Firm CRM software that handles intake, matter, billing, and time on one surface.
Professional service firms (law, accounting, consulting, financial planning) run a motion: client intake with conflict check, matter or engagement workflow, time capture, billing, and the compliance posture each profession requires. Horizontal CRMs (HubSpot, Salesforce) handle the sales motion but not the matter workflow. Practice-management platforms (Clio, Karbon) handle the matter workflow but not the sales motion. Strkr lands both on one surface with flat per-seat pricing.
A professional service firm past 10 professionals carries operational complexity that neither a horizontal CRM nor a practice-management platform fully handles. The firm has a sales motion (lead to signed engagement) and a matter motion (engagement to completion to invoice). The sales motion looks like a standard B2B pipeline. The matter motion looks like a project with time capture, trust accounting (for law firms), and the compliance checkpoints each profession runs. Six specific gaps show up at the growing professional service firm, each one driving the search for a firm CRM software that spans both motions.
The sales-vs-matter split
Two systems, one firm.
Most firms run a horizontal CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce) for the sales motion and a practice-management platform (Clio, Karbon, Rocket Matter) for the matter motion. The handoff between systems is manual and lossy. A lead becomes a signed engagement, which becomes a matter, which closes to a case study. The handoff loses context at every step. Strkr runs the full motion end-to-end so the context preserves.
Conflict check and intake
The 15-minute intake that is actually a workflow.
A new-client intake runs conflict check (does the prospect have a prior engagement with the firm, does the matter conflict with a current client), engagement letter (scope, fee structure, trust requirements), KYC verification where required, and the matter record creation. Horizontal CRMs do not run conflict check natively. Strkr runs the intake workflow with the conflict check, the engagement letter templates, the KYC posture, and the matter creation on one surface.
Time capture integrated with matter
Billable hours as first-class data.
A firm bills on time plus flat fees plus contingency plus retainer. Time captures per matter per professional per activity type. Horizontal CRMs do not model time; standalone time trackers (Toggl, Harvest) do not connect to the matter record. Strkr runs native time capture tied to the matter with the activity type, the billable rate, and the WIP (work in process) report running in real time.
Billing by multiple fee structures
Hourly, flat, contingency, retainer, blended.
A professional service firm bills across multiple fee structures: hourly for standard matters, flat fee for defined-scope projects, contingency for law-firm cases on contingency, retainer for ongoing engagement, blended for specific projects. Horizontal CRMs do not model this. Practice-management platforms model partially. Strkr runs the full fee-structure matrix with the billing engine generating invoices by fee type.
Trust accounting for law firms
IOLTA, state bar rules, three-way reconciliation.
Law firms run trust accounting with IOLTA (Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts) compliance, state bar rules (varies by state), and three-way reconciliation (bank statement, trust ledger, client sub-ledgers). Horizontal CRMs do not touch this. Strkr runs trust accounting on the FinServ tier with the IOLTA compliance posture that state bar auditors recognize.
Utilization and realization reporting
The firm economics are not visible.
Firm economics measure through utilization (billable hours as percent of available hours), realization (billed hours as percent of worked hours), and effective rate (collected revenue per hour worked). Horizontal CRMs do not model this. Practice-management platforms model partially. Strkr runs the firm economics dashboard with utilization, realization, effective rate, and the WIP aging all visible to the managing partner.
What Strkr ships for professional service firms
Intake, matter, time, billing, trust, utilization.
A professional service firm evaluates CRM software on six capabilities: integrated sales-and-matter workflow, intake with conflict check, time capture tied to matters, multi-fee-structure billing, trust accounting (for law firms), and firm economics reporting (utilization, realization, effective rate). The cards below are the capabilities Strkr ships on every paid tier.
Integrated sales-and-matter
Lead to engagement to matter to invoice.
The full firm motion runs end-to-end: lead captures from the website or referral, qualifies through the sales pipeline, converts to a signed engagement, opens a matter record, time captures against the matter, invoices generate from time and fees, cash collects, matter closes with the retention policy applied. The record chain preserves across the full lifecycle so the firm history on each client is complete.
Intake with conflict check
The 15-minute intake runs as a workflow.
The intake workflow runs conflict check (automated search across firm matters for prospect-name match and conflicting-party match), engagement letter from the template library (populated with the matter details), KYC verification where required (for high-risk engagements), and the matter record creation. The intake takes 15 minutes with the right data captured instead of 45 minutes with the risk of a missed conflict.
Time capture
Native to matter, timer or manual entry.
Time captures natively on the matter record. The professional runs a timer or enters time manually with the activity type (research, drafting, client meeting, court appearance, review), the billable rate (per matter, per professional, or per activity type), and the narrative. The WIP report runs in real time showing unbilled time by matter, by professional, by practice area, and by age. The month-end billing cycle runs on current data instead of a time-dump reconciliation.
