Review of Bill4Time

By Moriya Beck

Bill4Time is an online solution that helps professional service firms run their business more effectively by combining time & expense tracking invoicing & payments, client & project management, and accounting capabilities in a single, easy to use system.

Although intended for any professional who works on projects for people and bills his/her time to client, Bill4Time also includes specific features to fit the needs of Accountants and Lawyers. It is designed to be simple but also offers customization features to suit larger, more complex projects.

Bill4Time provides all of the basic functionality needed to properly track time and expenses, manage clients and projects, assign tasks, create and send invoices, accept payment and integrates with Quickbooks.

Benefits of Bill4Time

During our 30 day free trial we identified a number of distinctive benefits that will help professional service firms make their day-to-day business operations easier.

• Intuitive user friendly interface
• Choice of Online, Desktop Widget and Mobile tool
• Industry specific features for Accounting and Law Firms
• Multiple time tracking options
• Conflict checker to ensure projects do not get duplicated.
• Option to subscribe multiple users to a specific project
• Create standard project types for when you have many clients with similar needs.
• Automatic and encrypted daily backups
• Tons of training videos and information sessions. Superior customer support.
• Volume pricing for large organizations and departments
• 30 day free trial

Key Features

The Bill4Time software solution highly robust, affordable and intuitive. Key Features include time tracking, billing and invoicing, mobile phone app, expense tracking, online access, customization, desktop widget, project management tool, client management, security and user access, accounting and reports.

Time Tracking:

As an accountant, accounting firm, attorney or legal organization, it is common to have multiple clients and projects going on simultaneously. Think tax season! Ten clients, thirty plus financial statements. Holy cow! It’s easy to lose precious billable time when your are in the “financial” zone and lacking the proper tools. The Bill4Time system was designed to make managing your daily work flow a snap. Track time quickly with the Bill4Time one time click timer entries. Tracking time to each client has never been easier!

Billing and Invoicing:

Bill4Time provides legal and accounting professionals the opportunity to charge hourly, via flat rate or upon contingencies. The tool allows users to see all payments, invoices and balance adjustments on a per project or per client basis.The system also provides multiple invoicing options such as email, print an mail. The tool offers users the opportunity to preset invoice settings with company logo and personal messages, choice of multiple design templates as well as various exporting options such as: PDF, Great American, Nationwide, Chubb, and etc.

Legal professionals will appreciate the specific features dedicated to the Legal Electronic Data Exchange (LEDES) and also find Bill4Time has features available for trust accounting. The system accepts electronic payments in the form of Paypal and Credit Cards and integrates with Quickbooks.

Project Management:

Whether you are a contractor, accounting firm or legal organization, the Bill4Time Project Management Tool allows the user to quickly create and customize projects specific to the task at hand. The system also allows the project manager to assign tasks to a specific user within an organization. Bill4Time also offers a 30 day risk free trial and is available without submitting a credit card. As an accountant or legal professional, there is no reason not to test drive this software solution.

A Legal professional should find the Bill4Time platform is easy to navigate especially since it was  designed with the ability to automatically implement American Bar Association (ABA) Task Codes, LEDES and Litigation Advisor export for invoices, Trust Accounting as well as an easy to use conflict management system.

Customization

The system is highly customizable. The Bill4Time “quick create” feature allows users to easily create projects using terminology specific to their industry.  For example, an accounting firm may create projects and assign tasks specifically associated to the accounting cycle, bank reconciliation, or income statements. Law Firms project types may include research, witness interviews, client meetings, jury selection, and case preparation. It allows users to easily create the categories important to the daily operations that require time tracking.

As you can see the Bill4Time Project Management Tool is easy to set up. Project Managers can assign projects to specific clients at an hourly rate, flat fee or contingency basis. The project manager can also invite specific people such as other project manager, accountants or clients to view the project. To help keep your projects organized, Bill4Time’s project management tools allow users to import files, track time and expenses, schedule meetings, manage payments and adjust billing rates on a per project basis.

Web Based/Desktop Widget/Mobile App

Bill4Time understands you are busy professionals and constantly on the go. Whether you are working in an office, at the clients office or from the court house, Bill4Time has you covered. The platform is available via 3 convenient ways: online, downloadable desktop widget and mobile application for Blackberry, Android and iPhone. Access your account from any computer in the world. Track time and expenses even when the internet is down. And don’t forget to track your lunch meetings!

While the mobile application is still in Beta, it works fairly well and allows you to easily track expenses, run activity timers, check client project details, and review account balances. Never lose precious, billable hours again.

Bill4Time Pricing

Bill4Time offers 3 pricing plans to fit the needs of small to medium sized organizations: Free, Lite & Pro.

