AbacusLaw

Customizable Software and Amazing Support

Comments: Every single person I've dealt with at Abacus, from initial sale to professional services to tech support, has been patient, professional, knowledgeable, and effective. I've dealt with too many companies who virtually disappear after making the sale. The people at Abacus are nothing like that; their service and support are first rate.

Pros:

The software uses a customizable database structure, so you can create or modify forms and fields to make them relevant for the types of cases you handle. In areas where aspects of the program are not wholly intuitive, Abacus's knowledge base and online instructional videos are very helpful. Abacus tech support is amazing.

Cons:

AbacusLaw links to MS Outlook, but not to any other email/calendar client (and I had to quit Outlook for another more reliable email/calendar solution because Outlook is extremely problematic in key, basic areas). I feel like I should be able to drop an email message from any email application -- or any file, for that matter -- into an AbacusLaw matter. I do wish the client portal (for exchanging documents with clients) were available.

Great legal software

Comments: It's been very good for our firm, as it really has great calendaring and reminder features. The user interface is very easy to understand and assists all of us with keeping the pleadings, documents and correspondence well-organized. I had one issue and the tech support assisted me immediately and then followed up to make sure my issue had been resolved.

Pros:

I really enjoy how easy this software is to use by everyone in the office, attorneys. paralegals, and assistants. The software enables our office to keep our clients' files very organized and easily accessible. The calendaring is essential to our litigation practice as everything is streamlined and managed in a very logical manner. I am an attorney and the technology is geared for all of the legal professions and types of practices.

Cons:

It has so many great features that i have not been able to utilize it to its full capacity as of yet.

Stay away from anything having to do with Abacuslaw or Abacus Private Cloud

Comments: AbacusLaw and Abacus Private Cloud, which is AbacusLaw on a shared cloud, break down all the time. It was as though the company let monkeys into their server room at night because, while an issue may be fixed one day, it or another, or multiple other issues would pop up the next morning. I can't tell you how many times abacus simply went down right when I needed it most - in the middle of a murder trial for instance! The entire system would crash for days. Yes, the support staff was great but their management and the product itself may as well be the result of demons hellbent on destroying anything productive that you mean to do in your business.

Pros:

I needed a solution so I could link emails to certain case files. Also, the fact that all attorneys could access any other person's notes on a case was attractive.

Cons:

The software looks and feels like it is straight out of 2002, if not right after Microsoft went WYSIWYG. It's about as clunky as software was in the early 00's as well although it probably isn't as efficient as software was back then.

The Goods and the Bads of Abacus

Pros:

On the law side of Abacus it is substantially a good system to use. The organization, ease of use, and the multiple tools allow the law side to run smooth and easy with little to no problems. Things such as client entry, event posting, and much more have become much easier over time with the multiple updates and fixes. Overall the law side software is a well created system.

Cons:

The Accounting side of Abacus has many little problems within it that overall cause the functionality of abacus to become less effective. Things such as tables not communicating with each other and the software crashing due to simple tasks such as voiding checks are some of the many problems that occurs. Without fixing these issues, the overall effectiveness and efficiency of abacus accounting will only continue to diminish.

Support going down hill

Comments: I've been 10 year plus user and beta tester; support was excellent before they become AbacusNext. Now they have so many products to support that the level one folks just don't have answers to anything but simple questions. Also you cannot get them on the phone in most cases or if you do it is after a very long wait (up to 30 minutes).

Pros:

Full featured product with links to Outlook.

Cons:

Support used to be excellent when you had a question; due to company growth and buying other business it is no longer possible to get phone support in a timely manner. When you get it and it is complicated issue level one isn't able to solve the problem as in the past.

Abacus Can Help

Pros:

We have used Abacus since 2010, so 10 years. Abacus helped us to automate law billing. The program also features an excellent data base for notes as well as emails per client. It is fast in terms of locating electronic documents. Its technical support is also helpful.

Cons:

The biggest feature to improve would be Abacus message slips. I have been trying for over a year to fix the app's propensity to suddenly disappear and then, days later, inform me of the number of messages I have received. BIlling software can be improved dramatically to make it more user friendly.

Ugh. I use it because I don't feel I have a better option...

Comments: The cost vs other comparable software is the primary reason why this software was chosen. Additionally (just as important to us) is that the data is stored on our network and not the cloud.

