CosmoLex

CosmoLex is a user-friendly legal practice management software for small firms to large law practices. CosmoLex will take care of Billing, Business Accounting, Trust Accounting (IOLTA), Calendaring, Task & Document Management – all in one web-based system that is easily accessible from any computer, tablet, or even your mobile phone.

Video Overview

Legal Billing & Timekeeping

CosmoLex legal billing software and timekeeping system features end-to-end, integrated coverage of all your law practice management needs – saving time, eliminating errors, and maximizing your income stream.

Mobile Access

Legal Case Management Software by CosmoLex gives you the freedom to work when you want, where you want. (Smart Phone App included!)

Time & Expense Tracking

This Legal Practice Management Software features an easier than ever way to capture ALL billable time & expenses-- even when you are on the go. Nothing falls through the cracks.

Simple One-Click Billing

You’ll process Invoices, Past-Due Notices & Low Retainer Reminders – ALL with one click in CosmoLex legal billing software.

Law Office & Legal Accounting

CosmoLex features not just legal accounting for clients’ funds held in trust, it’s also your web-based alternative to QuickBooks, providing comprehensive, current & compliant bookkeeping for your entire firm.

Legal-Specific Accounting

Built-in accounting features handle all of the “special requirements” to ensure compliance – protecting you from errors & penalties that come from using generic accounting software.

Business Accounting

CosmoLex handles all your cash-basis law office accounting – general ledger, legal-specific chart of accounts, check printing, reconciliations, P&L, balance sheets & more.

Built-in IOLTA Accounting

CosmoLex also features complete attorney Trust Accounting IOLTA Software that manages client funds, fee advances & disbursements, bank reconciliations, & prevents overdrafts.

Web-Based Legal Practice Management Software

At the heart of CosmoLex is a state-of-the art approach to law practice management software. CosmoLex covers all bases, including Legal Document Management, Case Workflow, Calendar & Tasks, Contact Management, Matter-Centric records.

Practice Dashboard

You’ll spot tomorrow’s fires today& simply by logging in to the unique real-time Performance Dashboard you get with CosmoLex legal practice management software.

Task & Calendar

Smart Legal Task & Calendaring software improves team collaboration – and plugs billing “leakage” by pushing completed meetings & tasks right into the billing flow.

Document Management

Legal Billing Software by CosmoLex integrates seamlessly with dependable industry leaders, DropBox & Box.com, for legal document management. Concerns over storage, backups, & security disappear.

Document Management

CosmoLex’s legal document management software system has all the features necessary to securely manage your case information, files, documents, meet compliance requirements, and streamline productivity by easily integrating your documents with existing backend systems.

Retrieval

CosmoLex solves the problem of retrieval by organizing your digital records around legal matters. You find any document you need instantly, just by accessing the folder labeled with your client’s name and legal matter. This feature is also available on the mobile platform, meaning you will be able to locate, retrieve and work with any case information regardless of where you are located.

Versioning

Cosmolex provides the best-in-class document versioning by partnering with industry leading cloud-based document storage vendors. Support is available for Dropbox and Box.com. Google Drive and NetDocs will come on board shortly. Each of these services offers sizeable storage allotments and automatically maintains prior versions of your documents.

Integration

The integration with these industry standard third-party services is truly seamless. As a user, you’ll do all of your legal file document management within CosmoLex, along with the rest of your daily practice management routines. You’ll manage all your documents right from your CosmoLex dashboard! And all of your information will be stored in the same format that is used throughout CosmoLex for billing, calendaring, tasks and workflows.

Capturing

The CosmoLex law firm document management software system allows you to easily work remotely or to add documents from a source outside of your office. And, if you’re looking for a way to make a paperless office, or have a naming convention that automatically names documents when scanned electronically, CosmoLex can work with a variety of scanners and capture images already stored on your local systems.

Security

Document security is vital to your law firm. The CosmoLex law firm document management software system provides the highest level of security available in the industry today. You can easily assign levels of access to documents for specific users and groups. You can also control functions such as scanning, printing, searching and importing.

Legal Billing Software & Time Tracking

Capture Every Billable Activity – Anytime, Anywhere

CosmoLex captures all time and all expenses in the moment – as soon as they occur. You can record billable legal time or costs immediately. You can even flag future events (meetings, tasks) as billable to ensure nothing slips through the cracks. And you’ll reap the rewards of better cash flow, higher profits.

