AbacusLaw

Customizable Software and Amazing Support

Comentarios: 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.

Puntos a favor:

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.

Contras:

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.

All the Bells and Whistles

Comentarios: I have been an AbacusLaw users since I opened my own firm in 2006. I have used the software and switched to APC. I went briefly with a competitor for four months because of the cost difference and learned quickly: you get what you pay for. I promptly switched back to Abacus and determined that the APC was worth it.

Puntos a favor:

The ease of use, the triple reconciliation feature, and the linking items to client matters.

Contras:

I wish the calendar syncing feature with Google calendar/Outlook was easier and not manually required. I also wish the price point was lower for small firms. It's just me and a paralegal.

Do not buy AbacusLaw Case Management Software

Comentarios: Abacus is a disappointment and I strongly recommend against using it. The support blames its customer and Microsoft Abacus' failures. Our program crashes constantly and the supposed case management and document management features are too complicated to use. The phone calendar and contact updates no longer work, which was a major purchase consideration when we purchased Abacus. Now the company will not support its outdated system and is using its failure to extort upgrades from its long-term customers. We started using Abacus over five years ago and experienced many headaches thought that term. Now the system constantly crashes. As an example, for the past week or so we have not been able to add new client contacts or calendar events. Imagine trying to run a law office and you cannot open a file or put an event on the calendar. Abacus support was rude and cavalier about our problems and tried to put the blame on Microsoft Windows 10 and blamed our office for deleting something on our computer -- an utter impossibility. I cannot strongly impress upon anyone considering teaming up with Abacus my disappointment and hope you will steer clear of AbacusLaw.

Contras:

The company seems to have abandoned us. We purchased AbacusLaw five years ago and now the program keeps crashing and the rude support personnel blame us for using an outdated version which Abacus says it is trying to faze out an no longer support. We bought the program because it offered case management and document management capabilities, and automatically updated contacts and calendar on the phone. Over the years, we constantly needed to contact support because the calendar and contact update functionality constantly broke down. Now the software crashes all of the time. I could not enter new clients nor could I make calendar entries for the past five (5) days. I called support and they complained that Abacus no longer wants to support this version and claimed my staff must have "deleted something" -- which is an impossibility! and the support blames Microsoft updates. We are beyond frustrated with Abacus. The program is so poorly designed there is no way to utilize many of the features it claims to have. Frankly we gave up on linking documents, producing case management reports, etc. because the software is too complicated to understand. Abacus now wants to up-sell us on its new software products and the pricing could not be more noncompetitive. I sincerely discourage anyone from using Abacus Law and this is the advice from a long term user who gave Abacus an honest and fair chance.

Abacus Law - A Year In

Comentarios: We wanted a product that allowed us to have a 360 view on our productivity, profitability, case management and accounting software. Abacus has provided us with this in one package.

Puntos a favor:

The time ticket and notes functions have increased our accuracy and efficiency in billing, and provide attorneys and partners with the ability to provide clients with accurate status reports on their matters. The document management function mean that teams can access all information quickly. The software allows partners to track their teams productivity and evaluate work in progress.

Contras:

The software does not provide for multiple currency databases - although Abacus built several for us. The outlook function is not so stable and with us use several currency databases, you have to keep switching the outlook function in each database. The reports format takes some getting used to - they would be easier to use if they could be downloaded as excel spreadsheets.

Good not Great, but what is...

Comentarios: Our billable hours have increased, due to the ease of use of the timekeeper processes.

Puntos a favor:

Linking ability between names, matters, the calendar and to email.

Contras:

Least favorite is so ironic. In Abacus Accounting retainers are painstaking and excruciatingly burdensome to keep track of and requires manual allocation to timekeepers.

Thought it would be better

Comentarios: I really thought Abacus was a better product than it has turned out to be. It can't do basic things that an accounting system can do. It's a so-so product.

Puntos a favor:

I liked that it could integrate with our business systems as they are.

Contras:

The add-ins do not work consistently and have more cons than pros. The reporting is not very good and making deposits that are not client checks makes no sense. The system is good for basic legal clients, but anything more complex and there's issues. You can't just double click on a number in a report to get more information on it like many other software programs. If you print a check, you can't change anything about it with an edit; you have to delete the entire thing to make small changes. There is also no way to track time reductions truly. Entering time takes forever because you have to go into each matter separately and enter your time instead of a large platform to enter time for each matter on one sheet. Editing bills takes so much longer than it should because of how it has to be done.

Abacus Can Help

Puntos a favor:

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.

Contras:

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.