Pros:

The legal billing and trust accounting functions are great. However, the rest of the accounting functionality really stinks. I like how for billing, you can schedule a bill to e-mail or print and it automatically does it (e/m or print) when you finalize the bills.

Cons:

I'm used to QuickBooks. I hate that I can't drill down to detail from reports. I hate that I can't type a vendor's name when I tab to the field when entering A/P (you have to open the search window and search for the vendor...there's no way to fully navigate through data entry without taking your hands off the keyboard). Data between the "Law" program and the "Accounting" program becomes "out of sync" frequently. There's a script to run to attempt to fix it, but it takes hours to run.

Straightforward legal calendaring software

Pros:

Simple calendaring software, which is all I need to schedule upcoming hearings and deadlines. I don't really use the bells and whistles beyond that.

Cons:

No real cons. My use isn't that in depth, but it works well for the simple calendaring that I use it for.

Long Time AbacusLaw user

Comments: The flexibility in creating rules for events is a great tool. For a solo practitioner AbacusLaw is a godsend.

Pros:

Completing forms and inputting data is easy and intuitive. Being able to keep track of events in AbacusLaw is so much easier than with other programs i have used (like Outlook).

Cons:

Some forms are not compatible with Dragon Naturally Speaking which is frustrating.

Abacus review

Comments: It's nice to always have our contacts and cases in one place. There are still many things we need to learn to use this program to its full potential.

Pros:

Everything is in one program and able to access it all easily

Cons:

We always have problems with our updates each year. Abacus is really good about fixing it but still a pain to have to call tech support to get it fixed.

Affordable; complete; intuitive

Comments: This software allows me to run my small law firm without having to hire full time assistants and automates about 80% of my administrative tasks.

Pros:

1. Affordable: Having purchased similar software years ago and having paid an amount for it, I knew that the cost of a new firm management software that handled both front office and back office matters was going to be a major obstacle for me. Particularly if I wanted the software to be resident on my computer as opposed to web-based. But, with the monthly payment plan that Abacuslaw offers, it was very easy to sign up. 2. Complete management solution. There are very few programs around that offer both a full management software and a full accounting software to attorneys. Most of the software out there offers a billing component, but not a full accounting solution. With Abacuslaw, I can have both for the same price. I don't have to have another accounting software like QuickBooks pro to handle the accounting of my office. 3. The software is very easy to use. Most of the time, I can figure things out by myself without much training. But, to the extent I need training, I can find videos on YouTube or worst case scenario, I can sign up for their affordable one on one instructions. 4. Really good support staff: My questions or problems are usually answered and resolved on the same call into the office. Very responsive and knowledgeable support staff and extremely cooperative and helpful. 5. I've done lots of research. Not too many companies with the same level of service and features for the same price. Highly recommend it.

Cons:

1. Glitches. While support staff is very responsive, the number of glitches is at times distracting. I would say that I average about maybe one glitch every three months or so. But it is dealt with very soon. 2. Data migration: The only major problem I had with Abacus law was their data migration. I was migrating from Amicus online and they could not transfer my data. Finally, the only thing they were able to migrate was my case information. I had to reenter my financial data myself. My suggestion is to make sure that they understand what format you are migrating from and get a firm commitment from them that they can handle the migration without problems. In the end, though, the drawbacks are so small, compared to the benefits that the minor complaints I have don't even register.

Great calendering program.

Comments: Abacus if the only legal software I have used. it was is in place when I started with the firm and I have never had any formal training. There is so much more to Abacus than we utilize but to get the help I need, it costs extra. I was not at the firm for the initial set up so if there was any training offered, i did not get it. We briefly switch from Abacus to another produce but it did not meet our needs so we switched back.

Pros:

Deadlines are a big and important part of our every day function. Abacus calendaring makes it easy to keep track of the deadlines and also important hearings and meetings. Customer service is always very helpful.

Cons:

Abacus Knowledge Base does not always have helpful information when I need to figure out something new. When adding a new attorney the last name box is highlighted, when you tab to the next box it is the ID box instead of the first name box or another box that you actually need to add information. This is frustrating because an ID number is not something you change or add each time you add a new name. When adding a "bill to" person, an accounting screen for the billing is opened. When you click the box next to Open Advanced Billing Options on save, then done, extra steps have to be taken to actually get to the billing screen to enter additional information. We don't us Abacus forms because they are not easy to set up. With the forms we do have set up, many times we have to make adjustments each time we use them so it is not worth the time or hassle to do so and we end up creating the document with out using Abacus forms. It costs extra for any help to create these forms.

