In March I traveled to Toronto to attend the annual Gavel & Gown Certified Consultants Conference. While Amicus 2012 has been out for a while, it was interesting to get additional perspective on the new features.
So what did I learn that can help you?
- Amicus Premium billing including the link with QuickBooks and the power of reporting
- The new document manager in Amicus 2012
- The power to use custom fields in reports
- Amicus Attorney Cloud Edition
Probably the most exciting part of the conference was a preview of Amicus Attorney in the cloud. This product was officially announced a few days later at American Bar Association Techshow in Chicago. Imagine the power of Amicus Attorney on your IPad or other device with a connection to the internet. As a cloud based solution you never have to worry about upgrades or server maintenance. Of course, since Gavel & Gown understands the legal market, the application and the environment will meet all the requirements for confidentiality of data, uptime and backup that are critical to attorneys. Amicus Attorney Cloud Edition is expected to be available this summer. You can go to www.amicusattorney.com/cloud for more information.
Amicus Attorney Cloud Edition differs from Credenza and is designed for those who want the power of Amicus Attorney through the internet, with no concern of a server or networking.
Gavel & Gown will still offer and fully support Credenza, and they continue to enhance it regularly. Credenza is the solution if you like to work in Outlook but want the ability to organize all of your information according to client files or projects. This includes email, contacts, tasks and notes. For a single user, there is a free edition of Credenza so you can easily try it and see if it works for you. If you are part of a team or want more features, you can upgrade to Credenza Pro for firm-wide practice management including collaboration tools, cloud document management and billing.
Amicus Premium Billing offers a tightly integrated billing solution for those using Amicus Attorney Premium edition. The elimination of links greatly simplifies the billing process and lets you see the data you need with just a mouse click. For accounting the link to QuickBooks is well designed, having learned some lessons from other products. Is it perfect, No. You still need to enter client expenses in both Amicus and QuickBooks, but Amicus Premium Billing is well on its way.
Making Amicus Premium Billing even more powerful is the use of SQL Reporting Services. For those who have worked with Amicus Attorney reports in the past, you know that the reports were based in Crystal. If you know crystal, you know if can be difficult to work with. SQL Reporting Services offer more power and flexibility. We saw samples of reports developed by other consultants that included dashboards to view billing information. If you choose Amicus Premium Billing we can help you set it up and design the reports you need to run your practice.
Amicus Attorney 2012 introduced the new Document center. With powerful search functions and the ability to see documents on all your files or your contacts, the Document center will make your work easier. You can now search for a document without knowing what file it was part of, make a copy of it and use it for another matter in just a few steps.
Last but not least, users of the Premium Edition have long had the ability to setup custom fields and custom pages. However, getting the data out in a format you could use was significantly limited. With Amicus Attorney Premium Edition 2012 you now have the reports for custom pages and custom records on your files. These reports are created in SQL Reporting Services and offer a starting point for us to help develop your reports.
Amicus Attorney is moving forward in many exciting directions. If you would like to get more out of your current version or would like to learn about upgrading, please contact us at 203-254-7736.