Customize Invoices

Every law firm or law office has its own identity that should stand out on invoices. Legal Billing Software by CosmoLex allows you to track time, add logos, letterhead or other custom content to ensure that invoices reflect your law firm’s branding.

Simple One-Click Billing

You’ll process Invoices, Past-Due Notices & Low Retainer Reminders – ALL with one simple click in CosmoLex legal timekeeping & billing software. Your bills go out one time – with a single click.

Online Payments

Law firms that accept credit cards see a 30-40% improvement in cash flow – along with improved client satisfaction. Legal billing software by CosmoLex offers a fast, secure and fully compliant solution for credit card invoicing/payments (using a seamless integration with LawPay.) Your office can charge payments right on the CosmoLex billing screen or clients can pay online. While there are many benefits to taking credit cards, law firms also face real challenges when it comes to processing credit card payments correctly – to maintain bookkeeping that is in compliance with the specific legal regulations for revenue recognition. CosmoLex avoids all of these concerns because it is the only web-based solution that combines legal billing and law firm accounting in one system.

Built-in Collection Functions

Billing is not revenue; payment is. Every law office grapples with non-paying or slow-paying clients. While CosmoLex can not force law firm clients to pay, it does provide many advanced functions to aid your collection efforts w/o any administrative headaches:

• 1-click low retainer reminders to keep you cash positive (“evergreen retainers”)
• Easy to understand, descriptive invoices that clients can actually understand
• Ability to add “retainer replenishment amount” as part of an invoice
• 1-click reminder notices that are automated and personalized

Fully Integrated Legal Billing, Accounting & Practice Management Software

A law practice must have three systems for efficient operation:

• Practice management software to coordinate casework, calendaring and tasks.
• Legal billing software and timekeeping for time tracking, billing, retainers, & collections.
• Accounting software that handles the full range of legal-specific accounting and general business bookkeeping.

CosmoLex is a single web-based application that combines all three functions. That means law practice management, legal billing and accounting update each other in real-time. A true synchronous integration. And because they all exist within the same application, there are no problematic imports or exports, no reconciliations, and never a need to input any case information or transaction data more than once. Working in CosmoLex legal billing software saves an enormous amount of time, and eliminates even the possibility of most errors ever occurring.

Legal Business Accounting Software

Legal business accounting software from CosmoLex is designed to handle the unique and intricate legal-specific bookkeeping requirements. And because it is built-in as a fundamental component of the CosmoLex Cloud system, CosmoLex takes care of your law firm’s accounting in the background, automatically and accurately, as you perform your day to day practice management and billing activities.

Fully Integrated General Ledger Accounting

The legal business accounting software includes a complete general ledger system that is fully integrated with legal billing, thus preventing any need for duplicate data entries or tedious export/imports into general accounting software.

Customizable Chart of Accounts

The lack of a legal-specific Chart of Accounts on your general ledger, and properly entering transactions to those accounts leads to fiscal reporting and compliance issues. Since CosmoLex is designed for law firms, it provides a complete chart of accounts out-of-the- box. Here are some of the legal specific accounts included with the system:

• Client Trust Funds (Liability)
• Client General Retainer – Trust (Liability)
• Client General Retainer – Operating (Liability)
• Advanced Client Costs (Asset)
• Reimbursed Client Expenses (Direct) (Income)
• Inhouse Reimbursed Expenses (Indirect) (Income)
• Fee Income (Income)
• Discount (Income)
• Reimbursable Client Costs (Expense)
• Non-Reimbursable Client Costs (Expense)
• Unrecovered Client Expenses (Expense)

Prevent Accounting Mistakes

CosmoLex legal accounting software includes everything needed to stay in compliance with regulations that specifically pertain to lawyers. One of the biggest benefits of CosmoLex is its ability to prevent accounting mistakes. At every level, program is designed to protect and prevent lawyers from making accounting mistakes. For example:

• Trust Retainers can only be posted to correct client funds liability accounts (and not to, for example, Fee Income.)
• Trust payments used to pay client bills are formulated around sound accounting allocations with no manual steps required.
• General office expenses can’t be posted as Advanced Client Costs or Reimbursable Client Costs.
• Matter Costs can only be posted to Advanced Client Costs or Reimbursable Client Costs (and not to, for example, Office Rent.)
• Once you specify your choice of account, the system will ensure that no user in your firm can make this critical error.
• Invoice Payments, even partial payments, are properly allocated automatically.
• For general office transactions, a warning is issued for potential errors; such as if a check is posted to an income or liabilities account, or a deposit is posted to an asset or expense account.