ABACUS PRIVATE CLOUD - A GREAT COMPUTING PLATFORM FOR LAWYERS!!

Comments: For the last 20 months my entire law office has been run on Abacus Private Cloud. It has worked flawlessly, with great, responsive, USA-based tech support (for set up issues and as needed thereafter). APC enabled me to put my entire law office into a private cloud environment, in an industrial data center custom-built solely for this purpose, dedicated to the legal profession, and managed by top-notch professionals in the data center industry; this is something I could never have achieved on my own, or through another vendor. The benefits to my law practice from Abacus Private Cloud are:
- - My data is secure and safe in the Abacus Private Cloud data center. No more local data backups, because all data is on the private cloud server, and is backed up there.
- - My local equipment costs are drastically lower than before I switched to a private cloud. I eliminated the three desktop computers that I was previously accessing remotely.
- - I don't need costly application software on each local access device. All law office applications can be run on the private cloud server, not on local hardware. The local devices are there simply to display and interact with the private cloud server.
- - My private cloud server can run any software, whether related to Abacus or not. Therefore, I can run the application software that my meets the specific needs of my law practice, regardless of the vendor.
- - My local IT and tech support costs are $0.
- - My staff and I have become totally mobile, without sacrificing efficiency. This means that each employee, as needed, can work on their own schedule, and from any location with cell phone coverage, electricity, and an Internet connection. This creates a flexible, modern, and dynamic work environment, resulting in a better quality of life, happier attorneys and staff, and a better work vs. life balance for all involved.
- - All law office applications and data are accessible 24×7 for each user via any device: desktop computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone.
- - Private cloud technical requests (e.g., email configuration, remote access from a new device, etc.) are promptly resolved by the Abacus Private Cloud support staff.
- - System reliability (uptime) is outstanding. In sum, this is a truly great product, at a reasonable price, with great customer support. I highly recommend you get it!! Thanks.

Good if you make additional significant investment into tailoring it to your firm's needs.

Comments: Abacus is probably best for an office with existing procedures and forms that is willing to make a significant investment into customizing and maintaining Abacus, including having at least one Abacus-designated point person who develops intensive understanding of Abacus. A point about customization: you need to think through your process. For some, a more "plug and play" program may help you to figure out your process.

Pros:

Potential flexibility because of many functionalities. We use it every day to track matter activity, coordinate schedules, meet deadlines, retrieve critical information, and bill clients.

Cons:

Cannot use many features without hiring expensive Abacus professional because program is not intuitive. Numerous online resources, including knowledge base and trainings, but difficult to find what I need when I need it. Reports and queries: Odd that in our present "plug and play" world, reports are poorly formatted and queries difficult to use. Email integration: Does not integrate with our google suite, only Outlook. Customer Support: Expertise and availability has declined, although still reasonable, if more time consuming.

Ongoing diffciulties

Comments: As usual, Customer support was very helpful. He called when he said he would and did his best to resolve the issues over which he had control. Where the issues related to Amicus and he could not resolve them himself, he has pointed me in the right direction so that at least I can try to get them resolved in the future if he can’t do so whilst I am on annual leave. In my view, Customer support assistance is really the only redeeming feature of the support provided, with no one else showing any real interest in helping me. The product could be excellent but is let down by speed and support issues. Now I only bother to contact Customer support as he is the only person who has really shown any interest in trying to resolve issues.

Pros:

The product has a number of useful features which make it good for use in legal work. The ability to store all documents and correspondences within a file and send them by email or move them to different files are excellent, as is the ability to generate template documents and amend as necessary

Cons:

The product is often slow and cumbersome to use, with numerous glitches which never seem to get resolved. we are based in the UK and were told that we would have 24 hour support, but this simply hasn't happened. I have had some issues with Outlook, copying and pasting and documents not attaching to emails for three months now and, whilst Customer support has made every attempt to try and sort these out, he is only able to do so during US working hours (which means from around 3pm UK time) and, despite his commitment and many efforts, the problems are still not resolved which, I understand, is because there is a bug for which there is so far no fix.

Abacus Cloud

Comments: I am a sole practitioner concentrating on Worker's Compensation, Personal Injury, and Municipal Court cases. My calendar and "corporate knowledge" of my cases has improved a lot. My staff likes the software. I highly recommend it.

