REMIND ME

Version 4 is almost here….

Memory is such a temperamental thing. 

Post COVID, lockdown, staying at home and being safe, binge watching Netflix and sometimes staring at the four walls, our memories have been left in a state of disrepair. Not being what they use to be.

They have sort of lost their muscle mass, resulting in a less “buff” version of their former selves. At least, that has been our observation.

It’s a little depressing.

The song “Memories” certainly does come to mind – 

“Memory, all alone in the moonlight

I can dream of the old days

Life was beautiful then”

Well friends, fear not. Life can be beautiful again. Full of hope and wonder. Excitement and joy. No depressing thoughts in sight. And let us tell you why…

We are here to remind you about the landing of AJS’s Version 4 Updates 

It is truly so exciting!

Revolutionising how legal software operates – going above and beyond what we have all come to expect from our legal software. Next level kind of stuff. Honestly (we are not being biased here). 

Can you recall the fantastic additions and updates to our current service offerings? 

No? Shame, don’t worry – we got you! As we said, memory is a temperamental thing. Even for the most wonderful announcements. 

Take a walk with us down memory lane…..

Colour your favourites

Colour is one of those things that subliminally denotes meaning to most things. Colour a task red and immediately one assumes that task is overdue, problematic or urgent. Colour it green and the opposite rings true – one immediately assumes that the task is completed, on track or (at the very least) being handled.

And AJS knows this. And has used this understanding of colour to improve their system. Improve it by a long shot actually.

With the ability to colour your favourites (by transaction type), you are able to easily identify how many of those transactions there are by simply having a quick glance at the page. Better still, when viewing an account enquiry, all transactions of that specific type will have the same background colour. With no fancy filtering system involved at all. Just the ability to see through all the “other stuff” and quickly take stock of what you have. By setting up and saving different account enquiry views i.e. setting up your “favourites” you will be able to toggle between your preferred filters (like live transactions, receipts or WIP transactions), without having all the other extra information to wade through.

Handling your matters is a cinch. Because all the important info is right there in front of you – grouped together according to what your Favourites (or most often used or viewed items) are.

Isn’t it time to colour your world?

AJS’s Quick View had a Makeover!

With a far more visual, almost navigational, subsystem approach as opposed to a simple “quick view”, AJS’s Quick View Makeover makes viewing high level information (on any account), as quick as 1, 2, 3. Or at the glance of a pop-up.

AJS’s Quick View Makeover has more visible financial balances with various hyperlinks to view details in pop-ups for payments, work in progress (WIP) and a direct link to the investment account. Making access to client information easy and efficient. With quick action tabs, all information is literally at your fingertips. 

Keeping in mind the importance of colour in AJS’s Version 4 products, you are again able to see statuses at a glance – a green action button for live accounts and an orange action button for archived accounts. 

With the Know Your Clients (KYC) requirements you are able to identify statuses according to colour code. For example, coloured as red and you can easily assess that clients or contacts are not compliant. Green is good to go – they are compliant. A colour code of amber and you know that KYC is still a work in progress. And grey to indicate that KYC is not applicable. 

In addition, icons have been added to the top row to quickly add a fee, task or diarise in your main view. Never missing a date to serve a notice or file an application again! View your active tasks linked to an account or view the task history by having easy access to information at all times. You are also able to view the latest documents drafted or served on a matter by using the hyperlinks provided to open up the last ten documents. Viewing the latest action items is also simple with no need to be directed away from the page you are on. 

It’s so easy, work is a breeze.

With the world as fast paced as it is and answers required at lightning speed, having a more visual space where all information is available as a pop-up or at the click of a button – you are sorted!

Perhaps it’s time to give your legal software a little makeover?

Presenting……. User Tasks!

Whilst User Tasks has historically been a straight forward, almost clinical affair, we believe that User Tasks deserve some pomp and pageantry. They deserve all the bells and whistles, magic shows and showmanship. They deserve some jooj.

And here’s why – 

There is just so much you can now do with AJS’s User Tasks! 

AJS’s User Tasks enables you to see what needs to be done, by whom, and when. It allows for the easy management of your task list by allowing you to create tasks for yourself or assign them to a colleague. 

In fact, you can even create one task for multiple users (each of them will get the same task on their to-do list). Not only that, but AJS’s User Tasks can be linked to a matter (and therefore have detail relating only to that matter) i.e. arrange for client to sign documents or not linked to a matter (like a general task) i.e. prepare conference presentation. The choice is all yours. 

With Task Actions, the user who created the task can complete it themselves, including those tasks assigned to colleagues. They can also edit the tasks as required, allowing for unforeseen changes and urgent work to be done seamlessly. The colleagues to whom tasks are assigned can accept, reject and complete their tasks. But not edit them. Progress notes are automatically added by the system, in addition to any manual notes made by Users. Thereby enabling everyone to clearly see the progress on any given task. 

You can search for completed tasks and view all notes. Remembering if the person who assigned the task does not make their own notes regarding what is happening, the system automatically does it for them. Ensuring each team member remains well and truly up to date on the latest “goings on” in a matter.

AJS’s User Tasks has really taken true task and practice management to a whole new level.

Auto Bank Feeds

The team at AJS have worked hard to bring you the most amazing feature – automating your bank feed – enabling you to work whilst you sleep. We are not joking.

