Second Opinions
Am I Asking For the Sun and the Moon to Get Trust Accounting Software Functions?
By Barbara J. Gerth
Law firms are constantly faced with how to engineer their back-office systems to effectively and efficiently handle two major areas of law firm administration: management of case information management and the timely collection of client fees.
A number of firms have faced this challenge by purchasing legal-specific software packages that integrate accounting, time and billing, and case management functionality.
Other firms have gone the "best of breed" route and purchased individual software packages that can simply integrate with one another to provide the required functionality. It appears that your firm has chosen the latter.
Here's the assumptions I am making about your question:
- You are referring to a smaller law firm (less than 20 attorneys).
- The firm's current case management system is Needles 2.0.
- Trust accounting is the primary requirement of an integrated accounting package.
- Time tracking is not a necessity due to the contingency nature of the firm's cases.
Limited Options
With these priorities, the available options for an accounting package that will integrate with Needles Case Management System is limited. Currently, Needles 2.0 supports integration with only three mainstream accounting packages: Quicken, QuickBooks and Peachtree Accounting software. None of these software packages is legal specific. Needles representatives have stated they are also working on integration capability with TimeSlips for the near future.
Quicken is Intuit's personal finance management software. Intuit's Quick- Books and Peachtree Software, Inc. provide accounting and management information software for small businesses.
The latter two packages are more than capable of fulfilling a small law firm's trust accounting requirements with minor customizations. Myer Sankary and Dean Atkinson have co-authored an article entitled, "Client Trust Accounting the Easy Way with QuickBooks," (http://home.earthlink.net/~deaner/trust.htm) that details a methodology for tailoring QuickBooks to keep track of client trust transactions, produce required reports and perform monthly bank reconciliations.
Orion for Windows (www.orionlaw. com) is a legal-specific, fully functional, accounting program that includes the following modules: Time and Billing; Accounts Receivable; Management Reporting; Trust Accounting; Conflict Checking; Report Writer; Accounts Payable; General Ledger; Payroll; Docket Management; Record Management; and Fee and Cost Recovery.
Orion for Windows' open database is fully ODBC (Open Database connectivity) compliant and therefore can be accessed by any other ODBC compliant software. Integration with Needles 2.0 can be achieved via this ODBC capability.
Which accounting package should you recommend? This depends on the requirements of the firm. If, as you have stated, the firm is not interested in tracking time and is only concerned with Trust accounting, then QuickBooks or Peachtree should fit the bill.
To determine the most appropriate product, you must decide which of the following is most important to the firm: ease of use or price. QuickBooks is highly praised in the industry for its ease of use while Peachtree is often criticized for being too complicated for the novice user. On the other hand, QuickBooks can be pricey in the multi-user environment ($600 for a five user license), where Peachtree is significantly more affordable ($249 for the same five users).
However, although this firm may not be interested in billing for its time by the hour, it may want to track time worked to see where attorneys are spending their time, on what activities and for how long. This is precisely the kind of information that a full-blown, legal-specific time and billing system such as Orion can provide.
Be careful, however; software packages such as Orion are very similar in functionality and price to packages such as TABS III. You mention that the firm is "currently using TABS and is unhappy with the product" but you do not mention why it's unhappy. The most important thing to remember when evaluating different accounting packages is to carefully consider your needs and eliminate those packages that don't meet specific requirements. This advice may seem obvious, but many firms base their software selections on the features and functions that appeal most to them, ignoring the portions of the product that may not exactly fit the bill.
Once the firm is clear with respect to its requirements definition, then you must š evaluate the features and functions of the various products against it. Visit the Internet sites of the vendors you are most interested in, request on-site demonstrations from product re-sellers, obtain evaluation software, call references, do your homework. Only when you are completely satisfied that you have "touched all the bases" are you in a position to make an informed decision.
In the end, an accurate needs analysis and thorough comparison-shopping will usually get you where you need to be as a satisfied customer or a successful consultant.
Barbara J. Gerth is senior consultant at Hildebrandt International, in Somerset, N.J.
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