribal businesses, cooperatives and not-for-profit organizations are also eligible.

Emergency cash grants of $10,000

Another resource available through the SBA is cash grants of up to $10,000. These do not have to be repaid if the funds are spent on paid leave, maintaining payroll, costs of supply chain disruption or repaying lease, mortgage or other debt.

Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)

The SBA is also working with a network of 1,800 local lenders who will extend funds to businesses with fewer than 500 employees. A portion of the loan proceeds can be forgiven if:

  • Employers keep the same average number of employees on payroll for at least eight weeks.
  • Employers do not cut pay by more than 25% for employees making less than $100,000 per year.
  • Proceeds can be used for payroll, rent, utilities or health insurance premiums.

This program is also available for sole proprietors, independent contractors or other self-employed persons up to the amount of their lost income from self-employment. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has a comprehensive guide to this program, which will be expanded as further details emerge.

Debt relief for SBA loans

Business owners who take out non-disaster loans from the SBA can have all principal, interest and fees paid by the SBA for six months. This includes 7(a), 504 and microloans, and includes new loans taken out within six months of the date the law was signed.

Payroll tax credit for wages paid

Employers can receive a refundable payroll tax credit for 50% of wages paid to certain employees. This is available to employers whose operations have been fully or partially suspended as a result of a government order or to employers who have experienced more than a 50% decrease in quarterly receipts compared to the previous year. Eligible wages include those of employees who have been furloughed or had their hours reduced. All wages for employers with fewer than 100 employees are eligible, regardless of any reduction to hours. This credit is available for the first $10,000 in wages and compensation paid to eligible employees.

Payroll tax payments may be deferred

Employer portions of Medicare and Social Security taxes for 2020 may be deferred. All deferred amounts are due in two installments, one at the end of 2021 and one at the end of 2021.

This also applies to half of self-employment taxes paid by sole proprietors and other self-employed individuals.

There is a lot to work through here but please get in touch with us if you have a question.

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Is Your Firm Losing Out on $38,220 Per Lawyer Per Year in Profitability?

Posted on | by Ruby Watt | Leave a Comment on Is Your Firm Losing Out on $38,220 Per Lawyer Per Year in Profitability?

The simple, yet scary answer is yes.  And there’s a good chance that you don’t even know about it.  According to the 2018 Report on the State of the Legal Market by Thomson Reuters, “the current level of billable worked hours per month is some 13 total hours below the level at the beginning of 2007 (just before the onset of the Great Recession). That represents a total of 156 billable worked hours per year.”

Simply stated, lawyers are billing an average of 156 work hours less than a decade ago.  If you take the average billing work hours missed and multiply it by the average hourly amount billed ($245 average), then you’ll see that it’s costing firms $38,220 per lawyer per year in profitability.

Some firms are operating with a false sense of things going well, yet they are missing out on profits that could make the firm go from surviving to thriving.  To see if this applies to your firm, simply multiply the number of attorneys in your firm by $38,200.  This represents the potential that you may be missing out on.  Is this a significant amount that could help boost the bottom line?

If so, then understanding your utilization ratio on both an office level and billable employee level is crucial.  The utilization ratio is the difference between the number of hours an employee works vs the number of billable hours that employee produces.  

The problem is having that knowledge readily at hand so that your firm can make decisions to positively impact utilization and drive profitability. firmTRAK was designed to solve this problem (and many more). 

Our Productivity Panel outlines hours worked versus hours billed versus hours collected on an office and per employee level. From this, you can determine the profitability of each employee’s time. 

Here’s a video overview of this feature: 

firmTRAK will sit on top of your current practice management system to automate reporting and analysis of key performance indicators that will help drive the success and growth of your law firm.  No more spreadsheets to analyze using a team of people.  The information is instantly configured and available at your fingertips.  Matters are tracked according to the time and overall activity. 

Attorneys can work from remote locations and firmTRAK will be able to make sure that the time spent working remotely is effectively tracked and recorded.

You went to law school to follow your passion for helping people with their legal needs, not to become a business analyst.  That’s where we come in.

We are so confident that firmTRAK can help your firm, that we are offering you a FREE 7-day trial of our program. Please click here to register for your FREE 7-day trial today.

We’ve Come Full Circle

Posted on | by Ruby Watt | Leave a Comment on We’ve Come Full Circle

A year ago we were at the ABA Techshow in Chicago with an idea and a dream.  Thanks to your votes, we are headed back as a finalist presenting our idea of becoming a worldwide leader in law firm reporting.  Our main goal is to see law firms succeed beyond their wildest dreams and we thank you for helping us spread the word. 