Pros:

I have been using Abacus since 2004. I just transitioned from using on my local server to having it and my IT hosted on the Cloud. Abacus is logically organized in a flexible way that allows me to categorize my notes in a way which really suits my practice. It is pretty easy for my staff to learn. It has an abundance of features, including some that I have not yet explored. As an Attorney, I really like the calendar and reports function. As an employer, I really like its document production feature.

Cons:

Occasionally I have problems printing envelopes from a separate envelope printer, especially when adding a new computer to the network.

Do NOT BUY IT

Comments: I am in the process of finding a different database. I pay almost money per month for technical support. I have been waiting for a week for an answer back from them currently. When they did the update it converted all the date of births to 2000 .... so if you were born in 1995 it shows your date of birth 2095. They tried to tell me a year ago that my contract had expired and wanted me to sign another 5 year contract. I was willing to sign a 3 year and they refused. They continued to charge my credit card for their support after that date. Turns out I did have another year with them and my contract was not expiring. They are HORRIBLE!!!

Pros:

It's a database. It does what it is supposed to do... when it is working. However, it is impossible to get technical service.

Cons:

Technical support is non-existent. I have tried multiple times to get an answer to a simple problem, and have been told everything from I don't have a contract with them to it's not their problem. Instead of attempting to help, they smart off and are rude and ridiculous in their responses. My IT people were working with abacus to install an update. It did not work and abacus did not respond to calls or emails for a full week. Then after refusing to get off the phone until someone spoke to me, the guy said they just needed to do a couple things and would I like him to do it then. Thirty minutes later it was working. We spent an entire week without it because they simply would not respond to us. They kept saying someone else had our account but that person was always on the phone with another customer, Managers did not return my phone call either.

Worst Customer Service Ever. Overcharged me. Kept charging me after I cancelled service.

Comments: It allowed us to move from a paper calendar to a electronic one. I cannot think of anything that is an upgrade from paper files except that.

Pros:

Our needs were minimal and this software met most of those minimal needs.

Cons:

Screens are not customizable. We asked repeatedly for the ability to make custom buttons so that we could execute tasks on each Client without going through their rigorous protocols. After several years and release updates, custom buttons never made it. It seems they don't want users to alter the product so that it best fits the users needs. They are very rigid. At the term of our contract they began billing me at 4 times our agreed rate with no notice. Not once did they disclose the amount they were going to charge and it cannot be found anywhere in their emails, website, etc. For that matter, they could have charged me $1 million a month. In any event, when I told then I did not want do business with such a dishonest company and cancel any service agreement with them, they kept charging my bank card. I finally had to cancel my bank card to stop the charges. Worse than AOL and Comcast.

Abacus Law Is an Excellent Software Program that Enables Users to Link Important Information

Comments: Abacus Law is an important tool that assists with making certain there are multiple ways o access and check information that has been entered. It allows for quick search methods due to various features. Last names care linked to matters, so a potential client file may be entered in names prior to being entered a client in the matters feature. Any entity or person associated with a case can be linked, also providing another method of cross referencing other people associated with an individual case. Linked emails provides another easy way to check emails sent regarding a specific client.

Pros:

Once client information is entered, other information may be linked and is very helpful when looking up a memo, phone message , email etc. for each client. Once an appointment is scheduled, it also is linked to the events feature, so the program allows for multiple ways to check that important information is stores and is accessible.

Cons:

At this time the features provided are working well to allow for ease of sending messages, linking client information and researching stored client information.

