Tabs3vs
CosmoLex
CosmoLex: Cloud practice management with built-in trust and business accounting, if you want the same accounting scope without running a server
Tabs3
Billing, trust and general ledger accounting for small and mid-sized US law firms
As of 31 August 2026, Tabs3 starts at $69/month. Time, billing and full double-entry firm accounting for small to mid-sized US firms that bill hourly. Softwr lists it under Legal. Tabs3 is made by Tabs3 Software (Software Technology, LLC), available on Windows, Web, iOS, Android.
Overview
What Tabs3 does
Tabs3 is a suite of practice management and accounting software for law firms, built around Tabs3 Billing for time and fee entry, Trust Accounting for client fund ledgers, General Ledger and Accounts Payable for the firm books, and PracticeMaster for matters, contacts, calendaring and conflict searching. It is sold by Software Technology, LLC of Lincoln, Nebraska, which trades as Tabs3 Software and is part of the ProfitSolv group of legal and professional services products. What separates it from the cloud practice management market is that the firm ledger and the billing system are the same system. Most competitors bill and then push data to an external accounting package, which means somebody reconciles two sets of books every month. Tabs3 includes a real double-entry general ledger, so trust reconciliation and firm accounts come from the same records that generated the invoices. It is also one of very few legal products still deployable on a firm server, which keeps it viable where clients or insurers restrict cloud storage of matter data. Buyers should note that this is no longer a perpetual licence: the on-premises option is sold as a per-user subscription, so choosing it avoids the cloud without avoiding the recurring cost. It is bought by US firms of roughly two to fifty fee earners that bill hourly or on flat fees and want their accounting in house. The trade-off is that this is desktop software with desktop conventions: the interface is dated, it is Windows-centric, and the on-premises deployment moves backup, disaster recovery and upgrades onto the firm. It is also the wrong shape for contingency work, because it is built around billing time rather than tracking case costs through to a settlement.
What people use it for
- Small firms billing hourly that want billing and the firm general ledger in one system rather than reconciling two
- Practices that must run three-way trust reconciliation without a separate bookkeeping package
- Firms that need an on-premises deployment because of client or insurer restrictions on cloud-hosted matter data
- Long-established practices replacing a decades-old billing system while keeping accounting in house
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Tabs3.
- The interface follows Windows desktop conventions from an earlier era, so new fee earners and staff take longer to train than they would on a browser-based competitor.
- On-premises deployment puts backup, disaster recovery, server upgrades and patching on the firm, which small practices without IT support routinely underestimate.
- It is built around hourly and flat fee billing, so a contingency practice tracking case costs and settlement disbursements will find the case financial model a poor fit.
- PracticeMaster case management is priced separately from billing, so the advertised per-user rate is not what a firm wanting matter management actually pays.
- Choosing the on-premises option no longer avoids a subscription, because it is billed per user per month like the hosted version.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Tabs3
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- Tabs3vsClio
Clio: Larger integration ecosystem and a browser-first interface, at the cost of relying on external accounting for the firm ledger
- Tabs3vsSmokeball
Smokeball: A better fit if automatic time capture matters more to you than in-house double-entry accounting
Pricing
What Tabs3 costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
OnSite Subscription
$69 /mo
- Deployed on the firm server
- Billing, trust accounting and general ledger
- PracticeMaster add-on at 32 USD per user per month
Tabs3 Cloud
$89 /mo
- Hosted by the vendor
- Billing, trust accounting and general ledger
- PracticeMaster add-on at 35 USD per user per month
Capabilities
Features
Tabs3 Billing
Time and fee entry with statement generation for hourly and flat fee matters
Trust accounting
Client fund ledgers with three-way reconciliation
General ledger and accounts payable
Double-entry firm books in the same system as billing
PracticeMaster
Matter, contact and calendar management with conflict searching, priced as an add-on
On-premises or cloud subscription
Runs on the firm server or hosted by the vendor, both billed per user per month
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Is Tabs3 right for a personal injury firm working on contingency?
No. It is built for hourly and flat fee billing with a firm general ledger. A contingency practice needs case cost tracking and settlement disbursement handling, which is what CASEpeer and Filevine are built around.
Can I still buy Tabs3 as a perpetual licence?
No published perpetual price exists. The on-premises option, called OnSite Subscription, starts at 69 USD per user per month, with the hosted Tabs3 Cloud starting at 89 USD per user per month.
Does it replace QuickBooks?
For most firms yes. It includes a double-entry general ledger and accounts payable, which is the usual reason firms choose it over billing-only products.
Keep looking
Where to go from Tabs3
- Tabs3 alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Tabs3 pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Tabs3 badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Legal softwareThe full category
- Best Legal softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Legal software for
Compare Tabs3 with
- Clio
- Smokeball
- CosmoLex
- Rocket Matter
- Aderant
- Actionstep
- CASEpeer
- iManage
- MyCase
- Ironclad
- Westlaw
- Lawmatics
- Logikcull
- Cookiebot
- Docketwise
- Harvey
- CASEpeer
- Westlaw
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Tabs3, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
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