If you will be at the ABA Techshow in Chicago from February 26-29, 2020, please stop by and see us so that we can thank you for your support in person.  

https://www.lawsitesblog.com/2019/12/announcing-the-winners-of-the-2020-aba-techshow-startup-alley-competition.html
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Do More Than Just Dream About Profitability

Posted on | by Ruby Watt | Leave a Comment on Do More Than Just Dream About Profitability

Let’s Talk Profitability

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Occupational Outlook Handbook, the median salary of an attorney for 2018 was $120,918.  This breaks down to a median of $58.13 per hour.  The median salary for 2017 was $119,250.  This breaks down to a median of $57.33 per hour. 

As costs grow year over year, it’s vital for law firms to make sure that the $58.13 spent per hour is returned back at a profit to the firm.  More and more firms are realizing that it’s important to lean out cost structures.  That can be a good thing, but too much trimming can do more harm than good. 

It’s more important to figure out what and who drives money into your firm.  With firmTRAK, you are able to not only track revenues and money collected by matter type and area of practice, but also overall productivity by employee. 

We typically expect 8 hours of work per day for an employee and it’s important to make them count.  If a typical employee works 40 hours per week, do you know the true profitability of that employee?

Our Productivity Panel outlines hours worked versus hours billed versus hours collected on an office and per employee level. From this, you can determine profitability of each employee’s time. 

Click here for a video overview of this feature: 

firmTRAK was designed to solve these problems (and many more). 

firmTRAK will sit on top of your current practice management system to automate reporting and analysis of key performance indicators that will help drive the success and growth of your law firm.  No more spreadsheets to analyze using a team of people.  The information is instantly configured and available at your fingertips.  Matters are tracked according to the time and overall activity. 

Attorneys can work from remote locations and firmTRAK will be able to make sure that the time spent working remotely is effectively tracked and recorded.

You went to law school to follow your passion for helping people with their legal needs, not to become a business analyst.  That’s where we come in.

We are so confident that firmTRAK can help your firm, that we are offering you a FREE 7-day trial of our program. Please click here to register for your FREE 7-day trial today.

December 2019 blog photo

Struggling to Determine Which Matters, Matter?

Posted on | by Ruby Watt | Leave a Comment on Struggling to Determine Which Matters, Matter?

Introducing the firmTRAK Productivity Panel on Profitability

A study by CBI Insights stated that 42% of businesses fail due to a lack of market.  Similarly, many law firms start down a path of low profitability due to not being able to see what markets represent the largest number of matters.  On the flipside, many firms start down a path of low profitability due to concentrating resources on handling a large number of matters that actually end up having a low profit margin.  How can a firm properly figure out what is profitable vs what will produce a sufficient number of matters/cases?

Truly, profitability can be a tricky concept.  Depending upon the day, your firm can look like the doors are about to close or that you can buy your own island the next day.  The majority of data reporting sticks to comparing revenue with expenses.  Subtract your expenses from your revenue and your job is done.

Or is it?

firmTRAK has the unique ability to automatically run your revenue vs your expenses vs your actual collections over a given time period.  The only way to truly track your profitability is to track it over a given time period. 

It gets even better than that – with firmTRAK, you can see the following, automatically:

  1. Top 10 area of practice by invoice
  2. Top 10 area of practice by outstanding dues
  3. Top 10 area of practice by gross profit margin
  4. Invoice trend by month over the past year
  5. Expense trend by month over the past year
  6. Collection trend by month over the past year

Once you figure out your trends, you can figure out what areas of your business to concentrate on improving.  Knowledge is power and, quite often, the power to save you time and money. 

All of these reports are done for you automatically when you are synced.  No reports to run.  No queries to try to figure out.  Simply see the power of firmTRAK at your fingertips.

Here’s more on the power that firmTRAK gives your business:

firmTRAK was designed to solve these problems (and many more). 

firmTRAK will sit on top of your current practice management system to automate reporting and analysis of key performance indicators that will help drive the success and growth of your law firm.  No more spreadsheets to analyze using a team of people.  The information is instantly configured and available at your fingertips.  Matters are tracked according to the time and overall activity. 

Attorneys can work from remote locations and firmTRAK will be able to make sure that the time spent working remotely is effectively tracked and recorded.

You went to law school to follow your passion for helping people with their legal needs, not to become a business analyst.  That’s where we come in.

We are so confident that firmTRAK can help your firm, that we are offering you a FREE 7-day trial of our program. Please click here to register for your FREE 7-day trial today.

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Is Your Work Working?

Posted on | by Ruby Watt | Leave a Comment on Is Your Work Working?

Each person has 24 hours in a day. What you do with those 24 hours can determine the success or failure of your firm.

Actually, that’s not true. It’s what you bill for those hours that can determine the success or failure of your firm.

Actually, that’s not entirely true either. The truth is that what you are able to collect for the hours you worked relative to the hours you billed will determine the success or failure of your firm.

