The cost of time - does time recording still have a role to play?

Whether you are buying legal accounts software or a full-blown practice management system, one facility you will inevitably see offered by your supplier (either as an integral part or an optional extra) is time recording.

Typically, this will give you the option both to record time on paper timesheets for subsequent posting into the computerised accounts ledgers, and to record time on-screen as and when items of work are undertaken on behalf of clients.

On-screen time recording will itself usually be available in two formats - as a digital representation of a conventional timesheet and in the form of an on-screen timer, that works on broadly the same principles as a chess clock.

Such systems will automatically start recording when you click on a client matter number and automatically stop when you click on another matter.

On-screen timers can also be set up to record time by units, with different charge rates for different matter types and clients.

The underlying concept behind all of them is that, thanks to their speed and ease of use, fee earners should be able to capture each and every piece of work they do.

This is in contrast to the situation prevailing in many firms where time still goes unrecorded because busy fee earners have not kept accurate records or else have forgotten some of the telephone calls they may have taken in the course of a hectic week.

However, despite plenty of evidence to suggest that by just capturing a few units of previously unrecorded time during the course of each fee earner's week, a time-recording system can soon pay for itself, there are still firms that do not use computerised time recording, either because they think it inappropriate or because they work primarily on a fixed-fee basis.

This may be a valid point of view, but it does overlook the broader management issues associated with time recording, namely that it provides a valuable control mechanism to help a firm assess such things as profitability and fee earner productivity.

For example, if you are quoting a fixed fee for a particular matter that assumes a fee earner will complete the project in five hours or less, you need to be certain that the average time taken to do this kind of work really is less than five hours.

What you do not want to discover is that it actually takes seven hours and so wipes out any profit margin for the firm.

Similarly, on long-running matters, there is a danger of clocking up huge amounts of work in progress that may subsequently have to be written off because it has gone over budget and exceeds the estimates quoted to the client.

Finally, by keeping track of the time recorded, firms have a credit control mechanism to ensure the amount of unbilled work in progress does not dramatically exceed funds available in the client account or as yet unpaid invoices.

Or, to put it another way, just because you do not bill your clients exclusively on the basis of recorded time, time recording software can still provide your firm with a valuable management tool.

Charles Christian is an independent adviser to the Law Society's software solutions guide