And by doing so, you can easily locate a very specific transaction without having to struggle through massive amounts of red tape and months and months of transactions.  

With AJS’s Auto Bank Feeds you are able to log on to your online banking platform through the AJS system (of course with strict security controls in place) without having to leave the AJS system to log on to your online banking platform. Going through the whole tiresome process of inserting all your details, passwords, credentials and authorisations only to sift through hundreds of transactions to find one particular transaction. You can connect to your banking system via the AJS system to download your bank statement (i.e. by simply clicking a button) or you can schedule the statement to download during the early hours of the morning and arrive at your desk, coffee in hand, to find out exactly what the monetary situation of the practice is – it will be there just sitting and waiting for you.

You will get a little notification and/or email that the statement has been downloaded and is ready to view. This notification will appear on your home screen and resembles a “WhatsApp” message icon – i.e. “1 new message”. That way you never miss a thing! Best of all, the statement will be ready to view as an attachment – no need to log into any other system, just our AJS system.  Once the statement has been downloaded, AJS will match any transactions based on time, date and narration and highlight them for you. Saving you the time you would normally have spent searching for a specific payment (which could easily take hours and hours). 

What’s more, you also have the option to tick those transactions in bulk or individually – making reconciling a breeze. Potential matches can be rejected and ticked off at a later stage. The spreadsheet of downloaded statement transactions can be imported in batches, so there is no manual capturing or transposing numbers because you are using the bank statement as your source data.

Your bank statement total will be visible on your recon screen which can be compared to the calculated recon balance. That way you can always ensure that you are reconciling to the correct balance. Everything square and accounted for. 

Bookkeeping is finally made simple!

Show me the money!

Payment requisitions and authorisations have, historically, been a manual, tedious and sometimes troublesome undertaking. Completing forms by filling out all the information pertaining to a supplier or an account including the inclusion of batch transactions and narrations for each of them, only to then have to cart the form all over the office to have it signed by those necessary authorised signatories. Manual, manual, manual *Agh*.

Only to then find out that one of the signatories is out of the office and the form cannot be finalised. Seriously? It can be extremely frustrating.

But now, by having a simplified screen, AJS has made it easy to capture a payment requisition. By linking contacts with authorised banking details to your payment requisition system, you simply need to enter the account number, payment reference and the amount – as few as three fields. That’s it. Done and dusted. 

The info is displayed as you need it. There is no need to validate banking information as the form is loaded with all banking details already captured and included (from the linked contact information). 

The amount of time you save is incredible! 

Pertinent supporting documents related to the account or invoice can also be easily attached (uploaded or linked from documents already attached to an account, so there is no need for duplication of uploads), making the viewing of the requisition and understanding why it needs to be paid, simple to understand and easy to action. The generation of the requisition document will be done in a matter of a few easy steps. Even for the busiest of authorisers. 

With AJS’s Authorisation feature, you will no longer need to run around trying to find a signatory. What’s more there will be no confusion as to who may or may not authorise a payment.

It is so simple, one is tempted to say “Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy”.

What’s News?

With AJS’s Notifications, you are now given the divine ability of knowing exactly when background processing is done, eliminating the need to sit glued to your screen watching and waiting for things to happen. Knowing when someone has actioned a task (even when it has been completed or rejected). Knowing exactly when money comes into your trust account (which is really handy). And knowing when you need to authorise a payment. As it all happens. 

That’s pretty amazing… Wouldn’t you say?  

AJS’s Notifications revolutionises how you can effortlessly stay “in the know”. Best of all, imagine you could customise these notifications for your specific practice. Or, more impressively, customise these notifications as preferences for each individual department.

Remaining on top, ahead of the curve and being in the know has never been easier.  

You will be notified when anything important happens either in your in-app indicators at the top of your screen or via email (email notifications requiring authorisations include attachments and links to authorise or reject) – which can be set up according to the preferences of each user. 

Being an over achiever has never been easier. And that’s not a bad thing when you are playing to your best advantage.

But there is EVEN MORE!

We can’t believe it ourselves. But yes, there is even more on offer – 

The Timer

There is now a built-in timer at the bottom of the screen that can be started and paused as you are working. This is a marvelous addition when you need to post a fee for a consult, telephone call or research time. By posting a quick fee using a time-based code, the timer’s value will automatically be loaded, making posting a fee not only easy but quick too. 

But to make posting fees even easier, you will be able to open up a “Quick Fee” option directly from the timer by pausing and hovering over the icon to add the fee. 

How easy is that??

Home page dashboard

This is so much more than a landing page. With the addition of a quick view widget, a firm can choose what they want to appear on their home dashboard. 

Your whole practice can be viewed from a “birds eye view” and at a high level. Easily move from one section to another and be able to assess how your practice is operating with ease.

A practice can re-order dashboards to show exactly what they want (and need) to see on their home dashboard – if they prefer widgets to the dashboard cards, go for it. 

Law firms can customise their lives to exactly how they want it!

Now wasn’t that an enlightening and exciting trip down memory lane? We think so…..

For further information on any of our Version 4 updates or to get hold of our incredible legal accounting and practice management software, get in touch with us today. 

We cannot wait to enhance your law firm’s practice.

Onwards and upwards with AJS! 

Written by Alicia Koch on behalf of AJS