All law firms want to stay compliant, and they try complex maneuvers in general business accounting software. CosmoLex legal accounting software gives you a high level of sophistication that includes the following.

Import Electronic Bank/Credit Card Statements

Import electronic bank/credit card statements (QBO format) for automated data entries. This feature is useful to import monthly credit card transactions as these are normally entered on one statement becomes available. Built-in adaptive mapping rules corrects payee names and memorizes chart of account(s). You can even post matter cost related transactions while importing, thus preventing a major source of missed expense entries. This import feature is also used by new CosmoLex users in migration of their historical bank transactions.

Accurate Accounting for Hard & Soft Matter Costs

Matter Cost Accounting – Three simple words that make every lawyer wince for good reasons. It’s an area of law practice operations that is eternally unforgiving. Inadequate internal accounting procedures fail to capture matter related costs, resulting in lost revenue and, in some cases, tax and ethics compliance consequences. CosmoLex legal accounting software provides a number of tools to ensure compliance and profitability at the same time:

• Matter cost transaction (e.g. payment by check or credit card) can be posted at the time of entry to a corresponding legal matter for future billing ensuring no profit leakage.
• Hard costs can only be posted to your choice of account (advanced client costs or reimbursable client costs).
• Soft Costs (e.g. billing for copies, mileage, etc which are already expensed as office expenses) can be billed to legal matters – and its reimbursement tracked separately.

Automated Revenue Allocation

A daily accounting activity at law firms is proper posting of invoice payments. Liabilities and costs must be paid first, prior to applying anything to income. Without a specialized legal business accounting software such as CosmoLex, this activity can often be time consuming, frustrating and prone to errors, which only get worse if partial payments are received. CosmoLex automates this complex activity 100%, and all users need to do is receive payments against invoices. Since legal business accounting software by CosmoLex has the exact breakdown of each invoice components, it automatically allocates revenue in this order: Liabilities, Assets, Expenses, Income. Whether a payment is partial, full or even extra, your accounting is automatic and accurate.

Track Income by Practice Area

Do you know which practice areas are most profitable, which practice area is your firm’s “rainmaker”, and which ones need more marketing attention? In CosmoLex, you can create multiple “income sub-accounts” within your fee income structure and make these part of the matter setup. Thats it. After that, as matter invoices are paid, fee income is credited to its specific income account.

Collection & Distribution of Fees

Computation of collection is a critical management function, is a measure of productivity and most importantly, helps facilitates apportion fee allocation to timekeepers by work/collection activities; distribution mechanism for improved cash flow for outside counsel. However, just because it is critical does not make it easy. An invoice can have multiple components such as costs, other charges, fees from multiple resources and it might get paid in installments. In CosmoLex, you can generate Collection Reports for each biller or matter owners with a click of a button.

Journal Entries

Journal entries are normally made by the law firm accountant for occasional one-time adjustments between accounts, payroll entries, as well as year end depreciation and amortization bookings. CosmoLex provides a “book closing date” feature so an accountant can lock the books up to a particular date to prevent accidental edits once books are closed.

Memorized Payee Accounts

In CosmoLex, you can “memorize” frequently used payees for quicker transaction entries and accurate check printing. You can also memorize an account (or set of accounts) thus preventing wrong postings. For example, you can memorize your landlord with account “Rent”. Now, every time you record a payment to your landlord, your “Rent” account will be pre-selected. This feature is especially useful to record payroll entries as those involve use of multiple accounts on an ongoing basis.

Manage Firm’s Credit Card Accounts

Credit cards play an important role in accounting for multiple reasons. Credit cards can be used for both office expenses, as well as for matter costs, which need to be posted for billing. CosmoLex provides full support for credit card bank accounts. You can enter or import statement transactions (QBO format), post cost to matters for billing and reconcile statements. As transactions are imported, CosmoLex will automatically build “mapping rules” that will auto-populate correct payee names and chart of account(s). Adaptive mapping rules make statement transaction imports simpler and accurate.