Multi-fee-structure billing
Hourly, flat, contingency, retainer, blended.
The billing engine generates invoices across fee structures: hourly from captured time, flat fee at matter completion milestones, contingency from the settlement with the contingency percentage applied, retainer against the recurring billing schedule, blended with the mix per matter. Invoice templates per practice area or per client. Dunning runs on aged invoices with configurable escalation. The CFO reconciles against the GL from Strkr.
Trust accounting
IOLTA with three-way reconciliation.
Trust accounting (for law firms, available on the FinServ tier) runs IOLTA with state-bar-specific rules applied. The trust ledger per client tracks deposits, retainers, disbursements, and the running balance. Three-way reconciliation runs monthly: bank statement, trust ledger total, client sub-ledgers sum. State bar audit response produces the required documentation in a documented workflow. Clio Trust and QuickBooks integration available for firms running those adjacently.
Firm economics dashboard
Utilization, realization, effective rate.
The firm economics dashboard runs the key firm metrics: utilization per professional (billable hours as percent of available hours), realization (billed hours as percent of worked hours), effective rate (collected revenue per hour worked), WIP aging, AR aging, and the matter profitability by practice area. The managing partner sees firm health at a glance for the monthly review.
Matter workflow by practice area
Litigation, transactional, advisory, audit.
Matter workflow configures per practice area with stage sequences the firm actually runs: litigation (pre-filing, discovery, motions, trial prep, trial, resolution, closeout), transactional (letter of intent, diligence, drafting, negotiation, closing, post-closing), advisory (scope, research, deliverable, review, delivery), audit (planning, fieldwork, review, reporting, closeout). Each stage carries the required documentation, the standard duration, and the quality checkpoints.
Document management
Matter-scoped with version control.
Documents attach to matters with full version control, access permissions, and the retention policy applied per practice area. The matter closes with the document archive preserved for the required retention period (varies by profession: 7 years for CPAs under IRS Circular 230, 7 to 10 years for law firms depending on state bar rules, varies for financial advisors under 204-2 and 17a-4). The retention clock runs automatically.
Flat per-seat pricing
Firm features on every tier.
Strkr pricing is per seat with the full product on every paid tier including intake with conflict check, time capture, multi-fee-structure billing, firm economics reporting, matter workflow, and document management. Trust accounting on the FinServ tier (included for law firms). No module gate, no practice-management-SKU, no utilization-report upcharge. A 25-professional firm pays a predictable number 12 months out.
The firm workflow in detail
What a managing partner and a professional actually do.
Professional service firm workflow varies by role. The managing partner oversees firm economics, practice area performance, and partner-level matters. The professional (associate, consultant, planner, auditor) runs matters, captures time, and manages the client relationship. The CFO or firm administrator runs billing, collections, and the operational reporting. The cards below walk through specific workflows for each role.
The managing partner Monday
Firm scorecard in 20 minutes.
The managing partner opens Strkr Monday morning and sees the firm scorecard: utilization by professional, realization by practice area, effective rate trend, WIP aging over 60 days, AR aging over 90 days, matter pipeline by stage. The scorecard surfaces the issues (an associate dropping below 70 percent utilization, a practice area realization sliding, a matter stuck in a stage) for the partner meeting agenda.
The new matter intake
15 minutes from inquiry to opened matter.
A new inquiry arrives via the website, referral, or direct call. The intake workflow runs conflict check (automated), engagement letter from the template library, KYC verification where required, and the matter record creation. The intake professional spends 15 minutes on the workflow instead of 45 minutes on manual steps across 3 tools. The matter opens with the full context in place for the assigned professional.
The professional time capture
Timer on, work, timer off, done.
The professional starts the timer at the beginning of a billable task, works, stops the timer at the end, confirms the activity type and the narrative, and the time commits to the matter. Alternative: manual entry at end of day with the typical narrative templates. The month-end time dump that most firms run disappears because the time captures in real time on the matter.
The month-end billing cycle
From WIP to invoice to send.
The month-end billing cycle runs: review WIP by matter and by professional, write down or write up as needed, generate invoices from the WIP with the appropriate fee structure applied, review for accuracy, send to clients. The cycle completes in 2 to 3 days for a 25-professional firm instead of the week the manual approach consumes. Dunning runs automatically on aged invoices.
The partner matter review
Weekly matter-portfolio check.
The partner reviews the matter portfolio weekly: open matters by stage, matters not touched in 14+ days, matters over budget, matters at risk of ethics or compliance issues. The partner engages on the matters that need senior attention. The review takes 30 minutes instead of a half-day of pulling matter status from associates.
The quarterly firm review
Partners working with the data.
