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Build an intake software business case from saved admin time, additional matters and first-year costs, with a cautious view of what the firm can actually capture.
Use your figures: Open the calculator. All amounts in the examples are illustrative and can be read in one currency of your choice.
Measure one intake workflow before comparing software
Choose a repeatable workflow: collecting prospective-client details, chasing missing documents or arranging the first appointment. Measure how many inquiries the firm receives and how much staff time the current process consumes. Keep marketing lead generation separate if the software does not change it.
A shorter form or fewer reminder calls may help, but the business case needs a clear mechanism. Estimate minutes saved per inquiry from a small workflow trial, not from a vendor’s best-case demonstration. Account for cases that still need manual handling.
Separate capacity value from extra matter money left after variable costs
Annual saved hours = monthly inquiries × minutes saved per inquiry ÷ 60 × 12. Value those hours with an appropriate staff cost and the percentage of the saving the firm can capture. Time may reduce overtime, avoid an additional hire or support useful work; it does not automatically reduce salary costs.
Extra matter money left after variable costs = annual inquiries × conversion-rate improvement × money left after variable costs per additional matter. A rise from 20% to 23% is three percentage points. Use money left after variable costs after the additional delivery costs, rather than treating the full client fee as profit.
Work through a first-year example
Suppose the firm handles 100 inquiries a month and saves 15 minutes per inquiry. That is 300 hours a year. At 30 per hour and 50% capture, the estimated time benefit is 4,500.
If conversion rises by two percentage points, 1,200 annual inquiries produce 24 additional matters. At 800 money left after variable costs each, that adds 19,200. Combined benefit is 23,700. Software at 300 a month plus setup of 1,500 costs 5,100 in year one, leaving 18,600 estimated net benefit. Net ROI is 18,600 ÷ 5,100 × 100, or 364.71%.
Avoid counting the same hour twice
If the saved staff time is what allows the firm to handle the additional matters, do not automatically count its full value on top of those matters’ money left after variable costs. Use a lower capture assumption or isolate time that creates a separate cost saving. Include training, migration and temporary disruption in setup costs.
Run a time-only case with conversion improvement set to zero. Then test a cautious combined case. If the investment denominator is zero, ROI is undefined; a positive benefit should not be displayed as an infinite return.
Check the result against the next bottleneck
Better intake cannot create more delivery capacity by itself. Check whether lawyers can take the extra work and whether the inquiries are suitable. Clio’s software ROI model also makes an assumption about using saved time for productive work; a software brand is not proof your firm will capture that value.
If missed recording is a separate problem, review the billable-hour leakage calculator. For a simpler ongoing-software comparison, see the admin-time and software payback model.
Related reading
- Unrecorded Billable Hours: Estimate Work Your Firm Could Invoice
- Coworking Software Savings: Compare Admin Time, Fees and Setup Costs
Work through your own numbers
Use the law firm intake software roi calculator to test a baseline and a cautious improvement. Check the calculation guide if you need help with currencies, sharing or assumptions.
Prepared by ProWorkstack. Examples are constructed calculations, not customer results. See our editorial standards.