Moving your firm off spreadsheets and email folders

Plenty of successful small firms have run for years on a spreadsheet of matters, a shared drive of documents and a lot of carefully named email folders. It works, until it doesn’t.

Signs you have outgrown your current set-up

• You can’t answer "where are we on this matter?" without opening three different places.
• Conflict checks depend on someone’s memory.
• Time goes unrecorded because recording it is a chore, and it shows in your bills.
• Reconciling the client account takes a day each month and the numbers rarely agree first time.
• Covering for a colleague who is off means hunting through their inbox.
• You worry about what an SRA or insurer review would find.

A step-by-step plan

1. Start with your contacts and open matters

Move your client and contact list first, then your open matters. Closed matters can follow later, or stay archived where they are.

2. Set up your matter types

Define the practice areas you work in and the stages each matter moves through. This is what turns a list of files into a pipeline you can manage.

3. Move your templates

Bring across your client care letter, terms of business and most-used letters as templates, so they fill in client and matter details automatically.

4. Plan the accounts cut-over carefully

If you hold client money, choose a cut-over date at the end of a reconciliation period. Carry across opening balances for each client ledger that reconcile to the bank, so there is no gap in your records. Run your old and new records side by side for one full reconciliation before you rely on the new system alone.

5. Connect your email

Connecting your mailbox means correspondence is filed to the matter automatically, rather than living in personal folders.

6. Train everyone before you switch

Get every fee earner comfortable recording time and filing documents before the switch-over date. The firms with the smoothest moves treat training as part of the project, not an afterthought.

What you gain

One place for every matter, a conflict check you can trust, time recorded as you work, a reconciliation that takes minutes rather than a day, and a firm that can run without depending on any one person’s inbox.

Matterly is web-based, so there is nothing to install, and it includes everything above in one system. Start a 14-day free trial and try it with a few live matters first.