AJS’s Black November

It’s hard to believe that we are 43 years old!

As the years progress, we begin to realise that some things are inevitable. 

Things like birth, death, tax, and the passing of time. No man or woman alive can control these facts of life. They are a given. 

That’s where the expression “Time and tide wait for no man” comes from. Because time, as they say, will always “march on” and with it, there is a sort of expectation that life as we know it, will move along, and change with it too. Again, an inevitability. 

For some, the passing of time is something that can often move too quickly. And for other’s time becomes an obstacle. A nuisance. Something not moving quickly enough. 

For us at AJS, time has been fleeting. Just the other day it was 1979 and we were just beginning, and now it’s 2022 and we are lights ahead where we (realistically) imagined we would be. 

It has been an absolute marvel.

OUR ORIGINS

AJS can date its origins back to 1979, as a general accounting system and back to 1983 as a specialized legal trust accounting system. That was back in the day when you could make big margins out of selling hardware. Systems were developed to move hardware – that was where the money was. R100k for a decent computer in the 1980’s was serious money. That was equivalent to a top CEO’s annual salary back then. Your software system had to be really good to justify that kind of expense to your customer.

43 years later and the way we look may have changed but who we are, and our core values and principles remain the same. Over the years, AJS has remained at the top of its game, servicing more clients, developing our product offerings, and continually striving to better what we offer – and how we offer it. Keeping our clients always top of mind. 

While AJS has earned its reputation for leading the field in legal accounting and practice management, we also provide much more than that. For example, complete managed cloud hosting, accounting services, document automation, process management and more. 

So confident are we about our products, that we have undertaken to only sell and support products that we have developed ourselves. In fact, we have a team of 15 qualified and experienced software developers that use state-of-the-art development tools to ensure that our products remain at the very forefront of technology and innovation – safe to say that we offer a full and extensive solution to all our clients – no matter their size. 

Today, AJS is a division of the privately owned O2Smart Group of companies employing over 75 staff members, a number of whom have been with the company for more than twenty years. We believe this speaks volumes about who we are as an organization – our employees are more than just people we work with. They are our family. We work as one cohesive team because we all care about our work, about our company and about each other. What better endorsement is there about the quality of our organization than the people who have been with us since time memorial?

We continue to stand by our core principles – quality, loyalty, dedication, commitment to our clients (and ourselves) and of course, constant innovation. 

HOW HAVE WE REALLY CHANGED?

We felt quite nostalgic when we came across this pamphlet from our 3^rd Annual National User Conference in 1991. Many happy memories and happy clients made and gained since then. 

And it made us think. Has anything really changed?  

Sure, our branding has changed over the years, our prices may have increased with time and yes, we now offer a complete Cloud based system that can be accessed from anywhere on almost any device. But there are some things that have remained the same. And we can say – with pride – that:

Ø  We continue to offer top quality products to our clients;

Ø  We continue to innovate, determined to remain trailblazers. A great memory from the brochure is that we introduced direct debiting to the legal market – changing the way lawyers record their fees. Our ability to lead the market will never change;

Ø  We continue to offer the absolute best customer service, always keeping our clients top of mind and close to heart, and

Ø  We continue to serve the legal profession with pride, with loyalty and with a dedication to continue improving on everything we do.  

We remain committed to our clients, to our employees and to what we stand for – the absolute best legal tech that money can provide. 

And we would like to think that those are the qualities that should never change.

WHAT WE OFFER

We are super proud of all of our product offerings developed over the years. With a legal and accounting package to suit every law firm, no matter their size or requirements, AJS has a solution to suit everyone. Here is a little recap of what we offer – 

1. AJS Express â€“ a web-based, flexible, full featured system that allows for document management, time recording, contracts management, FICA management and an asset register;
2. AJS Pro â€“ a web-based, flexible full-featured accounting and practice management system geared towards mid-size firms, that also includes an impressive integrated process automation, user task and notification tool, and
3. AJS Enterprise â€“ a comprehensive legal and professional accounting software package serving mid-size, large and major international firms with an impressive integrated process automation, user task and notification tool.
4. AJS FLOW â€“ a powerful workflow automation tool that makes it easier to automate repetitive processes and increase output by improving control and ensuring that nothing slips through the cracks. Perfect for any process that has a defined set of steps or stages, thereby eliminating “busy” work and allowing lawyers to focus on the work that they choose to provide, and 
5. XpressDox â€“ is a powerful document assembly system managing your document automation needs with ease. You can create and run templates and you can save assembled Word/PDF documents to your local disk, a network drive, or the Cloud. It can be used as a stand-alone product, on a network, via the web (own-hosted or XpressDox-hosted), or even from within your own application or website.

To celebrate (almost) 44 years in business…

We are turning 44 in January. Time flies when you are having fun!

To celebrate this milestone, we will be giving 44 (one client for every year that we have been around) new clients who sign up with AJS during the month of November, 6 months of AJS products for free. 

No hidden fees, no t’s and c’s just straight up quality products!

We do this because we know how brilliant our products are. We do this because we know that once you incorporate AJS into your day-to-day lives, you simply won’t be able to imagine a day without it. We do this because we genuinely believe that our products will change the way you practice – for the better! 

So, what are you waiting for? 

Join the AJS family today! 

– Written by Alicia Koch on behalf of AJS