Print Checks

CosmoLex legal accounting software may be 100% cloud-based, but that doesn’t mean you have to go paperless. You can print checks directly from the program to your office printer using the check paper stock. You have the option to print voucher or standard check formats. And, if you use voucher format, CosmoLex even prints the transaction’s general ledger account in the Memo 2 line for robust recordkeeping.

Automatic Bank Statement Reconciliations

You can auto-reconcile book transactions with electronic bank statement data (QBO format) or reconcile manually. Monthly reconciliation is a critical bookkeeping tasks and helps you locate errors (from your side or the bank’s side).

1-Click Accounting Reports

A crucial benefit of CosmoLex legal business accounting software is the availability of performance, financial and management reports, all in one place. The operating accounting software includes the following reports,which can be printed or saved as PDF/Excel formats:

Profit and Loss Balance Sheet Trial Balances General Ledger Sales Tax

Task & Calendar

You might wonder what could make legal calendar software for law firms any better than one of the free third party calendars&The answer is simple, it’s because Legal Calendar Software by CosmoLex is tightly integrated with the entire CosmoLex legal practice management & billing system in one easy-to-use cloud-based platform.

Here are some examples of how CosmoLex’s unique integration of calendar, tasks and notes help you on a daily basis&

Every Meeting, Event & Task Is Linked to a Specific Legal Matter.

This solidifies your paper trail for every matter – making it easy to demonstrate compliance whenever the need arises. Even your Notes are tagged to matters.

Templated Workflows Simplify and Standardize Commonly Performed Matter Tasks.

You don’t have to “reinvent the wheel” and set up a “to-do” list every time you start a new legal case file. CosmoLex legal calendaring software gives ability to create your own pre-defined workflows that automatically lay out a schedule of necessary and dependent tasks for most common matters. Using Templated Workflows, tasks stay on track, and you can be sure all required milestones for each task are met in sequence & on time.

Completed Tasks & Meetings Are Added to the Billing Workflow.

Your CosmoLex calendar & tasks help make sure that every billable activity actually gets billed! Any unassigned meetings and tasks will be caught by the CosmoLex ‘Money Finder’, expressly designed to make sure that every meeting and task is reviewed as a possible billable item – which is then pushed into the billing system automatically.

Legal Calendar Software & Task Manager by CosmoLex Enables Effective Collaboration.

It’s mobile. It’s shared. And for those who like to stay with their Google Calendar – CosmoLex legal calendar software integrates with Google as well – which means that personal items can be marked “private”. Everyone on your team – even those beyond your firm, such as researchers or experts – can be included on the shared Calendar. And Anytime/Anywhere Cloud access makes your CosmoLex Calendar easy to keep current.

This is the kind of tight integration CosmoLex uses to save you countless hours & headaches every billing cycle. Not only does this save time, it also reduces errors, helps keep matters on schedule, and ensures that nothing “falls through the cracks.”

Custom Work Flows

Many legal matters follow a standard set of tasks for each case. For example a family law practice might have pre-defined workflows for a divorce without children, a divorce with children, and so on. Setting up dozens tasks by hand for each matter is time consuming – and if done in haste can lead to forgetting a crucial step.

CosmoLex legal calendaring software allows users to create default lists of tasks that can be easily added to new or existing matters. These “Custom Work Flows” not only save time, but also help maintain high quality standards for deliverables. With Custom Work Flows: all necessary milestones will be scheduled on your CosmoLex calendar automatically. Meetings will occur when they need to. Documents will be completed and filed on time, and you’ll know who to check in with on any one step.

Trust Accounting Software

CosmoLex eliminates the need for any other software – along with all the syncing, importing, exporting, and duplicate entry busywork that entails.

Other web-based legal practice management software may include a few basic client trust funds functions. Only CosmoLex provides a comprehensive trust and IOLTA software accounting system. CosmoLex attorney trust accounting software gives you all of the following features – built-in:

• Individual client trust ledgers
• Add or disburse client funds
• One-click withdrawn of trust funds for invoice payments
• Print disbursement checks
• Overdraft protection
• Bank reconciliations
• State-compliant reports, including three-way reconciliations.

