Actionstep Overview

Authored by the vendor

Introduction

Actionstep participated in the creation of our Cloud Practice Management Comparison spreadsheet. Detailed information about Actionstep features is available in the spreadsheet. Each vendor participating in our review of cloud practice management applications submitted additional material about their service. Here is the material from Actionstep.

Actionstep

Legal Practice Management Just Got Exciting!

Let’s face it, managing your client and case information isn’t always fun. Sometimes it can feel a lot like you’re treading the proverbial hamster wheel.

A really good practice management software solution can help you stay on top of things and a really great solution will automate your practice to virtually run itself.

Think of Actionstep as full-time personal robot. It does the mind-numbing work, so you can spend your time on the good stuff.

So what exactly does Actionstep do?

Actionstep is a clever online practice management solution (we’re not allowed to say it’s the best, but it really is!), that lets you define and automate your legal practice processes, as well manage your case load and clients from literally anywhere.

We’re not just talking about managing emails and calendars, we’re talking about managing your matters, contacts, documents, trust accounting, time tracking, billing and more, all from a single application. You can choose from predefined process templates from our AppStore by law type, such as Guardian/Conservatorship, or customize your own. We also offer a range of add-ons that help your business tick along, such as password manager and asset register.

A match made in Cloud heaven

We don’t like to brag (we do), but Actionstep also integrates with leading online accounting software provider, Xero and popular document assembly vendor, HotDocs.

Who are we?

ActionStep is a leading edge SaaS company, with representatives in USA, New Zealand, Australia, and UK, and certified consultants across the globe. We’ve been around for about 8 years and we have customers all over the world (which is pretty impressive considering it’s all through word of mouth).

We live and breathe practice management, we get super excited about technology (yes, we’re geeks) and we use everything we develop in-house. We’re a nimble company (with a big heart and quite a sizable brain), so we understand small business needs.

Download your brain

Actionstep allows you to transfer the knowledge in your brain into the way your firm operates. You set up how you want your practice to run, by defining processes for every project/matter type. The workflow lays out a series of steps that need to be followed and tasks associated with each step, which users have to follow to complete the matter. This guides your staff through their work making it easy for them to see what needs to be done, improving productivity, and reducing costs.

In Actionstep-speak we call these workflows ‘Actions’. You might call them ‘Matters’, ‘Jobs’, ‘Projects’, or ‘Cases’, etc.

Details, details

When we say Actionstep has “everything you need to run your business” we mean it. The advantage of doing everything in a single system is that there is no duplication of data entry and you can quickly find what you’re looking for. Best of all, is that all this functionality is available inside the Matters which means that the data you enter is automatically tagged with the real-world context (matter name, matter type, current step, current user, client, etc) and this in turn provides powerful searching and reporting capabilities.

Here is a list of just some of the features that will make life easier:

§ Matter Management – A complete electronic file for each matter, including documents, file notes, time tracking, billing, tasks, emails, calendars and more.

§ Client Management – Manage all your contacts and see all the matters and contacts they are associated with; perfect for conflict checks.

§ Trust Accounting – Full-featured matter-based trust accounting that integrates with the general ledger.

§ Client Portal – Provide customers with access to their matters in real-time. You decide what they can see.

§ Time & Fixed Fee Billing – Easily track time and expenses and then turn into invoices

§ Document Assembly – Document upload and assembly; edit online, share; integrate with google docs and HotDocs.

§ Accounting – Post all matter-related trust and billing transactions through to Xero in real- time.

§ Calendars – Automatically populated calendar with all matter and task dates.

§ Employee Management – Maintain accurate employee records, leave, time-sheets and reviews. Export to payroll providers.

§ Knowledge Base – Make your legal expertise available to the whole firm and link relevant sections to steps in the workflow.

§ Dashboards & Reports – Reports, dashboards and alert bars keep you up to date and provide powerful insights into your practice.

§ SDX (secure document exchange) – A secure portal that allows external parties to access selected matter documents.

§ Document Generation – Automate your document creation with the native ActionStep merge capability.

§ HotDocs Integration - Pump up the document volume by integrating your data with HotDocs Cloud Services.

§ Outlook/Office 365/Exchange/Google Integration – Integrate your email and calendar with ActionStep (coming soon).

Want to know more? Visit www.actionstep.com or contact sales@actionstep.com

See the Cloud Practice Management spreadsheet here: More...