Free: for contractors who manage 3 or less clients at one time and less than 5 projects at any given time. This option allows the user to save as many clients or projects as needed and allows the user to activate and deactivate as needed.

Lite: For less than $20 per month, the “Lite” package helps businesses manage up to 20 clients and 30 projects at any given time  for only $19.99 per month/per user with the option to add users for only $9.99 per month.

Pro: Organizations who manage hundreds of clients and projects will appreciate the Bill4Time “Pro” package for only $39.99 per month for 1 user and $19.99 per month per additional user. The company offers a “Volume Discount” for larger organizations or departments.

Since the Bill4Time system is charged on a per user per month basis, there are no long term contracts or cancellation fees. There are also no additional costs or hidden fees associated to tech support, back ups or online training modules. It’s all included!

Company Background

Bill4Time was founded in 2006 by parent company Broadway Billing Systems and is now a leading web-based time billing software solution serving professional service firms of all sizes. The system was created with the guidance of law and consulting firms to be simple to use, intuitive and efficient. By all accounts, the company values customer input and strives to provide a high quality and secure system. The platform has tracked over 2.2 Million hours, and been used to invoice for over $230 M dollars this year.

They report a 99.99% uptime and offer a free 30 day trial without a credit card. The company is well-established and offers various levels of customer support including weekly webinars, recorded training, YouTube training, phone, email and chat supported customer support.

Review Summary

It’s no surprise why so many professionals have chosen to trust the Bill4Time system.

Based on our review, we are happy to suggest Bill4TIme as a user friendly, reliable and reasonably priced option for professional service firms who need to track and bill their time & expenses against clients and projects. In particular, we believe lawyers and accountants will appreciate what it has to offer in terms of industry-specific understanding and features.

Visit the Bill4Time website

Get a free Trial of Bill4Time.

Moving to a new accounting system is a critical task! If you’re one of the potentially thousands of companies affected by this change, you’d be well-advised not to wait any longer. Accounting software is the backbone of your business systems, and it will take time to properly evaluate and select a replacement and manage the migration process. Make sure you factor in budget not just for the software itself, but also for any required consulting support in managing the setup and migration.

A good place to start is by looking at our accounting software directory – this will help you understand some of the options available. If you have  a budget of £3000 or more, then it’s worth considering our free Get A Shortlist service. We’ll talk to you about your requirements on the phone, and can match you up with a shortlist of 2-3 vendors that are well suited to your business needs. For smaller budgets, our review pack and online comparisons provides a good overview of suitable options.

If you’re in the market for a CRM solution, these reviews are a great place to start.The reviews span a wide range of CRM systems: well-known enterprise CRMs, open-source alternatives, innovative & low cost online CRM, and powerful mid-range solutions with both installed and software-as-a-service options.

And remember: when you’re ready to talk to relevant CRM vendors, talk to us first!  Our free Get a Shortlist service accelerates your decision process by matching you with 3 relevant vendors and introducing you to the right people.

List of CRM reviews

See below for an alphabetical list of links to each of our CRM reviews:

• AIMcrm review
• Appshore review
• Intalio review
• LeadMaster review
• Netsuite CRM+ review
• Oracle CRM On-Demand review
• PipelineDeals review
• Really Simple Systems CRM review
• Sage CRM review
• Salesboom review
• Salesforce.com review
• Soffront CRM review
• SugarCRM review
• WorkEtc review
• Zoho CRM review.

In service firms and project-based organizations, timesheets plays an increasingly important role in helping people manage and control their various accounts and projects. Timesheet software offers the perfect way to keep tabs on multiple projects by generating clear and useful reports used to track the time and work done on any particular project, and can also streamline the billing and accounting process.

Software Shortlist recently published a list of 13 features that its search data suggested were the top “must-haves” for prospective timesheet buyers.

Today, I’ll take a detailed look at the #1 most requested timesheet feature – using a weekly view to enter time.

Entering Time in a Weekly View

There is probably nothing more important to the usability of timesheet software than the way(s) in which people enter their time into the system. Many timesheet systems offer multiple time entry methods, as company needs vary with the nature of their work, plus users often have different (strongly held) views about which is best.

Common time entry options (and a few examples of what they look like) include:

1. Daily view: Enter time manually in a view that shows time entries for a single day against relevant projects or tasks, with space for explanatory comments
   

   e.g. Daily Time Entry View with Clicktime (www.clicktime.com)

2. Weekly view: Enter time manually in a grid-like format that shows an entire week at a glance, typically with projects or tasks as rows, and days on the top.
   

   e.g. Weekly Time Entry View with Replicon (www.replicon.com)

3. Stopwatch timer: Enter time by selecting a project or task and clicking “start” on a timer. When you have finished that work, you click “stop” and the time entry is automatically added to the system.
   

   e.g. Desktop timer widget from Harvest (www.getharvest.com)

Why does entering time in a weekly view matter?

