In the past the billable hours required to complete these tasks was preferable as the business of practicing law was an hourly service. However, modern law firms are changing and many factors are leading the practice of law into becoming a flat fee service.

With a flat fee pricing model, it becomes exponentially more advantageous to create automation systems that can minimize time spent performing repetitive tasks such as document generation. When automating tasks, you leverage the technology infrastructure to quickly and efficiently complete tasks. Automation allows your staff to remain billable and work on more advanced tasks while continuing to churn out deliverables. In the flat fee billing space, this automation of tasks raises your profitability, and for some firms can even be an absolute necessity to remaining successful.

Some examples of tasks that can be automated are:

• Document Generation
• Calendaring
• Client Status Update Communications
• Billing Entries

Law firms, like any business, employ numerous back end systems to manage their information, workflows, and billing. Many of the products have limited integration with each other – which will not allow systems to share information with each other – but why settle for limited?

In most circumstances, the workflow of a firm does not necessarily match the integration ability of the applications. So what is a firm to do? The firm could alter their entire business model and the workflows they employ to match the capabilities of the underlying systems but this is not the solution.

Accellis offers advanced integration systems that can accommodate almost any back-end systems or workflows. The integration services provided by Accellis allow law firm end-users to work their way, without duplicating work or data, which increases the overall efficiency of the firm. Accellis can analyze your workflow and back-end systems to determine the best course of action in creating applications that fit how your firm operates.

Below are some systems that we have integrated for firms:

• Time Matters®
• Clio®
• PracticeMaster®
• Worldox®
• NetDocuments®
• HotDocs®
• PCLaw®
• Tabs3®
• Needles®
• ProLaw®
• TimeSlips®
• QuickBooks®
• Juris®
• Microsoft® Outlook / Exchange
• Google® Mail / Google Calendar
• Prime Compliance Suite

Have you been thinking about changing your firms Practice Management or billing & accounting systems? Is the fear of the data conversion process from one system to another system holding you back? You are not alone, conversions are messy and complex, not to mention the potential of losing data in the process.

Accellis is here, we have the experience in converting and migrating data to and from the industry’s most popular Practice Management, Document Management, and billing & accounting systems.

Accellis offers benefits not available through most software vendors. We have previous experience working with both the source and destination systems. This means Accellis is familiar with the functionality and data structure of both the system you are coming from and the system you are moving to. The extensive system knowledge allows Accellis to provide a comprehensive and reliable data conversion for your firm.

While the software vendor may provide an excellent product and support for the product they sell, they do not always know of the system your data is coming from. The data conversion you are paying for, when employing your future software vendor, simply does not include knowledge of your legacy software. Due to this, many times the data conversion project can go terribly wrong, when it could be a very simple information transfer. Although many software vendor companies will work with you until the job is done, they will bill you for every minute it takes to learn the legacy system, spending more meeting time with you, and extending the project timeline of data migration into the new system.

Accellis has performed many data conversions and is intimately familiar with nearly any software solutions that a law firm was using and will use. This means we can get your data transferred accurately and reliably, in a much shorter amount of time. This saves you money and hassle for that next data conversion project. As a service company, Accellis has the inside knowledge to support your entire team while making the change from one system to the other. Don’t take on this challenge alone, have the professionals in your corner!

Some systems we have converted data for:

• Abacus
• Amicus
• Time Matters
• Clio
• Worldox
• Net Docs
• Pro Law
• Needles

Client portals are by far one of the most valuable custom development efforts that a firm can invest in. Client portals provide a competitive advantage over other firms and help to streamline/automate much of the client facing communication that takes place during the course of legal matters. A client portal establishes a stronger market presence thus helping your firm to stand out from its competitors. They can provide safe and secure means of sharing details, communications, and documents. A client portal can allow a law firm’s clients to log in and review their matters, events, and documents at any time. This on-demand repository of information frees up firm members by eliminating a large portion of client communications.Client portals can allow a firm to securely share documents with their clients, greatly increasing the turnaround time on signed documents, filings, information exchange and any other bottleneck caused by trying to get a hard copy to someone. Accellis has developed numerous client portals that integrate directly with law firms practice management, billing & accounting systems and document management repositories. We excel at creating advanced client portals due to our experience with complex application development, security procedures and knowledge of the systems used by law firms. Accellis understands the intricacies of working with highly sensitive data and provides industry-leading solutions to empower law firms’ digital presence! Some functionality provided by an Accellis developed client portal:

• Securely share case information
• Securely share and receive documents
• Creates a consistent customer experience through custom firm branding
• Easy and reliable permission systems
• Integrated with Practice Management System
• Integrated with Document Management System
• Advanced audit logs and chain of custody records
• Live email notifications of changes
• Leverage self-service functionality for clients

Many times a law firm will encounter limitations of their back end software, when this happens the firm has a couple of choices on how to overcome the limitations. The first option is to accept the limitations and adjust the workflow/operations of the firm to accommodate. Another way to overcome this issue is to replace the back end system with something that is capable of doing what the firm needs.

Many times neither of these options are viable, changing the way you do business to accommodate the supporting software that you purchased isn’t the best solution. What your business does works, why change that to accommodate software that isn’t equipped to support you?

In most cases, the limitation that you find in one popular back end system will exist in most or all similar systems. This makes it very difficult to select a potential replacement. Couple that with the purchase fees, maintenance plans, deployment, training and data migration and you quickly find yourself making an extremely costly move, if at all!

This is where a custom developed solution would make the most sense, rather than changing the way you do business or spending excessive amounts of money to migrate to a new system, you should consider having an application custom developed to serve your firms’ needs.

Custom developed applications can be less expensive and can drive more efficiency as they are designed around your workflows. You can increase the performance and reliability of your back end systems by trimming out unnecessary systems and services while increasing the efficiency and productivity of your staff, thus increasing your firms’ profitability!

Accellis provides professional and experienced consulting and application development services proven to enhance law firms operations. From small monitoring and analysis programs through complete practice management solutions Accellis has the experience and know how to get the job done right the first time.

Development specialties:

• Azure Cloud Services
• NET Web Applications
• .NET Applications & Services
• Microsoft SQL Server
• Oracle MySQL & Database 12C
• Sybase SQL Anywhere
• Cloud / SaaS Development
• Agile Development
• Versioned Collaboration

If you feel you have encountered limitations in the software and services that you are currently using, it may be time to consider replacing with custom solutions. Stop wasting time and money being frustrated with limited software that doesn’t do what you need.