As a consultant or entrepreneur, you probably now invoice for services and don’t need help preparing invoices to send to clients. If you need a new or more efficient method, QuickBooks is useful software that can manage your finances and prepare invoices for clients. It also keeps track of how much money individual clients owe you for legal services.
Clients frequently write checks to attorneys for their services, and their bill payments then come from clients’ accounts at the law firm. In these cases, the lawyer or his law firm will pay your bills when you file them. sometimes customers will pay their bills directly. Either way, though, take the time to document your work and prepare invoices for submission. So that everyone is aware of your progress, it is best to send a copy of your invoice to both the client and the attorney. As your work progresses, keep records of what you do, the dates you do it, how much time you spend, who you have met and talked to. These records will help you prepare your invoices.
You should always provide minimal details on an invoice and it should never contain sensitive data. For example, you should not include details of private conversations. You can write that you talked or met with a person, read something, or took a series of tests. Put dates and a brief summary but no more details on the invoice. Submit your invoices regularly, based on the amount of work or time you put in.
Keep track of your time and expenses in your file folder. Assign one or more lines each day you work the case. Write down the date and time it happened and what you did. If you have different billing rates for different activities, please track those activities separately.
You should keep a record of every phone call from the lawyer about the case. When you receive a call from a lawyer, write down the time the call started, the date, and the time the call ended. You should include these phone conversations as part of your regular billing, but again, don’t write any sensitive information in your notes or on the bill.
Also, keep track of any out-of-pocket expenses you might be getting paid for, too. This includes copying, binding or printing. It also includes third-party services for graphics and display preparation, shipping and travel expenses for hotels, food, taxis and rental cars.
You can take the approach that you get so high a salary for your time as an expert that charging for petty expenses is negligible. That’s reasonable, but he’ll still have additional, non-trivial expenses and will need to charge for them.
There is one final note about charging for anything, trivial or not. Once you have established yourself as an expert witness, you may sometimes be asked to offer your services at no cost (‘pro bono’ work) or at reduced rates. This usually only happens after you have established a reputation. People who cannot otherwise afford an expert witness may approach you for help and hope to get your help at no cost. At other times, foundations or charities may ask you to offer your services at reduced rates because of the good works they do. In both cases, you have the opportunity to do a wonderful piece of work at a nominal cost to yourself, in addition to the time you could spend doing it. Let your morals and ethics, and hopefully a willingness to contribute to the community, be your guide. However, as an added benefit, all of these cases add to the overall experience you can claim and may influence future case work as well.