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The Five Things Lawyers Need in an Online Payment Solution
It always pays to do a little research before making a purchase, and payment solutions are no exception. There are many to choose from, but not all are designed for legal professionals like you. Let’s examine five essential features you should look for when shopping for an online payments processor.
- Tailor-made for law firms
Most online payments solutions work best for retail stores, restaurants, and hospitality businesses, as these are some of the most common businesses in the country. You’ll likely find that they have features, functions, and price points that would suit these businesses perfectly.
But, you’re not selling a product—you’re providing a complex, valuable professional service. A typical paper receipt wouldn’t properly convey the type of work you do for your clients and the full value of your services.
This is why specialized payment solutions are the best fit for law firms like yours. These companies hire experts to design their product specifically for the legal industry. They’ll know how important it is to protect your IOLTA account from third-party debiting, and keep your earned and unearned fees separated with each transaction. - Allows both invoiced and in-person payments
Online credit card payments have quickly become the most popular way for consumers to pay. In fact, 74 percent of households prefer to pay their bills online. However, not all payment processors are designed with this in mind. Many of them only take in-person transactions, with little (if anything) in the way of online payments. Your best bet is to look for a payment processor that will let you do both—send online payment requests that your clients can pay from anywhere, or take credit card payments in your office. - Simple reconciliation
Using a credit card processor means you’ll have to pay transaction fees. For many payment solutions, these fees are debited as soon as a transaction is received. However, this can make reconciling an absolute nightmare. You’ll have to consider the amount you’ve billed compared with the amount displayed. Why add extra work to your busy day?
Use a payment processor that will debit all of your fees on a single day. This way, you’ll see 100 percent of each payment in your transaction history, and can view your total processing fees as a separate charge each month. Simpler account reconciliation each month means more time spent serving clients. - Detailed reporting
The best payment solutions for lawyers let you run detailed reports on your transactions, and filter them by time frame or the status of the payment. These solutions also make it easy to view your top clients by volume, payment trends, and even export your payment history in whichever format you prefer.
In contrast, most generic payment providers will have metrics tracking gift cards or cash drawer history—stats that might appeal to a point-of-sale business, but meaningless to a law firm like yours. - Pricing without gimmicks
Between the various interchange rates, processing fees, and codes to decipher, online payments systems can sound incredibly complicated. The last thing you want is to spend more time figuring out the fee structures of your processor than you do on billable hours.
Choose a payment processor with no hidden fees, no minimum processing requirements, and no long-term contractual obligations. Payment processors for law firms will let you easily budget for your expenses by keeping their rates straightforward and easy to predict.
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