To put it simply, the weekly view makes entering your timesheets about 7 times easier. It allows you, at a glance, to see across an entire week and easily enter time against your projects without constantly having to cycle through multiple pages on the daily view.

It is particularly well suited to people who have regular activities or projects that run across many weeks. You can enter time against one project for the Monday, and then simply tab across to Tuesday, and so on. With only a handful of keyboard strokes, you’ve completed your timesheet …without having to wait for new pages to load. And since the list of projects / tasks is typically carried across to the next week, you usually don’t need to set up the grid again each week but instead just start entering time.

And if you’re someone who never quite gets around to entering your time each day (or you have staff like this!), you’ll find that the weekly view can help jog your memory. You can mentally work your way through the week, comparing and contrasting days, and entering time quickly so you meet that weekly timesheet submission deadline. Not ideal, perhaps, but very much a real world scenario.

What are some drawbacks of weekly timesheet entry?

The grid format doesn’t allow you to easily see or enter detailed comments about how time was spent on a given day. Some timesheet systems provide hover-text or pop-up windows while others have fields below the grid for this purpose, but the simple reality is that the weekly view is not as well suited to providing detailed explanatory notes on how your time was spent as the daily timesheet view.

Whether this matters or not depends on the type of work you do and the expectations of whoever is approving your timesheet (e.g. boss or client). Some people prefer to enter the time in a weekly view first, and then go back and enter detailed notes on a daily view afterwards. Others prefer to enter time and notes simultaneously on a daily view.

The other key issue with a weekly view for time entry is about accuracy: it encourages you to enter time on a weekly basis and therefore your entries are only as good as your memory, and entries are often rounded to the nearest increment (e.g. 15 minutes or half an hour). This results in over- or under-billing, depending on the personality of your staff.

Timesheets are more accurate if time is captured closer to when it was spent, such as using a stopwatch or completing timesheets on a daily basis. A stopwatch allows you to capture exact increments of time at the instant they are worked, but may accidentally be left running or not started in the first place. Daily timesheets provide a good middle-ground, but require the discipline of setting aside some time each day to fill them in.

In Conclusion

The weekly view for entering timesheets is the single most popular “must have” feature requested by users of Software Shortlist’s timesheet comparison service. After reading this article, hopefully you now have a better understanding of the weekly timesheet method for entering time, why it is so popular, and the trade-offs involved in its use.

Why not join in the conversation and let us know which method you prefer for entering time on your timesheet system and why?

Stay tuned for more reviews of the other top “must-have” timesheet software features…

Some recent research on the marketing practices of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) indicates that email marketing is one of the top 3 marketing tactics they employ, and is set to grow strongly in 2011.

Of the 751 respondents to the survey (conducted by Zoomerang and GrowBiz Media) around 48% of business used email marketing in 2010. This places it equal third with print advertising, behind only direct mail and website in terms of widespread use.

Cost-effective marketing via email

With SMBs often operating on small marketing budgets (55% have less than $1k, a further 20% between $1k and $10k), it seems that the affordability and measurability of email marketing is hard to go past. In fact, 15% of businesses intend to increase their spend on email marketing in 2011, and only 3% intend to decrease it.

Software Shortlist’s own research into email service providers gives further evidence for its cost-effectiveness. In fact, the very best email marketing solutions for SMBs are among the most affordable, with the three products that were awarded 5 stars by our independent reviewers having an average cost of only $31 per month.

Reviews can be useful in understanding the pros and the cons of particular solutions, but remember it’s important you dig deeper and make a considered decision about which software is best for the specific requirements of your business.

Looking to get started with email marketing in 2011?

If you’re a small to mid-sized business looking to start email marketing in 2011 (or upgrade your existing email marketing efforts), there are many low cost yet powerful online email marketing solutions that can make it easy to get started. To get familiar with your *many* options,  see this email marketing software directory.

To narrow this long list of software down to a shortlist quickly, you may like to consider the following free options from Software Shortlist:

• Download our independent reviews of 20 email marketing solutions
• Submit your requirements and let us match you up with relevant providers
• Use our online comparison service (available via our homepage)

To ensure we are well placed to assist the next 28,000 (or 280,000!), we recently made some important  changes to our business model to give you free access to our unique and valuable information on software selection.

Why are we doing this?

Well, our original plan for Software Shortlist was to deliver independent information to small & mid-sized businesses (SMBs) looking for software, and to get paid by them directly for this service. So, we invested in creating unique, high quality resources such as our patent-pending online comparisons & independent review packs.

