If you use Amicus Attorney Accounting it is important to note that the product has been renamed to Amicus Small Firm Accounting. If you are using Amicus Attorney Premium Edition you should be switching to Amicus Premium Billing. Amicus Premium Billing is tightly integrated into Amicus Attorney, making it an easy to use billing solution. However, Amicus Premium Billing does not have general ledger and accounting capabilities. To meet your accounting needs, Amicus Premium Billing links to QuickBooks. You can still meet your billing needs by linking either the Premium edition or the Small Firm Edition to other solutions, like Timeslips.
A big area of change for Amicus Attorney 2012 is in the area of document management. Both the Premium and Small Firm Edition offer a new Documents Module to make it easier for you to find your documents and work with them. In a single click, you can open, edit and print documents, add new documents and create time entries without having to open the file details. New filter capabilities allow you to filter by file type and to limit your view to active files. Gavel & Gown has also added the ability to search documents or files using full-text search or by document profile search.
If you do a lot of work with PDFs, you can save time using the new Amicus Tasks toolbar in Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader. Similar to the Microsoft Office toolbar, this allows you to associate a PDF with files, view related file details or send a PDF as an email attachment to your Amicus contacts.
In a firm with lots of files, you can now save time in finding just those you are working on by designating files as favorites and filtering the file index to show only your favorites.
For those that are frequently out of the office but need to be notified of new phone messages, Amicus now has the ability to send phone messages by email. You can also create customizable email messages to your contacts and automatically merge in information from Amicus.
While there are many other new features for all users of Amicus Attorney here are a few more highlights:
- Faster Access to Events details via File name hyperlinks
- Keep up with client referrals with a new field in Client contacts
- New preferences allow better tracking of return phone calls
One thing to note: If you are still using a Palm OS device, that connectivity for these devices has been discontinued.
- Amicus will forward your daily agenda via email
- Enhancements to billing include faster performance, better functionality “at a glance” file values and an improved QuickBooks link
- Simplified licensing procedures
You can visit the Amicus Attorney website (www.amicusattorney.com) to learn more about What’s New in Amicus 2012 as compared to your version or call us at 203-254-7736 to discuss the options for upgrading.