Time and billing software is a generic term for the type of software used by professional services companies.
A professional services company performs “desk-based” work, such as law firms, accounting firms, marketing firms, etc.
Software in this category has three critical features; the ability to track time, and the ability to bill hours,
and the facility to categorize both on a project by project basis. There are a variety of vendors out there that sell time and
billing software of this generic nature. To compensate for the fact that they don’t specialize, these software packages will
often include other bells and whistles, such as scheduling, document management, and a variety of time tracking widgets.
Many of these software systems include an accounts receivable module or have a way to integrate with standard accounting
packages like QuickBooks.
EnterYourHours.com was originally designed as a generic time and billing software system,
and includes the core features described above, as well as a built-in accounts receivable module,
and automatic integration to QuickBooks.
If EnterYourHours.com was originally designed as time and billing software, it evolved to have features more typical of
legal billing software. Our customer base grew to include a high percentage of law firms, so naturally we added
features for the legal billing community. Some of the standard features for legal billing software include trust
accounting and reporting, retainer management, large bill batching, and robust invoicing features.
Some very large firms will choose to license a full legal practice management solution. These software
packages do more than the billing, and always include document management, case scheduling, and connections to
legal research systems. Time Matters
is a good example of a legal practice management solution.
Medical Billing Software
Generally speaking, medical billing software doesn’t include hourly-based time management, but rather derives the billing amounts
from specific medical billing codes, also known as CPT (Current Procedural Terminology) Codes. The software will
use one or more available price schedules to price out each CPT code that a member of the doctor’s office or hospital performs.
Often these bills are adjusted when the doctor or hospital submits them to an insurance company for payment.
Each CPT code will be approved, denied, or downgraded, and then the bill will be re-priced based on the insurance company’s fee schedule.
While EnterYourHours.com does have Quicklists which is a way to bill from a list of fixed-price items,
our billing software is mostly geared toward companies that bill by the hour.
Inventory Based Billing Software
This type of software covers a wide range of company types. Retail companies, manufacturers, and wholesalers make their money
by selling inventory. Therefore, all the billing generated by their software is keyed from the pricing of inventory items.
In some cases the inventory item will have a specific price, and in others it will have various pricing or the system will base the
price on a markup amount. Other times the system will base the price on a markup amount above the item’s cost.
Unlike EnterYourHours.com, inventory based billing software doesn’t always require a unique customer record for every
purchase. Often the software system will auto-generate a unique customer record, but that record will not necessarily be referenced
the next time the customer makes a purchase.
Recurring Fees Billing Software
Companies that offer a standard monthly service, like home maintenance companies or IT services firms, need to bill the same item
for the same customer every billing period. There isn’t a large prevalence of software that services just this niche, but most
time and billing software systems have a module for recurring fees. Name-brand accounting software systems like QuickBooks are also a
good option if most of your billing comes from recurring fees. EnterYourHours.com, as well as many of our competitors, has a
recurring fees module.
A larger company in these industries will often use a 3rd-party billing service such as
Braintree so they don’t need to generate or send the invoices.
The billing service handles it for them.