Actionstep

Actionstep allows you to build custom workflows that you can use to manage any aspect of your practice. We believe in workflows so much that we dedicated an entire podcast episode discussing our experience with another lawyer obsessed with workflows too.

We have over 50 workflows that help us to structure processes within our tax-litigation files, as well as for administrative matters, such as asking for client testimonials. We give our team peace of mind that nobody will miss anything as we have built in automated tasks, templates, checklists, and deadlines at every step of the process. We can make sure that the most appropriate team member performs each task. The workflows are also a great resource to help train new team members because we created detailed descriptions of how to complete each task with links to our internal knowledge base to give team members additional support where needed.

In addition to custom workflows, Actionstep also allows you to gather custom data so that we can make more informed decisions.

Actionstep is unique and sophisticated. However, Actionstep falls behind its competitors and is underdeveloped in some key areas, such as budgeting capabilities, template user experience, graphical displays, mobile applications, and reports.

Prospective users should not underestimate the commitment and resources required to build workflows and implement Actionstep. Building workflows requires time, money and, most importantly, grit. Not everyone is ready to make this investment in the future of their firm. Although you can outsource the technology aspect of inputting the workflows to the system, you need people within your firm identifying the steps and tasks that you want to build into the system. We are a very process-driven law firm with a lean focus, so Actionstep is perfect for us, but if you aren't familiar with process mapping it can be a daunting task.

When you get over the initial investment of mapping your processes, you will see first-hand how quickly Actionstep improves your firm's ability to grow and deliver better value to your clients.

We hope that Actionstep will continue to develop its product to address its limitations and bugs. Actionstep has promised that it is working to address the concerns that our firm and other users raise in the LinkedIn user forum and UserVoice feedback. We hope that Actionstep continues to improve the product, and we look forward to more progress. If so, we expect to continue to use Actionstep for a very long time.

We like the matter dashboard a lot and it's probably the firms favorite feature since all the most important information is readily available.

INTEGRATIONS:

If you're looking to switch to AS because of the integrations they offer make sure they actually work exactly how you intend them to.

Lawpay: If you use lawpay their integration is useless since it only grabs new charges and does not include any past due amounts. I brought this up because we really wanted this to function, but we were told they would not fix the issue.

InfoTrack - One of the reasons we switched to AS and they don't actually integrate in US, even though their website states they do...

Outlook - The bottom bar of the desktop version may not bill the correct amount. I asked for this to be fixed since it's easier to use this bar than the right bar they have, but it's been over 9 months...

BILLING:

If you close your billing at the end of the month be prepared to manually enter Trust payments to allocate the funds on the closing date and not for the next billing cycle, since the automated billing will automatically post these payments on the date you are running them, not on the date which you wish will be allocated. Another feature I have brought up, but essentially fell on deaf ears.

If you work with probate matters where you don't bill your time, so you input a $0 amount, and you have matters that weren't worked on for the month, you cannot filter out between the two, so you'll end up printing bills for all matters. This is something i asked to have fixed in July 2021 and have yet to hear back regarding a fix (3/3/22)

That you are able to operate your whole business on the one platform. Everything from the initial client contact through to completion of services, incorporating a single place to track all project related emails, time tracking for employees, easy billing process, tracking of invoices, creditors, production of financial reports, outstanding billing reports and numerous other customisable options.

The only downside I can think are that it is a little expensive (but then I am only a sole trader now not working full time, so if I was working this business full time then I would probably feel differently on this factor)
It is generally easy to use, but maybe not as intuitive as programmes like Xero or MYOB, but that said I feel this system does a hell of a lot more than they do.