However, it became clear that many of you simply don’t have a budget for this sort of input in your software selection process. But you still want and need assistance…

Did you say free access  to software selection resources?

Yes, we have made a small but important change to our business model:  you can now get access to our high quality resources and information for free!

That’s right – you no longer have to pay $99 or more for our software review packs. Nor do you have to pay for our online comparisons. In fact, all of our valuable content is now free if you’re looking for software.

What do you mean “free”?

True, nothing worth having is ever truly free. There is a significant cost to creating the valuable content and services on this website. Someone has to pay for that.

Fortunately, there’s a simple solution. Software vendors and service providers are keen to find new customers, and they welcome the opportunity to be connected with relevant people like you who are genuinely looking for software.

This means you can now get access to Software Shortlist’s review packs, comparison service, and our other services for free, simply by giving permission that we may introduce you to a few (no more than 4) relevant software or service providers.

Connecting you for relevant conversations

We believe there are big benefits to everyone from this approach: (i) you get access to the software selection information and input you need for free; (ii) software vendors and service providers get to talk with genuine and relevant prospects looking for software; and (iii) Software Shortlist is able to create fresh, useful, and valuable content to help with your future software requirements. And as we explained recently, everyone wins with relevant software conversations.

Rest assured that Software Shortlist remains committed to its high standards of integrity and quality. We continue to respect your privacy and will only connect you with a small number of relevant and trusted providers. We also continue to use independent experts and a robust software review methodology in creating our review packs and online comparisons.

Any comments?

We hope you understand the changes outlined above, and we look forward to helping you with you software selection needs for many, many years. If you have any questions or comments, we’d love to hear them.

Thanks!

The Software Shortlist Team

Defining what LMS means

Our Definition of Learning Management System

A learning management system (LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, and reporting of training programs, classroom and online events, e-learning programs, and training content. This software is primarily focused on the administration aspects of training such as user registration, learning resource scheduling, and learner performance analyzing and reporting. Learning Management Systems also typically house the learning content such as videos, presentations, worksheets, instructions, scenarios, and other activities. Learning Management Systems can be used to facilitate technology-based training, instructor-led training, or any hybrid or combination thereof.

What is not in our definition of Learning Management Systems?

Learning management is not an enterprise knowledge system, help documentation authoring tool, or video screen capture tool; although it can usually be integrated with and supported by other such tools. Typically, course developers develop learning materials and content outside of the learning management system with separate tools and then upload materials into the LMS for management, administration, and access by stakeholders.

Choosing the List of LMS Solutions to Review

Our expert reviewer Stephanie has conducted her own initial screen and identified 19 that she believes are worth progressing to the full review stage. So we’d like to get your input to help us make the final selection. Below is the medium list of 19 LMS solutions: if you believe strongly that any particular ones should be included in the final review list, now’s your chance to say so. Also, if there are any that should be on this list (in your opinion) and aren’t there … speak up now!

Full List of LMS

See our Learning Management Software Directory for the full list of solutions that have been considered for review. If others should be added, let us know.

Draft List

The draft list of LMS solutions being considered for full review is as follows:

Have Your Say

Please note that the final decision on which solutions are reviewed will be made by Stephanie. This is not a popularity contest as such, but rather a chance for some community input to guide her decision-making. Well reasoned comments are more likely to influence than simple assertions that “X is best”.  Quality remarks will outweigh  quantity.

Add a comment below if you have a view on which LMS should be included in the reviews.

For the sake of clarity, by independent information we mean that it is not from the vendor or reseller (e.g. whitepapers, website, etc) but instead from a relatively unbiased source such as a trusted blog, review site, magazine, etc.

Take a few seconds, think back to the last time you bought software (or thought about buying some) for your business, and then answer the following quick poll.

A few key questions to consider when looking at software reviews are:

• Is it an unbiased judgement or simply an “advertorial” promotion?
• How qualified is the reviewer? Do they understand both business & technology?
• Did they use a systematic process, or just rely on gut feel?

Here at Software Shortlist, we pride ourselves on delivering high quality, reliable, independent reviews of software for small business.  So, we’ve put the hard word on ourselves and published a clear software review policy that addresses many of the questions and concerns that people typically raise when looking at software reviews.

As you’ll see from the policy, Software Shortlist’s software reviews are:

• Unbiased, editorially independent reviews
• Conducted by qualified experts who also understand small business
• Based on a rigorous and systematic approach

We hope that by publishing this policy, we answer most of the  questions you have about our software reviews. But if we’ve missed something, or you’d like to clarify anything about our review process, please contact us.  And if you think you’ve got what it takes to review a new software category, we’re always on the look out for the right people, so let’s talk.