PCLaw 11 to be released soon

PCLaw 11 is due to be released sometime in Q2 of 2011. A couple of new features are worth discussing

1. Web-facing mobility service: basically, this will be a replacement for the old travel edition. It is designed to be used with any mobile device that has web browser capability and will give access to core data such as matters and contacts but also the ability to capture time and expenses. How good will it be? Only time will tell but from what I understand, it will be included in the Annual Maintenance Plan (AMP) anyway so there’s no extra outlay to try it.
2. A new Quickbooks link: while PCLaw 10 allows interaction with Quickbooks, the new v11 link will be transaction oriented rather than balance oriented. The intent is to allow Quickbooks to function as the accounting back end while PCLaw acts as the legal front end for billing, trust, document management etc. I personally believe that running two systems in parallel in this way is not optimal (because keeping them in parallel can be challenging) and legal firms should be opting to do away with Quickbooks and use PCLaw exclusively as their legal accounting system. However, I guess the new link is meant to cater for the many firms who started out with Quickbooks and can’t find the time/resources to transfer over to PCLaw as their fully integrated legal accounting package. So a nice gesture from LexisNexis.

 Can’t wait to see what other improvements v11 will bring us.