Lang & Klain P.C. accelerate payment processes and cash flow with ClientPay and ProLaw

Lang & Klain is a Scottsdale construction law firm with lawyers serving contractors and subcontractors in the Phoenix area and throughout Arizona. Since 2010, the firm has relied on ProLaw® to simplify and streamline case and matter management, as well as time entry, billing, and accounting capabilities.

An easy yet powerful decision

The firm’s decision makers selected ProLaw to improve billing, docketing, and document management processes; however, it was clear to Dan Drake when he became firm administrator that the system had far greater potential. Solely responsible for managing the firm’s finance and accounting needs, Drake has made it a priority to leverage the full functionality of ProLaw in order to bring the greatest possible support to his role, the firm, and its clients.

To stay up to date on the latest updates and enhancements, Drake attends local ProLaw user group meetings a few times each year. There, he can meet with other ProLaw firms to discuss their experiences and successes, ultimately helping each other get the most out of their systems. It was through this forum that Drake first heard about ClientPay®, a proven, cloud-based payment solution designed to integrate with ProLaw for quick and seamless credit card processing. Fortunately for Drake, he could not have come across ClientPay at a better time. When he discovered the solution, he was at a breaking point in his relationship with the firm’s existing credit card processer.

Exhausted from an ongoing dispute stemming from the company’s inaccessibility and “lousy” customer service, Drake was fully onboard to try another solution—and ClientPay’s integration with ProLaw provided a competitive edge. ClientPay is the only payment solution that fully integrates with Thomson Reuters Elite Financial Management systems. It provides a single point of entry for credit card payments and receipts, turning card payment acceptance from an error-prone and time-intensive task into an efficient, accurate, and cost-saving process.

“I had been in the market for a better alternative for credit card processing, so when I heard that ClientPay could connect directly to our ProLaw accounting systems, I knew it would be a game changer,” Drake recalls. “But looking back, I don’t think I could have predicted just how powerful it would be.” Integrating ClientPay has resulted in numerous benefits, but perhaps one of the most powerful is that it has enabled Drake to cut the amount of time needed to process credit card transactions by more than half while automating the client receipt process.

In the span of his career, Drake has worked as a consultant for dozens of firms and has seen it take anywhere from three days to three weeks to get a bill out the door. Lang & Klain routinely does it in one day. “Never before have I encountered a firm that can generate, review, and deliver bills in a single day. That significantly improves cashflow.” commented Drake. “One of the biggest impacts ClientPay has on our firm is that it enables us to get paid quickly.”

Drake says that he is astonished at how “absolutely reliable” the solution has proven to be. Before ClientPay, he couldn’t predict how long it would take for a payment to flow into the firm’s operating account. With ClientPay, he can count on the funds being available within two days— every single time. “Waiting four or five days for the cash to flow in was a thorn in my side,” Drake describes. “Now, it is never even a thought with ClientPay; I always know when the funds will be available.”

Greater convenience in collections

According to Drake, it is crucial that his firm is able to accept credit card payment because it can help his firm win new business. When a prospective client visits the office, the lawyer can finalize an agreement and an account can be set up in ClientPay to accept credit card payment for a retainer, all before the client walks out the door.

“Looking at it from this perspective, it is clear that being able to accept credit card payment has enabled us to win business that might have otherwise fallen through,” Drake claims.

Drake says that the firm wasn’t able to set up credit card payment for retainers before ClientPay due to stringent rules and regulations associated with the firm’s trust accounts. However, helpful settings in ClientPay ensure that all rules are adhered to automatically. “If we didn’t have ClientPay, we wouldn’t have had the ability to allow clients to pay retainers with credit cards, and that probably would have cost us business."

Boosting cash flow

Drake jokes that being in charge of collections tends to make him “less popular among clients,” and that’s why the online payment portal has become one of his favorite ClientPay features. The added convenience of clients being able to make payments through the ClientPay portal on their own time has resulted in cash flow that could otherwise take months for Drake to collect.

“There have been instances of me being notified by email from ClientPay late in the evening that clients I have been tracking for as long as six months had paid their bills without being prompted,” says Drake. “The online portal has brought in a lot of extra value.”

Drake frequently reminds clients of their credit card payment options and encourages clients to sign up to pay bills online. All it takes to get set up is a quick phone call and adding an online user in the ClientPay system. Drake has even seen clients paying a bill within minutes of being set up.

“As somebody who spent his entire career working in accounting, I can say that a five-minute turnaround is a knock out of the park,” says Drake. “Every time I mention to others how ClientPay has improved billing speed at our firm, they are stunned.”

Even for clients that still prefer to have Drake process payments for them, ClientPay has simplified the process substantially. The solution’s secure environment allows credit card information to be saved to client records, so it is readily available at a moment’s notice and safely stored at all other times. This means that when clients are ready to make their credit card payments, they can simply call, fax, or email Drake, authorizing him to process the transaction using ClientPay.

Clients have the option to store multiple credit cards in the system, so if they want a transaction to be divided between multiple payment types, Drake can still complete the process in less than a minute. Additionally, Drake says that having credit cards stored within ClientPay relieves the firm of the burdens associated with keeping such highly sensitive information on file.