How to Simplify Your Fee Allocation Reports

A fee allocation report provides a detailed view of the time and expenses that have been billed and collected at the matter level. In addition to informing fee allocation, fee allocation reports can form the basis of a firm’s bonus structure for attorneys.

Without analytics, allocating fees accurately and quickly is a big job. But even If you use a reputable LMS like Clio, you may need extra help with fee allocation. Clio’s fee allocation reports “provide an easy look at work done by multiple lawyers on the same matter. They let you see who billed what on a given matter, as a percentage of all work done, and how the fee should be allocated for different attorneys, without having to do any manual calculations or cross-referencing. You can filter report results by billed time or billed time collected upon.” (Source)

Clio’s fee allocation reports are available only to Elite subscribers (Source), so some firms will need additional support with fee allocation. But even Elite subscribers may wish to streamline this report.

Fortunately, there’s an easy way to do that! LawKPIs’s fee allocation report integrates with data from QuickBooks, Clio and many other LMS providers to make it easier to get the metrics for this vital function.

Zero In On Specific Time Periods

Our fee allocation report best answers the question “What did we bill last month?” relative to what was collected. Fee allocation is set per invoice and automatically calculates based on the rules you’ve set globally and per matter. (Source) The best news? LawKPIs allows you to set different percentages for different attorneys for every matter. Expenses are always paid first and then the amount is allocated based on the percentages specified.

In one report, you’ll be able to immediately see the sum of: 

• Billed flat fees

• Total hours billed 

• Total billed time entries

• Total expenses for the entire case (no matter who entered the expenses)

• Total fees collected based on the percentage of work completed

• Write offs, credit notes and partial payments

How Fee Allocation Reports Work

Billed hours refers to the number of hours a user is responsible for on specific invoices. In just one click on your dashboard, you can access your fee allocation report and set your date range. Your billed entries within that date range appear, with discounts automatically calculated into the listed items. Discounts can be either invoice-wide or line-item adjustments. So, the collected hours and collection time columns will reflect the collected amount after the discount has been applied. The distribution of the discount will be determined by the individual bills. Note that billed entries do not include requested funds or overpayments. If an invoice is only partially paid, the payment will be equally distributed between all time entries and expenses.

Billed time differs from billed hours in that it refers to the dollar value of the time entries a user is responsible for on specific invoices. For example, if a user has billed ten hours at $100/h, $1,000, plus any taxes applied to the invoice, will be displayed.

Collected amounts include refunds and discounts. They populate according to the date payment was made. Collected amounts are split evenly among individuals associated with a matter based on the percentage of each one’s billed amounts for that matter. 

Service allocation refers to the percentage of billed time on an invoice that a user is responsible for. Let’s say Attorney A bills $4,000 and $3,000 of this is for time entries and $1,000 for expenses. Attorney B bills $2000, with $1,000 of that for expenses. Attorney A’s service allocation ratio will be 66.67% and Attorney B’s will be 33.33%. 

Drill Into Firm or Individual Details

At any point, you can toggle between viewing data by individual or the firm. You can also opt to manipulate the data in your fee allocation report by sorting or removing certain columns or rows when generating a report in a CSV format. 

Here’s an example of an individual view. 

This report shows each amount based on the user to whom the flat fees or time entries are related to. In this example, a collected amount of $4730 appears as $3800.00 allocated to Alex Vaccaro and then the remaining $930.00 allocated to Alisha Sims-King. It’s like magic!

Two things to note: Any categories that aren’t associated with an individual staff member will be attributed to the firm. Also, fee allocation reports do not include forwarded balances during the selected time period.

Then What?

Whichever view you choose, any user with “Reports” permission can simply click the Run Report button and export the report to either PDF or .CSV files – or both! Nothing could be easier.

Take a Peek…and Take Back Your Time!

Check out our 4-minute video to see how clean and easy the LawKPIs Fee Allocation Report is. 

If you’re ready to take back your time, schedule a no-risk LawKPIs demo today.