North 40 Systems — Office Tools Pro

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From the Oct. 2007 Review of Practice Management Systems

Office Tools Pro 2007 provides a full range of management tools, well fitted to the under-40 employee accounting and law firm. Improvements for 2007 were made to document and project management, complementing the straightforward tools in time and billing, contact management, calendaring and action alerts. Users will find this package to be feature-rich, well supported and affordably priced.

Ease of Use/Flexibility – 4.5 Stars
Office Tools Pro is an excellent package for firms where staff training time is limited. The 2006 review referenced much of the installation process, which has gone relatively unchanged. Installation provides a comprehensive introductory slideshow that highlights features to try and methods for setup. A System Utility package is provided that can assist with database maintenance, backups and data imports, which includes contact migration from Outlook. Administrators can set up “staff” (users), which includes rates, history, professional reviews and default work codes. Staff can also be set up as users with rights to add/modify/delete in the different tools. In the next release, it would be nice to have the password in something other than plain text.

Users may find a few limitations during setup, including the three-character limitation to work codes and a five-character initial limitation to GL codes. However, code entry and duplication is relatively easy. It’s worth noting that the application size cannot be changed, and the use of 10-point font and smaller is very common. There is an advantage to this, though: If you use dual monitors, the size of the application allows for it to easily be used while reviewing multiple reports. Using dual WXGA+ (1440x900) monitors, it’s comfortable to view two reports and the main application simultaneously.

Time-entry is provided from timesheets, which allows for either direct time entry (start/end) or quantity of hours. Users can also customize whether they wish time cards to be generated based on appointments, tracked calls, to-dos, document reviews or status updates. A handy timekeeping tool is the Billing Hours recap, which provides a daily summary of hours for the period. Options are provided for auto updating of data on forms and control over data that can be entered on a timesheet. Firms will find that they can adapt a number of common billing processes to the flows available within the program. Time does need to follow some form of approval process, and billing administrators will appreciate the easy adjustment of hours or straight dollar figures by time card. Invoicing from available time can be done quickly, and the final printed bill can be customized for content or output to Word for further editing. The Word output copy is extremely clean.

Given that the product uses MS Access for its primary database, there are some limitations to table and file size. Firms that use the program’s full functionality will want to monitor the database size and perform database maintenance regularly to ensure the best performance.

Scalability/Stability – 4 Stars
Office Tools Pro is not intended for large firms but will work excellently for small and midsize firms that are looking to integrate and consolidate their business processes related to practice management. In particular, those firms with no in-house IT and no desire to support full server-grade products that require SQL Server or Exchange may be an exact fit for this package. The software continues to be stable, and updates from the website are easy to obtain, quick to install and don’t disturb the data. Given the product’s cafeteria approach of “use what you want, but everything is available,” firms can feel comfortable in slow adoption (though diving right in and trying everything out is half the fun). Organizations that grow into larger user groups (40+ users) would need to find an enterprise solution, as there is a potential of outgrowing the system. Also, as new tools are developed and adopted by users, database growth will expectedly rise faster than initially anticipated. Office Tools Pro continues to emphasize its commitment to providing for the future needs of its users, which includes a planned SQL version and upgrade path.

Productivity Tools/Features – 5 Stars
Having a consolidated package that requires low management can be a significant advantage, especially for practitioners who don’t have a large administrative staff to rely upon. Timekeeping can be done remotely, though this appears to just be installations of the software that are offsite (and presently there is no web edition). Scheduling and alerting are strong components of the software, making sure that every minute is billable and every noted client need is satisfied. An excellent appointment tool is available, complete with filtering, color coding, status tracking and location tracking. Views are available for what’s happening by location, staff schedules and color-coded meeting types.