I feel like I was misled--Abacus Private Cloud has issues

Comments: I first purchased the gold edition of Abacus two years ago and installed it locally. It had its quirks, but we were satisfied overall. A few months in, though, it started crashing frequently during billing and time entry--every 4-5 time tickets and every 3-4 bills rendered. We spent more time re-starting the software than it took to render all of our bills. Abacus IT couldn't figure it out. Then it started to 'forget' the database location and we had to be on the phone with Abacus IT about once a week so they could fix it remotely. When Abacus couldn't figure out why it kept crashing, they guessed it was an incompatibility issue with our brand-new server and suggested we move to Abacus Private Cloud. Sounded fine. They housed and maintained the hardware and we didn't need server IT. Of course, the price went up by 200%. Seemed like a fair trade-off at first. Despite the representations as to stability and savings, it got worse. Our first billing run on APC crashed the software more frequently than it had on our own server. The next billing run was worse. It crashed after nearly every generated bill. At best the software would crash fewer than two dozen times during a billing run, no matter what IT tried to do. Finally, they just blamed it on us. It hasn't been fixed entirely to this day. To add insult to injury, we were told out of the blue that our virtual server was running low on storage space. We removed everything we could think of that we'd put on it and it still ran low. Abacus billed us for additional storage space despite our efforts, without explanation as to where the issue lay or any attempts to help. E-mails to IT were met with silence. Barring some sort of miracle, I cannot wait until our contract is up so I can cancel the agreement. It's ludicrously expensive for what it is and how often it fails to work, and all of the time spent with IT has cost more work hours than I want to admit. It's clunky, quirky, crashes frequently, and the software is unstable no matter which platform or hardware is in use. And buyer beware--Abacus doesn't guarantee the software will work and the cancellation penalty is essentially the equivalent of the value of your remaining contract. I am extremely unhappy with Abacus and feel like I was misled on the initial purchase, and misled again when told that switching everything to the cloud would improve stability.

Abacus makes accounting easy.

Pros:

Abacus has everything we need for our daily functions and makes basic accounting easy. We can access our client's many different ways (i.e.: name, matter, ID). I love the way the top bar is set up. The icons are used daily. I can print out reports for the partner within seconds. Easy transfer of funds from one client to another.

Cons:

Sometimes when updates are made, there are problems with the monthly billing and client payments. After inputting the time tickets, sometimes the program freezes up and we need to shut down the system a couple of times and even need to call customer services for help. Also, when printing the invoices, even though I put them in alpha order, when they print out, they print out numerically or even one time recently just printed out (255 bills) in no methodical way. The same thing happens when inputting client payments. Instead of allowing me to input what I want to input, if I mark an invoice or invoices.

AbacusLaw Review

Pros:

I appreciate that the court rules are listed/referenced in the events. I have found the program fairly easy to use; however, other staff in the office have struggled with it over the years.

Cons:

As stated above, several staff in my office have found the software confusing and difficult to use. I've found some court rules in the software program do not match current laws - most specifically within the local court rules.

Abacus Law has grown with my business!

Comments: Exceptional. The software is useful, practical and designed specifically for attorneys. The customer service is unparalleled across the board. Fast, efficient, professional, knowledgeable. Always there, always helpful and always cheerful (no matter how many times I call!).

Pros:

I love the format and the ease with which I can create new matters, organize my contacts and bill my matters. I started with AbacusLaw as a solo practitioner and have grown my firm to include two other attorneys and an admin. The attorneys are all networked in the cloud now, and Abacus was able to grow with me and provide additional support solutions for our small firm. The Abacus Accounting has given me great billing capacity and kept my accounts in order.

Cons:

I have not found the forms functionality very accessible. I was an experienced attorney when I signed on with AbacusLaw, so this is not something that I particularly need.

Abacus Law with APC lets me work anywhere with complete control of my office and my cases.

Pros:

With APC I can work from home in the morning, go to the office and log in again right where I left off without having to maintain expensive servers. Tech support has been very responsive and always available whenever we have a problem, which is not very often. The features of Abacus Law are completely customizable to suit the needs of my practice. There are lots of great tutorials and other online resources to help us get the most from Abacus Law.

Cons:

We had used Amicus Attorney for many years but wanted a full featured program that integrated case management with accounting. The transition to Abacus Law was not as easy as I had hoped and took a considerable amount of time. However, the transition team was great to work with and stayed with the project until they were able to successfully convert my data. Also, compared to Amicus, the user interface with Abacus Law is not as intuitive and has a bit of a learning curve. However, overall it is a more robust and feature rich product.

AbacusLaw Review

Comments: We have used AbacusLaw for at least the 18 years I have been employed and are very satisfied with the product. Helps to keep our office on top of calendaring events for our litigation cases, i.e., meetings, discovery deadlines, depositions and trials.

Pros:

I work for a small firm, so we only using the calendaring system. I do like the ease of going into the calendar and just clicking on a particular day to enter my calendar event. I especially like the software for preparing trial calendars.

Cons:

When I print my weekly calendar and there is a holiday that week, I have to remove "holiday" in order to print the full information for the holiday event (i.e., Court and Office Closed), otherwise it cuts it off. Once I print the calendar I have to go back in to add the holiday back, so it will continue to show up for the following year. Not a major problem, just a little inconvenient.