That’s why we designed firmTRAK. firmTRAK makes this really simple. Check out this video on how firmTRAK automatically tracks Utilization, Realization and Collection in an easy to read format:

Once you sync your data with firmTRAK, you can instantly see your profitability and start to implement solutions to problems that may exist that you didn’t realize were issues.

In order to unleash this automated potential with your business, you must first sync firmTRAK with your current law practice software. It’s vital that you follow these simple directions to get firmTRAK up and running for you.

  1. Log in to your firmTRAK account
  2. Go to settings -> Integration
  3. Click Connect and Authorize
  4. Click Sync

Once you’re synced up, you can see the automated process work for you and you can join other law firms that are able to instantly see potential problem areas.

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Are you one client away from closing?

Posted on | by Ruby Watt | Leave a Comment on Are you one client away from closing?

As trends indicate, 2019 was the year to really focus on a customer service oriented firm.  With the abundance of attorneys competing for cases and the advent of more competition from online attorney referral services, it’s more important than ever to keep your clients informed of the status of their case in a timely manner (aside from the potential of a malpractice lawsuit).

Let’s look at the data that supports this:  one of the top complaints regarding attorneys in 2019 is failure to communicate.  This can manifest itself when you are slow to return calls, slow to return emails, or start to let a case go into an extended period of inaction.

Could this be costing you 9-15 new clients each month?

If clients are continually experiencing delays in hearing back from you or delays in getting satisfactory results in cases, they will often tell many other people.  Contemporary data shows that a dissatisfied client will tell 9-15 people, on average, about their experience.  Additionally, 13% of those surveyed said they told an average of 20 people about a bad experience.

Understanding the status of all your matters is crucial. At best, a lost matter leads to an unhappy customer. At worst, a malpractice claim. 

Richard Marvel, CEO of firmTRAK

If you are based in a small town, one or two cases like this can close a firm.  In bigger cities, law firms will start to notice a dramatic drop off in new cases.  In both scenarios, it’s only a matter of time before the firm implodes.

firmTRAK was designed to solve these problems (and many more). 

firmTRAK will sit on top of your current practice management system to automate reporting and analysis of key performance indicators that will help drive the success and growth of your law firm.  No more spreadsheets to analyze using a team of people.  The information is instantly configured and available at your fingertips.  Matters are tracked according to the time and overall activity. 

Attorneys can work from remote locations and firmTRAK will be able to make sure that the time spent working remotely is effectively tracked and recorded.

You went to law school to follow your passion for helping people with their legal needs, not to become a business analyst.  That’s where we come in.

To see how simple it is for us to help your law firm, please check out this short video:  https://youtu.be/pz_5kpUZ2PY

We are so confident that firmTRAK can help your firm, that we are offering you a FREE 7-day trial of our program. Please click here to register for your FREE 7-day trial today.

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Are you inviting a malpractice claim?

Posted on | by Ruby Watt | Leave a Comment on Are you inviting a malpractice claim?

 

One of the most common grounds for a malpractice lawsuit against an attorney is in regard to negligence.  Negligence can commonly be grouped into two categories:  The attorney ignores the client and his or her case for extended periods of time or a case is dismissed because the attorney failed to meet crucial deadlines.    

The bottom line is that your client expects you to approach the case with due diligence.  This means that you must work promptly and diligently on a case until it reaches completion.  Failure to do so violates your duty to the client and opens you and your firm up to a malpractice case.

Understanding the status of all your matters is crucial. At best, a lost matter leads to an unhappy customer. At worst, a malpractice claim. 

Richard Marvel, CEO of firmTRAK

We realize that attorneys are tasked with an ever-growing list of things to keep track of.  Some firms rely upon spreadsheets and paper tracking to make sure that cases are being recorded properly.  Others rely upon the old fashioned system of appointment logs.  Let’s just be honest that the paper system can be useful when you are in that office at that time and when you are sure that the person tracking it is entering all changes to a case in sync with the work others are doing.

It’s incredibly complex to keep this in line, but it doesn’t have to be.

firmTRAK was designed to solve these problems (and many more). 

firmTRAK will sit on top of your current practice management system to automate reporting and analysis of key performance indicators that will help drive the success and growth of your law firm.  No more spreadsheets to analyze using a team of people.  The information is instantly configured and available at your fingertips.  Matters are tracked according to time and overall activity. 

Attorneys can work from remote locations and firmTRAK will be able to make sure that the time spent working remotely is effectively tracked and recorded.

You went to law school to follow your passion for helping people with their legal needs, not to become a business analyst.  That’s where we come in.

To see how simple it is for us to help your law firm, please check out this short video: 

We are so confident that firmTRAK can help your firm, that we are offering you a FREE 7-day trial of our program. Please click here to register for your FREE 7-day trial today.