Freeboard and practice management
Deadlines, conflicts and billing out of the box. Anything else your firm needs is added for your firm, on request.
Every firm
- Limitation and other critical dates, locked to lawyers and administrators, with every edit recorded
- Conflict screening at intake against every party on every existing file, in both directions, failing closed
- Confidential matters walled off by the database, so a file nobody may see does not appear at all
- Time priced at the rate in force on the day it was worked, and invoices the database freezes once issued
- Deadlines derived from a triggering event and the firm's own holiday list
- A separate database per firm, rather than a shared table filtered by a customer column
On request, for your firm
- The trust ledger, client ledgers and the monthly reconciliation to the bank
- Document storage, in place of links to where documents live now
- A client portal
- Anything else the firm works with, set up the way that firm works
Each firm has its own database, so what is set up for one firm changes nothing for another.
Why not just keep the dates in what we have
Most practice management systems will hold a date. The question is what happens when somebody changes one. Where a due date is an ordinary field, a limitation date can be edited by anyone who can open the matter, dragged in a synced calendar, or overwritten by an import, and none of those leaves anything behind.
In Freeboard a critical date is locked to lawyers and administrators, moving one asks for a reason that is kept with who made the change and when, and the rule lives in the database rather than in the form. A calendar sync will move an ordinary internal date and will refuse to move a limitation date. Every one of them is on the limitation date register, which prints.
The same argument, applied to a bill
Issuing an invoice in Freeboard freezes it. The database refuses any change to its particulars, its lines, or the time entries and disbursements behind them, firm administrators included. A correction is a numbered credit note, which cannot be deleted either. Numbers run consecutively and a discarded draft never spends one.
What a firm has to change
Less than a migration. The matters and the dates come across. Documents can stay where they are, with the matter carrying links to them, or move into Freeboard if the firm asks. Time capture and billing start switched off, and the docket exports in the shape a Clio activities import expects, so a firm can keep billing from what it has.
Questions this page answers
Is Freeboard a practice management system?
Out of the box it covers matters, tasks, limitation dates, conflict checks, ethical walls, and, if a firm switches them on, a docket and invoices. Trust accounting, document storage, a client portal and anything else a firm needs are added for that firm on request, so it can be as much of a practice management system as a firm wants it to be.
Does Freeboard do trust accounting?
Not by default: as it ships, Freeboard holds no client money, and a payment marked as a transfer from trust is a note on the bill rather than a movement in a trust ledger. A firm that wants its trust ledger, client ledgers and bank reconciliation in Freeboard can ask, and it is added for that firm.
Can Freeboard store our documents?
By default a task or a matter carries links to Drive, SharePoint, iManage, NetDocuments or a folder on the firm's server, and that system stays the record. A firm that would rather keep its documents in Freeboard can ask, and document storage is set up for that firm.
Can Freeboard replace a firm's billing software?
The invoicing half, yes. Rates are effective-dated, a bill is drafted from the unbilled work on a file, issuing it freezes it in the database, a correction is a numbered credit note, and issued bills and their payments export as CSV, with the bills also in the invoice-import format of QuickBooks Online and Xero. The general ledger, payroll and financial statements stay in the firm's accounting system unless the firm asks for more.
Can Freeboard be used alongside an existing practice management system?
Yes, and the docket exports in the shape a Clio activities import expects, so a firm can record time in Freeboard and bill from what it already runs. The dates that carry malpractice risk move into Freeboard, where a limitation date is locked to lawyers and administrators and every edit is recorded. Deadlines sync both ways with Google Calendar and Outlook.
Can two firms have Freeboard set up differently?
Yes. Each firm has its own database, so what is added or changed for one firm stays with that firm and changes nothing for anyone else.
Ask for what your firm needs
Tell us what you work with now and what you want in Freeboard.