Your Trust Accounts Are Always “Audit-Ready”

Reconciling trust accounts every month is mandatory. It’s the first thing an auditor will want to see. That’s why CosmoLex attorney trust accounting software made sure that running bank reconciliations is easy – and “error proof”.

Just open up the trust bank account in the CosmoLex software, check off the transactions listed in your latest bank statement, and click. The entire process takes only a few minutes.

Your firm might have multiple trust bank accounts, and you can manage them all from within CosmoLex. In fact, you can manage multiple bank accounts with unlimited client ledgers per bank.

Built-in Trust Safeguards

CosmoLex protects you and your firm from the most common IOLTA trust/escrow accounting violations.

• Auditors require a paper trail, even when there’s no paper. CosmoLex’s audit trail includes a log of each time a trust transaction is touched. You can instantly locate who touched the file and when. CosmoLex also maintains a record of each month’s reconciliations report that can protect you from charges of theft or financial mismanagement.
• CosmoLex includes automatic safeguard checks that prevent the most common trust management mistakes, such as comingling of funds, overdrafts or duplicate check numbers.
• Simple data entry mistakes can give you a false idea of how much cash you have available. Monthly reconciliations catch errors quickly, so they don’t carry into future months.

No Other Trust Accounting Software Required

You don’t need to use 3rd party accounting software for bank statement imports, bank reconciliation, report generation or check printing. (Every duplicate data entry or export/import is one more possible error you can’t afford!) CosmoLex integrates all the functions you need.

Bank Reconciliation Auditors Can “Trust”

Monthly bank reconciliation is one of the most important aspect of trust accounting and is heart and soul of trust account audits. Monthly bank reconciliation reports are mandatory, helps you locate banks & your mistakes. These are also the first set of reports lawyers are asked for during the audit.

Beware of bank reconciliations methods offered by general business accounting programs! Most of them do not allow you to go back to prior periods and fix any discrepancies or reprint prior reports. Instead you need to re-start bank reconciliation all over again, from day-1. CosmoLex attorney trust accounting software’s reconciliation is robust and designed for only law firms and their unique IOLTA accounting requirements. You can auto-reconcile book transactions with electronic bank statement data (QBO format) or reconcile manually. Additionally, you can go back to any prior month and simply look at the snapshot of transactions exactly the way it was and fix any mistakes, reprint reports. CosmoLex also automatically locks your books after bank reconciliations are complete to prevent accidental edits.

Compliant 3-Way Reconciliation

In most states, attorney trust account regulations require monthly three-way reconciliation reports. CosmoLex will produce these critical documents for you – in one click.

Check Printing

CosmoLex legal trust accounting software may be 100% cloud-based, but that doesn’t mean you have to go paperless. When you need disbursements, you can print checks directly from the program. Print checks on your office printer using the check paper stock. With CosmoLex legal trust accounting software, you have the option to print voucher or standard check formats.

Trust Retainer Payments by Credit Card

Retainer payments by credit card can be easily processed – in full compliance with legal accounting rules. Thanks to a seamless integration of LawPay^® built in to CosmoLex, your office can make the charge within the CosmoLex billing screen, or your client can pay directly online.

CosmoLex gives you an end-to-end solution that begins with charging the card and flows through to all the associated bookkeeping adjustments – without you juggling between multiple systems and duplicated data entries.

Escrow Accounting Compliance for Real Estate Settlements

For those involved in the real estate settlement industry, you know that new rules & guidelines proposed by CFPB/ALTA are game changers. It is absolutely imperative that your practice is in complete compliance with these new escrow accounting regulations and CosmoLex helps you with providing a out-of-the box solution for settlement funds and escrow accounting.

Support for Positive Pay

Check fraud can be especially devastating to practices in certain areas of law, such as personal injury and real estate settlements. Even a solo firm can easily have over a million dollars in a trust account, which means that the potential loss from the passing of a fraudulent check is enormous. And when a large number of checks are issued every month by multiple parties – this further increases the fraud potential.

Positive Pay is a service provided by most major banks. It has become the industry standard protection against check fraud. CosmoLex IOLTA software and trust accounting includes built-in support for integration with Positive Pay.