Is Leap The Best Small Business Bookkeeping Software?

Leap appears to offer everything a law firm requires approximating the services of a legal bookkeeper and conform to legal accounting guidelines, such as HMRC and SRA.

But is it the best small business bookkeeping software available? This post will explore its strengths and some alternatives you could try.

Leap’s legal bookkeeping software provides a modern and intuitive user interface, it’s easy to use compared to some other legal accounts software available.

Yet, compared to other legal accounting software, Leap will only deal with transactions related to:

client billing
office receipts
disbursements
client account transactions, etc.

You cannot record office expenses or overheads. Another platform is needed to record these numbers, and that’s where Xero accounting software (https://www.xero.com/uk/) comes in. Leap recommends that you subscribe to Xero accounting software at an additional cost of £24 per month and record your expenses there.

Xero integration for ease of reporting

You’ll maintain your firm’s finances on two different platforms, which leads to the question: “what if I need to see my finances on one software or one report?” To address the issue, there is an option to integrate each software which allows all office account transactions recorded on Leap to be exported to Xero.

Be aware the integration is only one way, you can export transactions from Leap to Xero but not the other way around. So, if you need to amend any transactions, just make sure you sort this out on Leap so you can export to Xero and not land yourself in some bother.

Leap deals with all the client account transactions, so you reconcile any accounts within the interface. However, office account bank reconciliations take place on Xero—just something to note!

Tons of automation, which set the integration apart

Xero offers a lot of automation—ultimately making it more efficient to post office expenses and reconcile office accounts. I have seen no legal accounting software offering such automation, and I think it might take some time before any other software comes close to this level.

There are, however, some things that could be improved

For example, client and office account transactions don’t appear on one screen when viewing a client ledger. You can do this, but it requires opening a new window from the “reports” section. While it only takes a few extra seconds, it feels like an unnecessary inconvenience.

Office to client transfers can’t be posted in one go—you have to post them separately. Many other legal accounting software suites offer this feature, so its absence is noticeable here. You will also need to manually reconcile entries exported from Leap to Xero. This manual reconciliation ensures transactions are exported to Xero correctly, and they tie back to Leap entries.

Not doing this may reveal a different revenue figure between the platforms. If it was all integrated into a singular platform, this wouldn’t be necessary.

Minor criticisms notwithstanding, I like both Leap and Xero very much. I have no association with Leap, however, I would still recommend it as an intuitive and useful accounting solution for law firms.

Is Leap a free accounting software?

No, Leap is not free software. It takes a substantial amount of time to install, export previous data and learn the system. It’s more of an investment than it is a free tool—however, it’s integration into your law firm is well worth the investment.

Not won over by the software?

Why not try some other options? Here’s some you might consider:

Looking for help with your bookkeeping?

If you want some hands-on expertise on your accounts and the software you’re using, you might consider a remote bookkeeper to help take the pressure of accounts off your back. We offer a range of different packages to suit you and your law firm, get in contact with us today if we can help you.

Muhammad Zameer
Director My Legal Cashier, FCCA, BSC Applied Accounting