In continuing to uphold high standards in virtual law practice, VLOTech has released improved payment options and processes for our software that assist attorneys delivering legal service online in following their state bar rules and regulations for law practice management.

This product update includes changes to retainer, invoice and payment processing in order to allow tighter control and compliance with trust accounting and IOLTA.

Highlights of the new update include the following:

Payment methods are filtered so that only the relevant accounts are provided as options for the attorney to select when directing online payments from the VLO to an attorney’s law firm bank account. Retainer payments and invoices flagged for a trust account will not be shown as payment methods marked for operating accounts.  Likewise, regular invoices with payments due will not be marked for trust accounts.

If an attorney’s third-party credit card processing company or other financial institution handling the online payment processing supports it, the attorney may now designate a trust account and operating account for each payment method.  The system will detect the presence of trust account requirements and select the correct account when processing a payment.

VLOTech can also accommodate trust and operating accounts set up with different banks.  For example, if the attorney’s bank or other payment processing merchant service only allows one account to be assigned for payment processing, the attorney could make this the trust account and then use another online payment method such as PayPal for the operating account payment processing.

We are currently working with another company, a payment processing merchant designed to handle IOLTA compliance by offering two account ids to attorneys, to integrate their product offering into the VLOTech software. This would provide VLOTech clients with an additional online payment option for their VLO. As of this release, we currently support payment processors run through Link Point, used by banks such as PNC.

Additionally, as part of the redesign of the VLO payment processes, an abstract API was created that will allow additional payment merchant interfaces to be developed quickly as long as the attorney provides VLOTech with a developer’s test account and proper documentation.

If you have any questions about these new product features or about operating a VLO to comply with trust accounting requirements and IOLTA, please contact us at launch@vlotech.com.