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How to generate reports to allocate partner compensation?

  • 9 August 2023
  • 5 replies
  • 44 views
A

I’m in the process of forming a partnership with a colleague. We’re setting up a compensation model that is roughly as follows on a per matter basis:

10% of receivables go to originating attorney

30% goes to firm for overhead and later profit share

60% goes to attorney billing (i.e. the attorney generating the billables gets 60% of that revenue)

I’m nervous about a bookkeeping/reconciliation nightmare that awaits me or some poor office manager we might hire. I’m wondering if existing Smokeball tools/reports can help me automate most of this as long as we set everything up correctly and are diligent and accurate in our billings.

I appreciate any tips or insights, especially from those who might have similar setups or compensation models. Also open to feedback on better ideas/approaches. 

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Best answer by Sara Sultan 9 August 2023, 17:47

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Sara Sultan
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Hello Aaron,

 

We have excellent Income Allocation reports that will gather this data for you.  Where some firms have run into issues are when they may want to have two originating attorneys for some matters,  I am going to ask some other Smokeball users to chime in here as well.

@JKibler @DelFoster @Cammy @RamiroAtGianelli @jsalter314 @KBT @AllisonClark 

Sara Sultan (she/her)
A

Hi Sara, thanks for the reply. Do you know of any tutorials on generating these reports you mentioned?

J
Userlevel 6
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@Aaron how frequently will this report be updated?

Sara Sultan
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +1

Hello Aaron,

There are no tutorials available just yet.  We are creating a Friday webinar for this soon which will be recorded.  Keep an eye out here for webinars.  You can also set up some time with a Billing Specialist for a Billing Q & A here.

Sara Sultan (she/her)
A

@Aaron how frequently will this report be updated?

We want to do reconciliations at least quarterly to determine the amount of any distributions beyond our monthly draws. 

I do see that Smokeball has three different roles: Attorney Responsible, Person Assisting, and Originating Attorney. The way we have set up our revenue split, 10% of any fees would go to the Originating Attorney and 10-25% (depending on whether it goes to trial) of contingency fees would go to a “Person Assisting.” For contingency matters, “Attorney Responsible” will probably end up being the one who becomes entitled to 35-50% of the contingency fee, depending on whether there is a “Person Assisting.” In all cases, 30% of the fees generated from any matter go to the firm to pay for overhead first and thereafter to profit shares based on an end-of-year reconciliation.

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