PowerLegal is an integrated suite of financial applications designed specifically for law firms with five or more lawyers. The PowerLegal Systems are built on a foundation of traditional billing and accounting practices for the legal profession. In addition, they include demanding new features such as task-based billing and dual accrual/cash basis accounting. The PowerLegal Systems have been developed as true client/server applications permitting large volumes of data to be processed using economical, networked personal computers. The best ideas in professional firm management have been combined with the latest technology in computer software to provide exciting new systems for the legal administrator.
The Family of PowerLegal Systems
The integrated suite of PowerLegal Financial Management Systems includes three related applications:
- Time and Billing with Trust Accounting
- Accounts Payable and Check Writing
- General Ledger and Financial Reporting
Since the Time and Billing System is the core application, it can be licensed without the other systems. However, when all three applications are installed together, they provide a single, integrated system which shares a common set of data. The database resides on a server computer where it is managed by a powerful database management system. Each user’s personal computer requires only the applications which that user will need.
The integration of the three PowerLegal Systems eliminates the need to manually enter the same transactions in two or more systems. The Time and Billing System creates revenue transactions for the General Ledger System. The Accounts Payable System creates client expense transactions for the Time and Billing System as well as expense and cash disbursement transactions for the General Ledger System. While viewing a transaction in the General Ledger System, the user can drill down to the underlying data in either of the other applications. The PowerLegal Financial Management System provides three integrated applications sharing one common database.
Firm Organizational Structure
The PowerLegal System is designed to model the organizational structure of most law firms. A firm table contains data and options for the entire firm and default values for new clients. Any number of offices can be established with employees, clients and matters assigned to individual offices for reporting purposes. Each office can be separated into departments to classify revenues and expenses for financial reporting.
Account Coding Structure
The general ledger account coding structure in the PowerLegal System is flexible enough to accommodate most existing account numbering systems. Both alphabetic and numeric characters can be used in any of the coding fields.
- Office numbers can include up to five characters.
- Department numbers can include up to five characters.
- Account numbers can include up to ten characters.
Office, department and account numbers are user defined. If desired, the account number can include separate components such as major and sub accounts.
Accounting Basis
The PowerLegal Financial Management System offers three options for the firm’s accounting basis:
- Cash basis which records revenue when payments are received and records expenses when vendors’ invoices are paid. This has traditionally been the most popular accounting method for law firms.
- Accrual basis which records revenue when clients are invoiced and records expenses when vendors’ invoices are entered.
- Dual basis which provides both the accrual and cash basis by creating multiple transactions for the general ledger. Separate accounts are used for accrual and cash transactions with the exception of those accounts used by both accounting methods, such as the cash accounts. Accounting and financial reports can be printed for either the accrual or cash basis.
Accounting Years and Periods
The accounting year in the PowerLegal Financial Management System consists of twelve monthly accounting periods beginning with any selected month.
- General ledger transactions can be recorded in any open accounting period.
- Multiple accounting periods and years can be open simultaneously. Even future periods can be open to accept general ledger transactions prepared in advance.
- Accounting periods can be closed to prevent entering and posting new transactions.
- Closed periods in the current and prior years can be reopened whenever necessary.
- Reports can be printed for any period including prior years.
- Strict security is provided in the PowerLegal System to control these features.
Time and Billing System
The PowerLegal Time and Billing System includes time and expense entry, billing, accounts receivable and trust accounting in a single, integrated system with the following features.
- Client and matter records
- Employee records
- Time and expense entry
- Transaction conversion from cost recovery systems
- Work-in-process write-ups and write-downs
- Prebilling worksheets, draft bills and billing invoices
- Service taxes
- Electronic billing
- Payment processing
- Finance charges
- Accounts receivable adjustments
- Monthly statements
- Accounts receivable reports
- Trust accounting and reporting
- Computer-printed trust checks
- Annual 1099 forms for trust recipients
- Revenue and profitability analysis
- Client and matter listings
- Client mailing labels
- Interactive inquiry
- Conflict and date searches
- General ledger interface
Accounts Payable System
The PowerLegal Accounts Payable System is designed to manage the firm’s cash disbursement function with the following features.
- Vendor records
- Invoice entry
- Interface to the Time and Billing System for client expense billing
- Recurring invoices
- Cash requirement reporting
- Check writing
- Multiple bank accounts
- Bank account reconciliation
- Interactive inquiry
- Vendor payment history
- Accounts payable reporting
- Use tax reporting
- Annual 1099 forms
- General ledger interface
General Ledger System
The PowerLegal General Ledger System performs all of the general ledger accounting and financial reporting for the firm. The integrated financial report writer is especially significant since it enables you to prepare virtually any type of financial or budget report. Features of the General Ledger System include:
- Journal entry processing
- Recurring and reversing journal entries
- General ledger processing with posting and reverse posting
- Interactive inquiry with drill down to originating transactions
- Journals, ledgers and trial balances
- Budget maintenance and reporting
- Financial report writer
- Departmental accounting and reporting
- Graphs of general ledger and budget amounts
- Exporting to spreadsheets for further analysis
Security
Security is an important feature of the PowerLegal System since a common database is shared by all of the applications. To gain access to the database, each user must enter a name and a password. Once the user has logged into the database, functional security built into each application controls the user’s rights. For example, a user authorized to perform certain functions in the Time and Billing System may have no rights to the Accounts Payable and General Ledger Systems.
Security rights apply to each menu option as well as to entering, changing and deleting data. These security rights can be assigned to security groups or directly to individual users. By assigning security rights to groups, the system administrator can easily control the rights of an entire group of users. New users are merely assigned to the appropriate security groups and receive the group rights. Additional rights can be assigned individually to any user when required.
Programming Language
The PowerLegal System has been developed using PowerBuilder from Sybase/Powersoft Corporation. PowerBuilder is one of the leading development tools for building client/server applications. The PowerLegal System is delivered with both the source and executable code. Access to the source code protects your investment in the software. If desired, your firm can use its internal technical staff or outside consultants to modify the system. The PowerLegal System is updated regularly with new features. So you may never use your copy of the source code. But it is nice to know you have the option.
Software Support
The PowerLegal Systems include both on-line help as well as published user’s manuals. An annual software support plan is available to provide all published software updates and toll-free telephone support for questions which might arise.