Most attorneys have heard of Lawpay but have you heard of Gravity Legal? I hadn’t until just a couple of months ago even though they have been around for a decade! They are a credit card and ACH payment processor that focuses on law firms. They understand trust accounting and how fees cannot be taken out of the trust account.
One thing exciting about Gravity Legal is that they can charge your client for the credit card processing fees. So many times, attorneys come to me and one issue they are having is trying to figure out how much to charge the client for processing fees. If you have ever tried to do with Lawpay, it is very hard and it cannot even be done until they mail the statement with the charges. This doesn’t get sent out to you until after the month closes so you could be finding out the credit card charges almost 2 months after you have charged a client.
How would it change your law practice if the client automatically paid the processing fees for credit cards? You might actually collect those funds instead of having those extra expenses. You might have more time to do things you enjoy. You might be free of having a hard conversation with your clients two months after their case has been closed and you want to charge them for the processing fee. When firms charge the credit card fees to clients, while still offering free-to-them payment options such as debit cards and ACH, Gravity Legal typically see somewhere between a 60-80% reduction in fees paid by the law firm.
Not only can Gravity Legal help with processing fees, but they have just launched a new version of their QuickBooks Online integration. This integration now allows you to:
1. Sync all QuickBooks customers with Gravity Legal.
This means is that when you process a payment in Gravity Legal you can select the client which matches the client name in QuickBooks, eliminating duplicate client names.
2. Automatically insert Gravity Legal payment links onto QuickBooks invoices and have payments made on those links applied to the corresponding invoice.
Now, clients can click on the link from the invoice and pay through Gravity Link. It will automatically fill in the amount owed or allow them to fill in a different amount. This eliminates one step of your client having to look back at the invoice to determine how much they owe. Every pain point you can eliminate makes it so you get paid faster!
3. Record all payments made in Gravity Legal in QuickBooks.
No more double entry!! This will save time and headache from trying to figure out which payment belongs to which client and what invoice it was paying for.
Check out their YouTube video to see how it all works. You can also download their Complete Guide to Payment Processing for Law Firms where they look at several different forms of electronic payment, from credit cards to cryptocurrency, diving into the key ethical traps, benefits, risks, and best practices.
Overall, Gravity Legal is a great option for solo practitioners and small law practices. If you or your firm would like to learn more, you can visit Gravity Legal’s webpage. And if you would like help starting with Gravity Legal and making sure everything is set up properly, you can reach out to me by clicking here.