The quarterly firm review surfaces the deeper picture: practice area profitability, partner-level matters contribution, hire-vs-outsource decisions on specific functions, client acquisition cost by channel, matter mix shift over trailing-12. The partners work from the data instead of from anecdote. Strategic decisions (hiring, practice area investment, partner compensation) use the firm economics data as the starting point.
What firms compare on
The honest firm-software evaluation.
Firms evaluating CRM software compare on criteria that differ from the standard B2B software evaluation. The honest criteria: integrated sales-and-matter workflow, time capture depth, multi-fee-structure billing, trust accounting (for law firms), firm economics reporting, and three-year TCO at firm scale. The six criteria below show up on every firm software evaluation.
Integrated sales-and-matter
One system vs two.
Strkr: full sales-to-matter motion on one surface. Horizontal CRMs plus practice management (HubSpot plus Clio, Salesforce plus Karbon): two-system approach with handoff loss. For firms past 10 professionals, the integrated approach removes the handoff cost.
Time capture depth
Native vs standalone tool.
Strkr: native time capture tied to matters with real-time WIP. Standalone time trackers (Toggl, Harvest): disconnected from the matter record. Practice-management platforms (Clio, Karbon): native time capture at parity. For firms where billable time is the primary revenue input, native integration is a workflow lever.
Multi-fee-structure billing
Hourly, flat, contingency, retainer unified.
Strkr: all fee structures native. Clio and Karbon: strong for the practice-area norm. Horizontal CRMs: billing via integration. For firms with mixed fee structures, native unified billing removes a reconciliation layer.
Trust accounting (for law firms)
IOLTA with three-way reconciliation.
Strkr: IOLTA with state-bar-specific rules on the FinServ tier. Clio: strong trust accounting. Horizontal CRMs: not applicable. For law firms, trust accounting is a must-have that filters the evaluation set.
Firm economics reporting
Utilization, realization, effective rate.
Strkr: firm economics dashboard with the full metric set. Practice-management platforms: partial coverage. Horizontal CRMs: via custom reporting. For firms running on managing-partner economics review, native support is a workflow fit.
Three-year firm TCO
One system vs stack.
Strkr: flat per seat with firm features included. Two-system approach: HubSpot plus Clio plus QuickBooks lands at $180 to $350 per professional per month fully loaded. For a 25-professional firm, three-year TCO delta can run $120K to $280K.
Head-to-head
Strkr vs HubSpot plus Clio for a 25-professional firm.
The common two-system approach for professional service firms runs HubSpot for the sales motion and Clio for the matter motion. The head-to-head for a 25-professional law firm:
The common thread across professional service firm customers: get the full sales-to-matter motion, the time capture, the billing, the trust accounting, and the firm economics on one tool while cutting the two-system approach to one. The playbooks below describe the firm motion at common scales.
18-professional law firm
HubSpot plus Clio consolidated over 11 weeks.
An 18-professional law firm running HubSpot (sales) and Clio (matters, trust accounting) consolidated to Strkr over 11 weeks. The sales pipeline migrated from HubSpot, the matter records migrated from Clio with the time history and trust ledger preserved. Trust accounting activated in week 5 with the IOLTA three-way reconciliation running on the first month-end post-migration. Three-year TCO projection dropped 42 percent and the firm administrator recovered 12 hours per week.
25-professional accounting firm
Karbon decommissioned over 13 weeks.
A 25-professional accounting firm moved from Karbon to Strkr over 13 weeks. The engagement workflow (audit, tax, advisory) rebuilt in Strkr with practice-area-specific stages. Time capture activated for all professionals in week 4. The month-end billing cycle ran clean on month 3 post-migration. The firm added the sales pipeline (lead to signed engagement) which Karbon handled minimally. Lead conversion rate improved on the structured sales motion.
12-consultant management consulting firm
Flat-fee and retainer billing unified.
A 12-consultant management consulting firm with mixed flat-fee project billing and retainer billing ran the unified billing engine on Strkr. Project-based engagements billed at milestones with the time capture validating the scope assumptions. Retainer engagements billed monthly with the activity reporting attached. The CFO reconciled the two billing streams in one view instead of pulling from the project tool and the retainer tracker separately.
35-attorney litigation boutique
Multi-practice-area workflow.
A 35-attorney litigation boutique with 4 practice areas (commercial litigation, employment, IP, white collar) ran matter workflow per practice area with the stage sequence each area uses. Associates captured time with the practice-area-specific activity types. Partner review workflow ran weekly on matters-not-touched-in-14-days. The firm economics dashboard surfaced practice-area profitability for the partner compensation discussion.
8-advisor planning firm
Sales and matter unified for subscription planning.
An 8-advisor subscription planning firm ran the lead-to-engagement motion in Strkr with the subscription billing attached. The matter workflow (financial plan delivery) captured against the subscription for revenue allocation. Churn surfaced as a first-class metric with the subscription state visible on each client. The firm added a lead-nurture motion for the long-cycle prospects that converted at a meaningfully better rate than the prior ad-hoc follow-up.
