Accounting

Insight is an all in one accounting package that facilitates the day to day operations of a legal firm of any size. It allows you to seamlessly manage your trust and office accounting, as well as effectively capture fees, sundries and disbursements that arise from each matter. Insight supports the creation, implementation of Bills, Receipts and Ledgers. It has the capacity to effectively track GST and BAS across all expenditures and earnings.

Core System

BHL Insight Desktop – user/administrator defined menus, to-do lists and security. Clients – Lists matters, archived matters, address details, safe custody. Matter – Ledger Balances, data entry, accounts transactions, contacts, etc Master Files – matter types, staff, postcodes, quick codes, entities

Essential Accounting

Matter & Batch Fee Capture – Fees are recorded directly against a matter or from a time sheet. Disbursements – automatically captured from cheques entered. Sundries & Expenses – non cheque disbursements Billing – Transactions captured from BHL Insight. Interim & Final Billing, control of allocation of billed fees to GL accounts. Debtors – which matters owe how much and for how long. Aging is user defined. Write Offs & Journals – automatic adjustments from billing. Open entry write-offs. Journal transfers in states where this is permitted. General Ledger – Define your own alphanumeric account codes. Master & Subsidiary accounts. Automatic posting from an entity-based table allows multiple bank accounts with consolidated reporting. Bank Reconciliation – Easy data entry from statements. Automatic printing of cashbook balances and adjustment for unpresented cheques. Stale cheque alert. Allows adjustments for late banking, bank errors. Trust Accounting – Easy to use, BHL Insight is approved by the Law Society of New South Wales for its trust accounting, Clear Approved Reports. Archiving – Move completed matters to an archive file to avoid clutter.

Supplementary Accounting

Cheque & Receipt Printing – multiple formats, user-defined default trays. Cheque Requisitions – Enter Counsels Fees, Doctors Reports etc. Makes data entry easy, minimises mistakes. Auto Receipting – Open Item allocation supports part payments, automatic reversals. Makes data entry easy. Accounts Rendered – Interfaces with your word processor to create reminder letters or statements of account. Auto Costing (Fee Time Clocks) – Multiple time clocks, pause button, unit costing etc. Photocopier Data Capture – extracts data from your photocopier, telephone, fax, and printer systems. Petty Cash Accounting – Account for cash smoothly and easily, posting both to matters and to the GL. Auto End of Year Processing – clears income & expenditure accounts, posts surplus to capital accounts and carries assets and liabilities forward.

Advanced Accounting

Creditors Ledger – Record creditor details, post invoices to creditors and GL, record payments and part payments against invoices. Invoices appear as disbursements when posted to matters. Automatic Billing – Create multiple bills for matters that meet user-defined criteria. Automatic Transaction Creation – retainers, recurring fees, recurring disbursements are recorded once and are triggered as defined. Batch Archiving – archive groups of files that meet pre-set criteria. Agreed Fee Tables – define multiple fee rates by employee type and then assign appropriate rates to clients and/or matters. Ideal for applying agreed schedules following tender wins.

Document Assembly

Insight is a powerful and flexible document precedent generation system. Through it you can create a vast array of document templates which can be quickly and effectively built and implemented firm wide.

Document Management

Insight has one of the most powerful document management systems in the market. The system facilitates effective document management practices so that you can easily track, search, and file your documents. Your documents can be attached directly to clients and/or matters, whilst being organised under a system of categories and classifications. Documents can be attached to a matter automatically from Workflow or Precedents, or via Outlook. These documents can also be emailed directly from Insight as the software fully integrates with Outlook.

Dashboards

Insight contains an extensive suite of Dashboard functions providing you with up to date data on the overall performance of your staff and firm. Dashboards report on all levels of the practice from Firm Wide, Team and Departments to Individuals.

Fee & Time Recording

Different firms and even individuals within those firms have their own preferences for recording time and fees. BHL Insight provides multiple paths for time capture, including time sheets, time diary, direct fee entry, automated fee entry from workflow tasks, web-based time recording and time clocks, providing a comprehensive time billing software solution. All these various modalities are supported by the same system, allowing effective billing and productivity monitoring. The new BHL Dashboard Module allows fee analysis of individuals, teams and the firm against budget. Other functionalities include:

• Multi-dimensional analysis of WIP, work billed, fees collected etc.
• Task Analysis – look for trends in the history of matters.
• Easy identification of unprofitable or uncompetitive fee types or areas of work.
• Maister Analysis – compare the profitability of matters by a selection of criteria.
• Matter Budgets – fee budgets per matter.
• General Ledger Budgeting – set and monitor budgets for general ledger account codes.

Key Alerts

Often partners and management prefer to operate on a “Need to Know” basis. That is, “tell me when we have a problem”. Alerts can be configured to inform you when your Key Performance Indicators are not being met. For example when Statute of Limitation Dates are approaching, or when matter’s budgeted fees are being exceeded, or when the firm’s aged debtors are exceeding your defined acceptable criteria etc. You control how much information you need to run your practice and to run your business.

Marketing

Insight can help centralise and automate your marketing data and functions. Insight’s phonebook system records all contacts and their associated information. Contacts can be organised into groups to automate mail-outs, invitations to events and to enable market analysis. The relationship between various contacts can also be recorded. The event management system allows you to actively manage Christmas card lists, newsletters and seminars. Many of our clients find Insight to be a very powerful CRM system, helping them manage their client relationships more effectively.

Marketing Management

PhoneBook – Centralised database of all clients, staff, barristers, doctors etc. Supports linked addresses and job positions for dealing with insurance companies and the like. PhoneBook Groups – Slice and dice contacts to tailor invitations, mail-outs and market analysis. Relationships – Follow the connections between people and organisations in your database. Sometimes it can be crucial to spot who knows who. Microsoft Word/WordPerfect Data Link – export selected data in convenient formats. Connect precedent letters to names and addresses so that data can be moved from one to another. Client Groups – Slice and dice clients to tailor invitations, newsletters and profitability analysis. Contact Management – record contacts with people and organisations for future reference. Ideal for collections, marketing and client surveys. Events – manage Christmas card lists, newsletters and seminars. Monitor invitations to seminars and presentations, note who accepts and who actually attends.

Workflow

Insight has one of the most sophisticated legal workflow systems available. Designed for litigation, conveyancing, and the quality assurance processes of law firms, the system has been developed in collaboration with some of the largest specialist law firms in the country. BHL has a variety of workflow modules available:

• Task Definition Module – Allows you to define the steps of a matter, to sequence those steps and to create decision points so that different paths are followed depending on the outcomes of conferences, negotiations and hearings.
• Task Reporting Module – Identify which matters are at which stages.
• Data Definition & Screen Drawing – define your own data types to integrate with matters, diaries and tasks. Then define screens to capture that data at the required time in the flow of work.
• Link to Document Management – connect data entry to precedent creation or capture data directly in a document. Link one document to a sequence of other documents following a decision.
• Link to Fee Capture – Workflow can transparently create fees, disbursements or sundries as required as the matter unfolds.