What Is Abacus Law Software?
Abacus Law is a legal practice management software designed to assist in the day-to-day operations of law firms and legal professionals. Its primary purpose is to organize and simplify legal workflows, encompassing everything from case management to billing and invoicing. Abacus Law is a comprehensive tool for streamlining the processes a firm undertakes from contract to close of the case or client file.
This software provides capabilities for tracking time, managing calendars, and streamlining document assembly. The focus of Abacus Law software is on increasing productivity and enhancing collaboration among staff and clients alike. With its cloud-based option, Abacus Law software also offers the inherent flexibility and mobility benefits that many lawyers and legal professionals look for in today’s fast-paced, dynamic work environment . By providing advanced data security, compliance controls, and disaster recovery options, Abacus Law helps to give users peace of mind.
Abacus Law also includes robust client relationship management (CRM) tools which help your business and customers maintain a solid relationship throughout the life of a matter. Integrated CRM capabilities enable businesses to maintain client contact details, track communications, and monitor sales progress in order to strengthen business-client relationships.
For legal professionals, Abacus Law software offers a powerful set of tools that can help enhance productivity while saving time and money.
Features of Abacus Law
An essential aspect of any legal management software is the ability to manage cases in a way that aligns with the needs of the practice. Abacus Law is designed to give attorneys an easy to use case management interface that allows them to set and track important deadlines, define procedures, create forms and document the evolution of the case. Templates are often used to create documents for similar types of cases, such as wills, etc.
Tracking and managing billable time is essential to the success of any law practice and Abacus Law makes this process easy for legal professionals. Time is very accurately tracked by the click of a button in the browser interface. This feature allows attorneys to create daily time entries, including time for calendar events, phone calls, e-mails or meetings that must be recorded for professional responsibility purposes.
Billing clients is a straightforward process with configurable invoices for multiple types of payment methods including credit, debit cards, electronic check payments, or recurring payments. The billing interface makes it easy to send e-mail invoices and statements to clients. The billing interface is especially useful when resampling the last invoice sent to a client, or using the last invoice as a template for sending out a new invoice.
Abacus Law has lots of features that allow legal professionals to manage their practices, as well as their client relationships. A benefits summary is available elsewhere on this site that describes other features of Abacus Law, but these features are just a few that are often used by law firms.
Advantages of Using Abacus Law
For law firms, the benefits of using Abacus Law extend to efficiency, accuracy, and management. As an all-in-one practice management system, this legal specific program streamlines processes from retainer through to revenue realisation. Efficiency is increased by reducing the need for manual data entry, which can lead to duplication of tasks. Abacus Law requires data to be only entered into the system once. The data is then used across the system for billing, accounts, scheduling, and client engagement. The modern and completive practice management system provide a one-stop shop for law firm with multiple needs. In a single space, users can bill clients, manage cases, handle contacts, and track matters when they use Abacus Law. Not only does this ease pressure on the administrative staff, but it makes it easier to stay on top of daily processes. When an enquiry comes in, all of the contact details are already in the system. When time to invoice, matching the correct time entries for the matter is simple. Single-entry means no training spent reacquainting staff with new software as you move into new areas and learn new software. The end result of all this data being stored in the same place is that it is easier and faster to provide information to clients who request it. When it is time to bill, practice management systems like Abacus Law drastically simplify the process of turning time into money. As mentioned above, timesheets automatically turn into billing items, which can then be quickly converted into invoices, with documentation attached to each activity. Multiple invoices can be sent to multiple clients at the same time, saving even more time. When it comes to setting the next step for a matter: everyone is on the same page.
Abacus Law vs. Other Tools
Abacus Law is sometimes compared with other legal practice management software on several levels. First, it is often compared to cloud-based legal practice management software. However, Abacus Law gives you the power of the cloud and the local control of your data as well. Your data doesn’t get "put in the cloud and locked away." You can directly access your data in your Abacus Law database over the Internet via the Abacus OneCloud mobile application or your Web browser. Or use Abacus Law without the cloud if you prefer. If you do not want to connect to your Abacus Law database over the Internet, you may use it just as before by keeping the Abacus Law software program on your computer, laptop, or server, accessing its native software interface.
