Abacus Consulting, LLC

LexisNexis has just announced Lexis® Front Office powered by Time Matters® 9.0 and Lexis® Back Office powered by Billing Matters® 9.0, the lastest versions of their award winning practice management products.  These new versions have dozens of great enhancements which make using Time Matters and Billing Matters more effective and efficient than ever before.

As with prior releases, LexisNexis is offering Early Bird upgrade pricing...up to 50% off full price through September 30th, 2007.  Even if you do not plan to deploy immediately, the most inexpensive time to purchase your upgrade is in the month of September.  As a bonus, LexisNexis is also offering a 50% discount on live-answer technical support plans on orders placed prior to September 30th, 2007.

Complete pricing and details are available from LexisNexis at http://www.timematters.com.

Additionally, Abacus Consulting has announced a new version of our premier add-in for Billing Matters, the 1-click Billing Reporter 2.0.  For the first time, we are offering a special discount as well:  Purchase a new or upgrade version of Lexis® Front Office powered by Time Matters® 9.0 or Lexis® Back Office powered by Billing Matters® 9.0 from Abacus Consulting with a least 1 hour of consulting services, and receive a 50% discount off the purchase of the 1-click Billing Reporter 2.0.  This limited time offer is valid through September 30th, 2007.  Click here for details on this limited time special offer, only from Abacus Consulting, LLC.

Upgrading to 9.0 is painless and safe.  Version 9.0 can co-exist with 8.0 or earlier versions so that it can be tested prior to deployment. Converting data from prior versions leaves the original data untouched in the original folders.

The list below from the LexisNexis web site outlines the major new features in Time Matters and Billing Matters.  Although many major new features are listed below, we encourage you to visit the Time Matters website to view the most complete feature list, as well as product screenshots and videos.  New information is being added daily, so please check in on a regular basis.

Top Reasons to Upgrade

to Lexis Front Office powered by Time Matters 9.0

Scalable, streamlined, robust

The practice management tools in Lexis Front Office powered by Time Matters 9.0 arescalable, streamlined, intuitive, flexible and robust—and they come with an updated interface. Here are the top enhancements:

2. Extensive usability enhancements

• New Task Panel makes it easy to work with your records, navigate between record types and complete work more quickly.
• Seven new wizards help you set up complex, powerful functions by walking you through basic setup: Staff Setup, User Setup, Security Profile Setup, Class Code Setup, Email Setup, Quick Tab Setup and Record Review.
• Five new default security profiles—Administrator, Billing Administrator, General User, Power User, and Temporary Staff—are available on install, making it easier to put security and privacy in place for your firm’s data.
• Security profiles now have an “exceptions” tab available for more finely tuned control over access to your data.
• Ability to display multiple main toolbars simultaneously enables you to set up and then show both your matter management and billing toolbars at the same time.
• Improved Power Views
• Updated Interface
• Ability to right-click to mark items as “Done” from Related Records sublists makes it easier than ever to get a centralized view of where a case, matter, or contact stands.

• Contact and Matter Journals let you show related Contact or Matters.
• Personal Journal now offers Class Code filters for Contacts and Matters to let you further customize your view of what you monitor. It also shows only items in review that are still incomplete.

Reasons to Upgrade

to Lexis Back Office powered by Billing Matters 9.0

The intuitive, flexible and robust billing and accounting tools in Lexis Back Office powered by Billing Matters 9.0 come with an updated interface and include most of the enhancements listed above that come with Lexis Front Office powered by Time Matters 9.0, plus:

Billing Enhancements

1. When you create and deliver bills using the automatic e-mail function, the tool now has flexibility to look up e-mail addresses from contact or matter records.
The e-mail memo message can now be customized, along with the ability to set a default classification code to help you easily find classification codes.

2. AutoTXT expands to Quick Item entry and Transaction records.
Now when entering time or expenses using the Quick Item entry screen―or when entering transactions such as payments, credits or trust activity―you can use AutoTXT codes to make the process of entering time quick, consistent and accurate.

3. You can streamline your prebills with more flexibility for printing.
For example, exclude page breaks and create a bill from the Matter billing sub tab by tagging the specific time or expense entries and selecting Create Bill from the Matter toolbar, billing only the entries you have hand selected.

Reporting Enhancements

1. Trust Reporting
—In addition to the trust activity reports, you can now run trust reports with beginning and ending balances specific to date ranges. In this way, you can include detail activity or run a summary trust report with balances by Matter for a specific trust account or for all trust accounts.

2. Receipt Allocation by Fee Allocation Report
—This report will allocate receipts based on the fee allocation method for the Originating or Responsible attorney on the matter’s billing preferences and allocate the remaining receipt based on the overall receipt allocation method. For example: X matter attributes 10% to the Originating attorney and 20% to the Responsible attorney. The firm allocates all other receipts by the working staff. If the matter was billed at $1,000, and $1,000 was received, $100 would be allocated to the Originating attorney; $200 to the Responsible attorney and the remaining amount to all of the billers who worked on this matter for this bill, prorated by fees billed.

Lexis Back Office powered by Billing Matters 9.0 Enterprise Enhancements include:

• Archived records that can now be included on billing reports, such as: effective bill rates; productivity and profitability; recap of hours; staff overhead analysis; timesheet reports; and write-up/write-down reports
• New Ascending/Descending options and additional sorts for the Receipt allocation reports