Accounting

Law Office Computing wanted to see if the new TAL Pro would bring lawyers to program integration Utopia: easy, universal time and billing and accounting system integration. To use the new TAL Pro, you need Timeslips, Version 10.5 with service release 3 (downloadable from its Web site), and QuickBooks Pro 2002.

Before the upgrade, when you finalized a bill in Timeslips, the program kept track of legal fees, costs, interest, write-ups, write-downs and sales tax (in states that assess a tax on legal fees and costs). The first step to transferring this data to QuickBooks through TAL was posting a general ledger report. Timeslips stored this information and associated each item with the client to which each transaction related. Once the TAL popped up, you imported your chart of accounts from QuickBooks.

If you live in a state with no sales tax, you imported the file created by Timeslips into QuickBooks and lived happily ever after.

After the upgrade, you link the appropriate Timeslips accounts with the appropriate QuickBooks accounts. This has become very easy in comparison with early versions of TAL. Only seven accounts must be linked, which include Cash, Charges, Write-ups, Write-downs, Interest, Suspense and Tax Payable. The first six were a breeze. If you work in jurisdictions that don’t tax fees or costs, TAL Pro is a worthwhile upgrade. You can set it to post to QuickBooks when you finalize the bills. No other steps are necessary.

The problem with both the old and new versions of TAL is when you work in a state with sales tax on fees. In all versions, you get a message such as, “You cannot use the sales tax account on a customer, employer or other name” when you attempt to import the Timeslips file into QuickBooks. The reason is because in QuickBooks, each tax transaction is set up with an association to the taxing authority. QuickBooks doesn’t accept the tax data from Timeslips that associate the tax data with the client. Therefore, you have two options when working with preview versions of TAL: deposit manually in QuickBooks from the Timeslips general ledger report or employ the following workaround. TAL created a tab-delimited text file called “glxfer.iif” containing the data to be imported to QuickBooks. You can open that file in Microsoft Excel for example, find the line for “Sales Tax Payable,” delete “Timeslips” from the “Name” column, and replace it with the exact name of the QuickBooks taxing authority. Save it as a tab-delimited text file, and import it into QuickBooks. Utopia, only slightly delayed.
Unfortunately, TAL Pro has not found a way to counter the sales tax problem. Clearly, Timeslips is aware of this problem because the TAL Pro manual and the error message suggest creating a new account in QuickBooks for the sales tax liability. This is certainly a solution, and I suspect this solution would work for previous versions of TAL as well. It beats entering the deposits by hand, but you lose some of the QuickBooks automated functionality.

When you set up a tax item in QuickBooks, the item associates with a QuickBooks account specifically for sales tax. This makes it easy to pay sales taxes and run sales tax reports. All you do is click “Vendors,” “Sales Tax,” “Pay Sales Tax,” and you can print a check from the next screen. You lose all the automated functionality from that menu by creating a different account. In a state that taxes fees, this leaves you with three options:

• You can do it manually.
• Create the new account as suggested by Timeslips. TAL Pro will synchronize with QuickBooks and post the tax liability to the new account. At the end of the month, write a check from that account to zero it out for the month. It’s certainly easier than entering deposits by hand.
• Disable the new TAL Pro and re-enable the old TAL in “Setup,” “Features Enabled.” Make your correction in the glxfer.iif file as before, and off you go. The previous version of TAL still works with Timeslips 10.5 and QuickBooks Pro 2002.

Despite the sales tax snafu in TAL Pro, Timeslips 10.5 and QuickBooks Pro 2002 are good evolutionary improvements over their predecessors. The look, feel and functionality of the programs is familiar, and both sport new features.

Timeslips and QuickBooks along with practice management software such as Time Matters are law office mainstays. If you are not using these types of software, the life of someone in your office could be a lot easier. These programs are favorites for a reason. As the saying goes, 500,000 coyotes can’t be wrong.

Price: $149.95 for TAL Pro; $399.95 for Timeslips, Version 10.5, standard edition

Must be used with Timeslips, Version 10.5 and QuickBooks Pro 2002

QuickBooks Pro 2002
Intuit
(888) 246-8848
www.quickbooks.com

Price: $279.95, single-user version; $179.95, upgrade

Windows 95/98Me/NT/2000/XP

Reviewed by Steven Schmidt, shareholder, director and president of Business & Technology Law, Albuquerque, N.M.

Jun/Jul '02 Issue

PROS
Good incremental improvements over their predecessors. For the most part it’s a truly integrated time, billing and accounting system for all but large law firms that use more than five bookkeepers.

CONS
States that tax legal fees will find it more difficult to use.

VERDICT
These are two great core programs for solo practitioners, small- and medium-sized law offices.

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Updated 05/30/02
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