Abacus Law is compared with other legal software products on the basis of price. Abacus Law provides all the features you need for the security of your data, and all the features of similar or competing legal practice management software, at a lower cost. For example, many of today’s legal software products, especially those advertised as making law firm operations "easier," are simply all-in-one low-cost document and forms automation products with little if any case management features and no time or billing tools—regardless of what their marketing department says. These all-in-one low-cost legal software alternatives usually just add-up your document production with a simple timer.
Abacus Law combines legal practice management, billing and case management all in one software package. While other software products may be more costly to purchase and maintain, Abacus Law is a complete package. Some law firms still use separate calendar, phone system and document management software, and even hardware to manage their law firm. Abacus Law replaces all of that with one complete system that manages your entire practice.
Today’s practice management software has perks—everything from cloud-based or mobile Apps to dictation integration to email handling to timekeeping and billing. With Abacus Law, you get all of this functionality in Abacus Law with just one system. Abacus Law is one of the few products that has everything you need for your firm, and at a great price.
Abacus Law Integrations
When selecting a practice management system, integration capabilities with existing software or tools in use is often overlooked. Consultation and litigation firms usually desire a streamlined approach to data management which makes compatibility a strong selling point when weighing up software procurement options. Firms are usually familiar with being sold software that requires deep dives into understanding operating systems and databases to launch basic functionality. Fortunately, the functionality of the Abacus Law cloud and on-premise solutions are adaptable to existing operating systems used in most usual law office environments; not restrictive. Integration with third-party applications for the purpose of improving a law firm’s efficiency is a top reason for laws firms adopting the Abacus Law practice management solution. The most popular applications are MS Office, billing , timekeeping and document management software or platforms. The billing, timekeeping and administrative management modules in the application are often fully integrated so their clickable interfaces sync seamlessly with either client or third-party software. The timekeeping and billing tools are completely integrated with Microsoft Office 365, so users can track billable time as documents are created. Examples of Abacus Law software that is widely used include Timeslips, Quickbooks, Clio, PCLaw, Net Documents, Cam Card, Worldox, Hot Docs and Document Management systems. Other applications that can integrate with Abacus practice management software include ASP applications, Droplr, Drafter AI, Law Tool Box, Headnote, Westlaw, Lexis, Outsourced Discovery and Pintag document management software. The range of Abacus Law compatible software is very large and varied; the potential for integration is significant.
Support and Training for Abacus Law
Abacus Law provides a robust suite of training and support resources for new and current users alike. In terms of product training, they offer live and recorded webinars and one-on-one video tutorials to help with the onboarding process. For current users, they offer weekly webinars that focus on new features or other areas of the product. There is a dedicated training center within the software that conducts live classes, as well as a detailed knowledge base that breaks down features and functionalities by topic, with instructions for how to use them.
The support staff of Abacus Law offers phone support whenever the program is being used, and maintains online and offline support teams during their standard business hours. Support tickets can be submitted through the software itself if it is being used in the cloud, or via e-mail. There is also an online chat feature available at any time, allowing for immediate problem-solving within the program. For more lengthy or involved issues, ticket submissions are the preferred choice.
More legal products and services are moving towards annual subscription fees, and Abacus Law is no different. They offer their services for monthly or yearly billing, and these payment options can be made through check, wire transfer or credit card. There is a 30-day free trial for new users, and no long-term contract commitment is required for users who opt to pay annually.
Customer Reviews for Abacus Law
"For the past 7 years, we have used Abacus and overall it has been very reliable. The structure and security of our file management was important to us and we have not had an issue with sharing information across multiple offices until it was intentional. Navigating through the application is easy and data entry was easy to teach new users. One feature we particularly liked is the customizable fields as we have specialized within our industry which requires some non-standard data entry."
"I have been a user of Abacus Law for approximately fifteen years. The ability to customize the software to meet my needs is my favorite feature. It allows me to tailor the software to my specific business needs. I also feel the support resources are great and timely."
"Easy to use for our practice. Simple on inputting data (no double input of same info). Great ability to search for documents in our files."
"We use it ourselves and for our clients. Integrates well with Quick Books and Office Docs. Abacus , in spite of being of older technology than others we have used, has been very reliable. It does what we need very well. And it is highly customizable."