Firm CRM software that handles intake, matter, billing, and time on one surface.
Start a 14-day trial with the firm configuration enabled: integrated sales-and-matter workflow, intake with conflict check and engagement letter, native time capture tied to matters with real-time WIP, multi-fee-structure billing (hourly, flat, contingency, retainer, blended), trust accounting with IOLTA three-way reconciliation (law firms, FinServ tier), firm economics dashboard with utilization, realization, and effective rate, matter workflow by practice area, document management with retention clock, and the full product on every paid tier at flat per-seat pricing. Migrate from HubSpot plus Clio, Salesforce plus Karbon, or any two-system approach.
How does Strkr integrate the sales motion with the matter workflow?
The full firm motion runs end-to-end on one surface. A lead captures from the website, referral, or direct inquiry with the lead source attribution. The sales pipeline qualifies the lead through the standard B2B stages (discovery, proposal, negotiation, closed-won). On closed-won, the lead converts to a signed engagement with the engagement letter, scope, and fee structure captured. The engagement opens a matter record with the practice-area-specific workflow applied. Time captures against the matter, invoices generate from the time and fees, cash collects, and the matter closes with the retention policy applied. The record chain preserves across the full lifecycle so a case-study candidate 3 years post-matter still carries the full history from inquiry to resolution.
How does the conflict check work in the intake workflow?
The conflict check runs automatically at intake with a configurable search strategy: prospect name search across all firm matters (parties, witnesses, counterparties, counsel), related-party name search (business entities, principals), and matter-topic search for substantive conflicts. The search returns potential matches with the matter context so the attorney assigns the conflict review. For firms with heavy conflict-check requirements (big-law scale), Strkr integrates with Intapp Open and the common dedicated conflict-check platforms. For small and mid firms, the native search typically covers the requirement at the standard state-bar expectation. The conflict-check record retains with the intake decision for the audit trail.
What professions does Strkr firm CRM software support?
Strkr supports professional service firms across law, accounting, consulting, financial planning, financial advisory, investment advisory, insurance agencies, management consulting, and engineering consulting. Each profession carries practice-area-specific configurations: law firms get matter workflow by litigation vs transactional vs regulatory with trust accounting; accounting firms get engagement workflow by audit vs tax vs advisory with the engagement-letter and PCAOB-posture features; financial planning firms get the plan workflow with 204-2 compliance; consulting firms get the project workflow with flat-fee and retainer billing. The common patterns (intake, time capture, billing, utilization reporting) run consistently across profession with the practice-specific extensions on top.
How does the time capture integrate with billing and WIP reporting?
Time captures natively on the matter record. The professional runs a timer during a billable task or enters time manually at end of day with the activity type (research, drafting, client meeting, court appearance, review, administration), the billable rate (per matter, per professional, or per activity type with override capability), and the narrative. The WIP (work in process) report runs in real time showing unbilled time by matter, by professional, by practice area, and by age. The month-end billing cycle generates invoices from the WIP with write-down or write-up adjustments as needed. Realization measures as billed hours divided by worked hours; effective rate measures as collected revenue divided by worked hours. The firm economics dashboard runs these metrics continuously.
Does Strkr handle trust accounting for law firms?
Yes, on the FinServ tier. Trust accounting runs IOLTA with state-bar-specific rules applied. The trust ledger per client tracks deposits, retainers, disbursements, and the running balance. Three-way reconciliation runs monthly: bank statement, trust ledger total, client sub-ledgers sum. Fund-availability checks run at disbursement to prevent commingling violations. State bar audit response produces the required documentation in a documented workflow. For firms running Clio Trust adjacent to Strkr, the Clio Trust integration preserves the Clio Trust posture while adding the Strkr CRM layer. The trust accounting feature is designed to pass state bar audit scrutiny; firms should verify the state-bar rule set with their malpractice insurer during implementation.
What is the migration path from a two-system approach (HubSpot plus Clio or similar)?
Strkr runs a firm-migration tool that pulls the sales pipeline, contacts, and historical conversations from the horizontal CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho) via API, and the matter records, time history, trust ledger, and billing history from the practice-management platform (Clio, Karbon, Rocket Matter, PracticePanther) via API. The integration preserves the record linkage so a historical lead ties to the resulting matter. Trust ledger migration preserves the three-way reconciliation history for the state-bar audit trail. Most two-system migrations complete in 10 to 16 weeks for firms up to 40 professionals with a 3-week parallel-running period. The deeper work is usually the practice-area workflow configuration and the professional training.
No sales call, no migration consultant, no four-month implementation. Enter your card, get 14 days of the full Pro tier, cancel any time before day 14 with zero charge. Spin up a workspace, import your CSV, and have something useful before lunch.
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