Choosing a practice management program is a very subjective decision. What works wonderfully for one firm — or even one department within a firm — may not be a good fit for another firm or even other departments within the same law office. Even if two firms have similar practices, the differences in their procedures and personalities can make the same package work well in one office and disastrously in the other.

Over the past year, the leading practice management providers have extended their tentacles to incorporate functions from the products with which they linked. For example, DataTxt, the maker of Time Matters, has added Billing Matters. At the same time, the leading legal timekeeping and billing programs are adding more practice management tools. The result is both a confusing set of choices and products that require a bigger investment of time and effort to implement successfully. In the next few columns, I’ll review what’s new from the major practice management and billing products. This month’s focus is Time Matters and Billing Matters.

Time Matters, an incredible practice management tool, provides the basics: shared contact and case lists, individual and group calendars, to-do lists with note tracking, phone messaging, document creation and management that includes scanned documents, messenger functions, remote synchronization, legal research tracking, rudimentary billing functions and links to most leading legal timekeeping and billing programs. Unlike some of its competitors, Time Matters can easily connect multiple contacts to a case or several cases, or connect to other contacts.

Form styles, which allow users to associate customization with specific codes (most often for different types of cases), have been enhanced so users can define designs for all supporting records such as notes, phone records, email and documents. With the new customization options, case screens can be changed to show a filtered list of related contacts, events, tasks or deadlines, notes, documents or any of the other records. Screen layouts also can be changed to add field areas, additional address areas or even hide unused fields or areas.

Version 5 enhanced many of Time Matters’ already outstanding features. For example, lawyers already can see their own calendar, superimpose others’ on theirs or view a defined group’s calendar. Version 5 adds a scheduling view to see when a selected group of people has a block of free time. Quick Tabs, which essentially are predefined sorts of records with selected columns displayed, is a feature other products have yet to copy. The benefits of choosing specific records such as active clients or Attorney A’s personal injury cases with columns of information from automatically updated records often are unappreciated by potential and new Time Matters users.

Many lawyers still don’t have the keyboarding skills to enter their own contacts or other data. For those for whom doing their own email is a big accomplishment, the hidden benefit of Quick Tabs is that even these lawyers can be taught to open the contact list, type a few letters from a person’s last name and access basic information. Setting up Quick Tabs to provide critical information at a glance can immediately improve the firm’s practice related management information. Combining this with the new Power views, which are previews of records in the various list views, and Time Matters can be set up to provide users required information with minimal training. The best part of these functions is that neither requires extensive time or effort to customize.

Billing Matters

With the introduction of Billing Matters, Datatxt, now owned by LexisNexis, offers several options — Billing Matters alone, Time Matters alone or in combination. Billing Matters includes full timekeeping and billing functions along with Time Matters’ basic contact, matter, event and todo functions. The combination provides a totally integrated billing program plus the additional records management of Time Matters (primarily email, phone and documents).

In developing Billing Matters, Datatxt improved on competitors’ designs and functions. Different approaches to designing bill layouts were considered so users can either see the entire design or focus on sections. In adding Billing Matters to its suite, Datatxt ended up adding functionality to Time Matters as well; for example, the report designer was improved in both products.
Just as it’s often difficult to learn a new language and its grammar, in making a transition from other billing programs to Billing Matters, there are new terminology and procedures. Making a change also affords an opportunity to reexamine the firm’s billing process from client intake to yearend to see whether there are ways to streamline steps.

Billing Matters adds many tools and options that allow a firm, if inclined, to improve timekeeping as well as billing. While some of these benefits can be gained by linking Time Matters to competing billing programs such as Timeslips, Tabs, PCLaw or Juris, there are additional benefits of having timekeeping and billing built directly into the practice management program. When linking Time Matters to another company’s billing programs, users rely on links created by the two companies. Often these links don’t share all the required information, making it necessary to edit records after the linked records have been transferred. Some links require an administrator to transmit information through glorified import export files. Since Billing Matters is part of the Time Matters database, all information is stored in one program.

Capturing time

One of the biggest difficulties for many timekeepers is finding easy ways to capture time as they work. Billing Matters provides several options that will suit many different timekeeping styles. The “billing items” option provides all the fields and allows for Auto text shortcuts to type repetitive phrases. The “quick item entry” is an ideal way for a billing clerk to quickly transcribe written time entries into Billing Matters. Many lawyers also prefer this view of their time. The timesheet view shows five days at a glance and also can be used to enter time while working. From any record in Time Matters, one can send items to billing to add time or expense slips. When adding a new slip this way, it will automatically inherit information from the beginning record. For example, an event on the calendar can be edited to reflect the actual amount of time spent at the meeting, trial or deposition. By pressing “send to billing,” a slip is created that will inherit the duration, client and matter, and description from the event record. Depending on how lawyers describe their work to clients, they may only have to save the billing record to make a slip from the event.

If Billing Matters can be faulted for anything, it would be for having too many options in setting up clients and matters for billing including both consolidated and split fee billing. You can choose to bill by client or matter. Rates are extremely flexible and can even be set in advance to anticipate a rate increase. You can create bill profiles for groups of matters that use the same options and bill layout. If you send electronic bills to audit companies, you must add some fields to case screens but the process is relatively painless and much cheaper than Datatxt’s competitors.

Innovative features

A number of innovative features are built into Billing Matters. One especially nice addition is the “bill in advance” option for preparing a bill for a retainer payment already received. Another nice touch is the “bill express” for preparing a simple bill while a client is in the office. It also can serve as a receipt if payment is made immediately.

The “bill flow manager” is an elegant solution to a problem that has long plagued law firms. By defining bill flow collections, billing clerks can work with specific groups of bills or quarterly bills for a particular client. Depending on the firm’s culture, this tool allows timekeepers to review the bills through Billing Matters without printing reams of paper. A review feature makes it easy to ask a timekeeper about specific bills or slips. The bill flow manager also makes it easy to see which bills are ready to send and which are languishing on someone’s to-do list. Being a part of Time Matters, Billing Matters also can take advantage of the email functions and allow for both PDF versions of bills as well as email bills.

Billing Matters comes with about 50 reports, which should meet most firms’ basic needs. The built-in report writer should assist most offices in obtaining any other information that isn’t already available. The ability with QuickTabs to see accounts receivable, balance and billing information in list views may eliminate paper reports.
No single practice management or billing product will suit all firms or situations. When weighing whether to stay with existing products or convert, many issues beyond cost must be considered. Decision makers must critically evaluate whether current applications are working effectively, how closely the program’s functions meet the firm’s current and future needs, and the impact on the firm’s personnel and clients.

The ability to have both practice management tools and timekeeping and billing in the same program is a major benefit to many firms. Couple that with excellent support and the ability to scale up to an SQL version for larger environments, and Datatxt has a sure hit.

Carol L. Schlein is president of Law Office Systems in Montclair, a training and consulting firm specializing in law firm automation. Copies of previous columns are on her company website, www.losinc.com. For information about her quarterly meetings for Time Matters users, check the website or e-mail info@losinc.com. Schlein formerly chaired the Computer and Technology Division of the ABA Law Practice Management Section.

Questions for Carol L. Schlein on law office technology may be faxed to New Jersey Lawyer at (732) 650-7010, e-mailed to news@njlnews.com or mailed to “Law Technology Questions,” New Jersey Lawyer, Edison Square, 2035 Lincoln Highway, Suite 3005, Edison, N.J. 08817.