Lincolnshire Lawyers benefit from SOS Business Intelligence
An electronic revolution has been taking place at Martin & Haigh
Solicitors, the long-established law firm in North Lincolnshire.
The five partners at the Scunthorpe-based practice, who are
supported by 12 fee earners and 21 support staff, used to wait
for their monthly reports before they could gauge how the business
was performing.
But now they have instant access to key performance indicators
whenever they want - thanks to the dynamic SOS Business Intelligence
system.
The system uses powerful online analytical processing (OLAP)
to provide the firm partners with the real-time information they
need to make better business decisions. It offers additional
performance indicators and analytical features to firms using
SOS Practice Management software, which is designed to support
the entire legal practice.
SOS Business Intelligence creates a multi-dimensional cube of
data which is continuously updated and can be interrogated by
Microsoft Excel users to obtain information that is instantly
available.
The software highlights the key performance indicators – such
as time recorded, fees billed, and debtor days – that are
vital to a solicitors’ practice. Firms can plan, budget,
forecast and generate financial reports using almost any permutation
in the data cube, representing different combinations of many
dimensions, from branches, fee earners and departments to clients,
matters and matter types.
This instant access to snapshots of key data on demand enables
the partners at Martin & Haigh to monitor and predict business
performance at a speed that matches actual business change.
Finance partner, Mark Cartledge, said the firm had enjoyed numerous
benefits as a result of SOS Business Intelligence. “It
used to take several hours each month to prepare our monthly
matter management and financial reports,” he said.
“Thanks to SOS Business Intelligence the information we
need is now instantly available at the press of a button. It
gives us access to the real-time information we need to plan
ahead, rather than having to wait until the end of the month.
“One of the other great benefits of this system is that
we can prepare reports with a level of detail appropriate to
the user. Most partners don’t want to wade through reams
of information so now we can customise reports to give them the
information they require.”
Users can, however, rapidly drill into the data in greater detail,
to analyse both the good and the poor figures, determining which
departments, branches, matter types or clients are the principal
contributors.
Mr Cartledge added that the system had also improved cost centre
analysis, enabling departments to see how they are performing
against targets on a daily basis, rather than every six months
as was the case previously.
“SOS Business Intelligence is helping to transform the
way we run and plan our business, making us more proactive and
less reactive,” he said.
SOS managing director Michael Platt said: “It’s
vital that firms like Martin & Haigh know how their business
is really performing and which areas are achieving most. SOS
Business Intelligence helps them do this by unlocking the data
in our SOS Practice Manager software, revealing past and present
business performance and helping firms predict their future results.”
For more information about SOS Business Intelligence contact
the sales team on 01225 787700 or email sales@soslegal.co.uk.
Notes to editors:
Bath-based SOS was formed in 1987 to develop and market legal
practice management solutions.
Its practice management software is designed to support a client’s
entire practice efficiently, from managing time recording, invoicing
fee-based work and streamlining administration tasks, to providing ‘real
time’ management information. SOS has also benefited from
a unique, 15-year partnership with Visualfiles, a leading supplier
of case management solutions (software that manages the workflow
of a legal case). This has allowed SOS to provide integrated
case management software and legal practice management installations
to 150 legal firms UK-wide. SOS was one of the first companies
to supply a true-windows-based system and was voted a “Top
5” supplier of practice management systems in the UK (Grant
Thornton 2000).
Software developed by this legal systems solution provider is
now in use by more than 400 law firms throughout the UK, including
several Top 100 firms.
For further information log on to: www.soslegal.co.uk.
Media enquiries:
To arrange an interview with SOS, please contact Matt Anderson
at Montage Communications on 0845 644 5404 / 077470 48731. Alternatively
please email: matt@montagecomms.com.
