Are you offering your clients the payment methods they want?

If not, you’re missing a trick. A trick that means getting your law firm paid faster, chasing fewer invoices, and improving your cash flow.

On average, it takes 60 days for law firms to be paid for invoices. Imagine if you could shorten this time frame and speed up the entire billing process? (Spoiler Alert: You can).

Integrating safer and digital-friendly payment methods into your practice is a win-win for everyone concerned.

Fun Fact: BACs transfers require eight steps, nine minutes to complete and often a card reader to set up the initial bank transfer.

There’s another way. Three, in fact.

Compared to BACS, online payments require two steps and an average of 90 seconds to complete.

1. Digital Wallets

We surveyed over 100 consumers and found that 80% of consumers expect to be able to pay their invoice online.  Digital wallets are the most modern and convenient payment option available on the market and offering this option is an easy way for your firm to stand out and give your clients a seamless experience.

Nearly ten million, or 18% of the adult population registered for mobile payments in 2019, with 79% of these registered users recording a payment.

The use of digital wallets is becoming more and more prevalent, and supporting them will dramatically improve your chances of getting paid on time. Most consumers aren’t comfortable with reading out their card details and security number during a phone call, so help them to avoid that by offering digital wallets as a secure payment method.

2. Pay by Bank

Whilst account to account payments have existed for a while, previously they’ve been mainly reliant on BACs transfers. Depending on the bank, these types of payments can be slow, and require a lot of manual data entry in order to set up the transfer, making them prone to error and creating risk of fraud through the sharing of bank details.

Setting up a bank transfer can be a long and tedious process. There’s a lot of stress around typing in the correct account number and sort code, not to mention plenty of high profile scams involving bank transfers.

Enter stage right – Pay by Bank.

Pay by Bank, powered by Open Banking technology, uses a trusted third party payment provider to initiate payments and enable the direct transfer of funds from the clients’ bank account to the specified law firm bank account.

As a brand new product feature rollout for Legl, we are excited to offer this payment method to the law firms that we work with. Pay by Bank is a safe, easy way for clients to make a payment to your law firm. Pay by Bank uses account to account payments to allow clients to authorise payment directly from their online banking app, so they can transfer funds securely without the need to enter bank or card details.

Pay by Bank speeds up reconciliation, receives transfers instantly and protects your clients’ funds.

3. Payment Request Links

A Pay Request link allows you to specify how much the client needs to pay, and pre-fills their details (name, email address, reference number(s)). This payment method reduces friction for your client when making a payment, and makes tracking and reconciliation easier from your end. Using secure payment request links, the money can be in your firm’s bank account within 12 hours.

Using our Pay Request tool, you can quickly create a specific checkout link for each of your clients which you can send to them when you are requesting a payment. The client then clicks the link, enters their card details and pays the requested amount. It’s as simple as that, and you can see successful payments in real time via your Legl Dashboard.

The Legl payment request link integration allows you to connect both your client and office accounts, ensuring that funds are always directed to the correct account.

When money is requested via Legl, the client can only pay the amount you’ve submitted, which minimises the risk of adding accidental digits, thus avoiding undue stress from an MLRO standpoint.

What are your competitors up to?

Are they enabling their clients to pay invoices by their preferred method, at a time convenient to them?

As consumers have access to more legal services options, loyalty to a particular law firm is less secure. Firms are now required to meet pricing transparency rules, which has given more power to consumers to find cost-effective means of obtaining legal advice from the outset. Consumers want to work with law firms that align with their values, so it’s never been more important to meet your clients where they are.

Benefits of offering digital payments

Faster and simpler reconciliations

Collect payments faster and maintain a healthier cash flow. Firms can streamline Accounts Receivable operations with simple reconciliation for finance teams by collecting all the correct information about the payment.

Security

Provide strong customer authentication (SCA), allowing clients to make payments with confidence by using online payment options such as their credit or debit cards. Improve the safety of your client’s data, protect against cyber attacks and avoid the financial and reputational consequences of a security breach.

Remove the risk associated with taking payments over the phone and ensure your processes are compliant.

Convenience

By making your payment services more accessible, you maintain high levels of customer satisfaction and reduce the confusion around payments to ensure you get paid on time, every time.

Efficiency

Cheques now account for just 1% of payments made in the UK. Cheques are not efficient, and this archaic payment method is not convenient for you or your clients.  

Embracing digital-friendly payments eliminates the need to manually chase payments and saves a substantial amount of time for your finance/accounts teams as a result.

Choose an industry-recognised, trusted and secure technology platform

Legl delivers a firm-branded portal that embeds directly into your website, within 24 hours of signing the contract. The way we process secure online payments is compliant with all the relevant and stringent legal requirements and ensures a smoother bookkeeping process in the long run.

“We don’t have card machines anymore – all of our clients are able to make payments online or through the tablets that we have in the offices instead, which is saving us money.”
Ian Bury, Sales & Marketing Manager, GloverPriest Solicitors

There’s no need to worry about deductions of payment processing fees at source. The money is received ‘whole’ into the client account, and you pay separately for the payment processing. The Legl platform captures and stores all the case information associated with a payment and provides you with comprehensive bank transfer summaries to make payment reconciliation easier and faster.

Client-centred law firms put their clients’ experience first. Today’s clients want more options and convenience when working with services. For law firms, offering convenient payment methods like online credit card payments gives clients what they want, while also helping boost law firm revenues and growth.