Biscoes boosts efficiency with Access Legal
Financial Director is Access Legal‘s legal accounts package, which fully integrates with Access Legal Case Management, meaning firms can streamline and digitise the entire accounts process, making both fee earners and accounts staff more efficient and productive.
How it started
Biscoes Solicitors is a leading law firm operating across six offices in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. It offers a full range of legal services for both private and business clients.
Biscoes has used Access Legal’s case and practice management system, including legal accounts, for more than 20 years, and having been there for the past 18 years, finance manager Catherine Ridzuan is an experienced user of the software, particularly legal accounts package Financial Director (FD), which she has used since its release in 2013.
“We love how FD integrates with the case management system. We’ve never had to manually enter any information because the lawyer provides it all when they submit their e-chits via the case management system,” she says.
“It’s also really easy to get new lawyers in the firm to get on board with submitting the e-chits because it cuts out the middle person and saves us all a lot of work and time.”
Achieving greater operational efficiency
Aside from integration with the case management side of things, which is timeless, the ability to import land registry searches and send them off is also a really quick, two-button process — whereas before it would have taken a fair few hours to post everything.
FD comes with many more time-saving features, including the client-to-office (CTO) sweep, which allows you to view matters with both a client and office balance and select what to transfer in bulk.
Ridzuan goes on to explain her experience with the CTO:
“That’s brilliant, we love that too. The only issue is being unable to part-allocate disbursements, but other than that it’s faultless. It simply does the job for you, in line with the accounts rules; once a notice of charges has been sent to your client you can sweep the client’s money paid on account to clear down unpaid bills and disbursements. It’s quick and easy and you don’t have to look anything up.”
Another useful feature is being able to attach documents to postings on the purchase ledger, which she found helpful in reducing paper:
“Though it does take up computer space, we do have less paper to store. It also means, should we be audited two years down the line, we can easily find the files we need without trawling through paper documents.”
Enhanced user experience
“From an end-user point of view, FD is great. It’s easy to use, user-friendly, and looks nice, so with some training you could pick it up and start using it the next day. The client ledger is easy to understand, even for a client. Everything is colour-coded and laid out and matches with the case side.”
Many time-saving features within FD help a firm’s cashier team to operate more efficiently and effectively. The team at Biscoes finds the software easy to use, and it saves lots of time and effort with the seamless case management integration, integration with third-party suppliers, the CTO sweep, and auto-allocation features.
If you’re looking for a legal accounts system that’s compliant with solicitors accounts rules and making tax digital, you can find out more and request a demonstration through the legal accounts page.
