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26 Ark. Law. 24 (1992)
PCLAWjr. to Automate Small Law Office

handle is hein.barjournals/arklwr0026 and id is 184 raw text is: L Ak W I E ~ TE HN L G IIE PCLAWjr. to Automate Small Law Office By Barry D. Bayer & Benjamin H. Cohen Lawyers use computers for many things, but accounting (including time and billing) always vies with word processing for top priority. In this column, we review PCLAWjr., an integrated accounting program specifically designed for the small law office. PCLAWjr. PCLAWjr., a five timekeeper subset of the venerable Canadian PCLaw accounting package, integrates law office general ledger, receivables, check writing and time and billing, and even prints mortgage amortization schedules. We are informed that the program is the same as PCLAW, except that the latter has a no frills docket program and modules for payables, bank reconciliation and payroll. Installation, Documentation & Support PCLAWjr. files took more than 3.6 megabytes on our hard disk. To complete installation we had to make a toll free call for a password to unlock the program. We could then select our own password to control access to the program. A detailed 425 page manual includes both table of contents and index. Although most of the information we needed was there, it was sometimes difficult to find and sometimes difficult to understand. A 120 page tutorial takes the new user through the program's functions from set up, to time and data entry, billing trial balances and profit and loss statements. The tutorial lets the new user build a test database before using a RESET function to erase all data, and begin work for real. Knowledgeable toll free telephone support is available from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Eastern time, Monday through Friday. After hours and weekend support is available on a call back basis. The publisher tells us that support is free for 30 days after purchase and $2.00 per minute thereafter, although it has not yet started to charge the fee. Using PCLAWjr. The user's first tasks are to select an accounting method (cash, modified cash, or accrual) and make appropriate additions to the program's basic Chart of Accounts. Obviously, the firm's accountant should make these decisions. Next, add a group of time codes and explanation codes, used to classify matters, time records, receipts and disbursements. The program was often not what we expected. Even experienced computer users should resist the impulse to ignore the manual and work through the tutorial, instead. Time codes, for example, turn out to be type of law codes (civil litigation, real estate, intellectual property) used to categorize matters. PCLAWjr. uses explanation codes to describe time and expense entries (trial, research, photocopies, filing fees) and receipts and disbursements (client pay bill, client pay retainer, settlement payment). We next wished to enter a group of clients. PCLAWjr. wouldn't let us do it that way, but instead required that we enter a matter first, and then let us enter information about that matter's client. We moved to the Open Matter module, entered information about a new matter, including Time Code, description, responsible attorney, and fee classification. We ignored a field called file location, but added standard identification information about the client. A second screen let us set various billing options for the matter; when we opened a second matter for the same client, we could copy the client information to the second matter without retyping. A third screen requested information about opposing party and counsel, and a fourth screen asked how revenue for the matter is to be credited among the firm's various attorneys. The database design generally makes sense, but there is no ''responsible attorney for the client; in the PCLAWjr. system, only matters have responsible attorneys. There are workarounds, but there is no direct way to which attorneys own which clients. Similarly, there's no good way to group related clients. After we opened a matter, we could enter time information, 24 ARKANSAS LAWYER JULY 1992

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