Legal Software Tracker

Comentarios: Since using AbacusLaw calendaring for trials and deadlines is much easier than before

Puntos a favor:

Relatively easy to use and set up. Calculates trials, deadlines for various reports and court filings

Contras:

The thing I dislike the most about AbacusLaw is the creating of new reports takes more computer knowledge then it should.

The Goods and the Bads of Abacus

Puntos a favor:

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.

Contras:

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.

DO NOT BUY THIS SOFTWARE - HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SUPPORT

Comentarios: It was a horrible experience. I am happy that we are finally out of AbacusLaw. If you are considering this software please reconsider.

Puntos a favor:

The software sounds amazing when described by the sales team. Unfortunately they are overpromise and under deliver.

Contras:

The cloud functionality does not work, the billing program glitches. It does not sync with outlook. It is a horrible process to be released from the contract. We paid $5,000 for upgrades and customization but never received them. We are now being charged $750 to get our data out after we switched.

We have relied on this software as one of our primary organizational tools for over five years.

Comentarios: It is a mostly comprehensive business-management tool

Puntos a favor:

The Abacus software, now on Abacus Private Cloud, almost always is functioning properly, and is accessible from anywhere, anytime. After our experience, we would now not use anything that is not cloud-based, particularly being in a city highly prone to power-outages, floods, and hurricanes. We have found the software to steadily improve in features and speed. The customer service is the best I have experienced very particularly in the software industry. The techs are all very knowledgeable and carefully resolve every inquiry. They are also available very quickly, an absolute anomaly in the software business. The calendering component, as others have observed, is a key strong-point. The linking in of all events, documents, e-mails, and notes into one accessible electronic folder provides the convenient efficiency that you will frequently use. It is possible to scan documents directly to the cloud case file from your local computer - an important step-saver. Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, when installed, functions on the APC desktop. You will need reasonably strong, consistent Internet connections. Airport terminals are mostly unusable work locations even with a "jet-pack" or cell-phone "hot-spot."

Contras:

This is a powerful software tool. As such, except for the calendar, it is not a "plug & play" system, except for the most computer-fluent users. To fully utilize its comprehensive features will take a commitment to initial as well as ongoing learning while taking the daily, time-consuming steps to precisely link all activities back to the case file. However, the added work will and must obviate the paper file. The queries, forms, and reports functions are all very valuable but are far too complex to user-initiate, and each requires ongoing custom installation by the provider. Cost-effective file collaboration with outsiders is not possible, therefore an added cloud account and the expense is required along with the time of copying and moving sizeable files. Changing accounting from existing into the integrated system is a major transition to be carefully evaluated in advance. Maintaining the current accounting system, at least temporarily, will be required. This software must be your primary organizational tool as it will grow into a weighted expense that is justifiable only if it is the key resource. The software does crash daily when trying to interact with Outlook for file linking of e-mails. It can usually be resolved with a quick re-start. Initiating printing is quite slow and getting slower but understandable with a remote server. Microsoft Office, Adobe Pro, and Reallegal depo transcription all work very well here. Some other applications do not at all.

Worst Experience Ever. If I could give zero stars I would!

Comentarios: Do not make the mistake of believing that this product will do anything for you other than cause you countless hours of grief.

Puntos a favor:

Any pros of this software are so far outweighed by the cons that they are not worthy of even mention.

Contras:

This software is absolutely horrible. I had high hopes for this software after having been given rave reviews about Amicus Attorney and calling to get more information. The salesperson convinced me that after describing my firm's needs, we were better suited for Abacus, which was owned by the same company. After purchasing the software, it took more than 8 months for them to figure out how to migrate our data from our existing billing software, a process that they represented they were very familiar with during the sales calls. When we finally made the transition to this software we quickly learned that it is not at all user-friendly, they provide no guidance on how to use the software or how to set it up, large portions of data mysteriously changes by itself (today the originating attorneys on hundreds of our chases mysteriously changed to reflect the names of our support staff members). The calendaring system is supposed to be able to sync seamlessly with Outlook. This is a joke. Items randomly disappear from attorneys' calendars or appear on the wrong attorneys calendars, when entered. Some items sync from Abacus to Outlook and others don't with no rhyme or reason. Their call center is horrible. You cannot get the same person on the phone twice, and you cannot request to speak with a particular person so there is no consistency of service. Each time you call to describe a problem you are having, you have to start from the beginning because they do not keep any records of your past calls. The people who answer the phone have no idea how the software works and always tell you that they have to research your question and get back to you. Oftentimes you never receive a call back and when you do they still don't know how to assist you. I could go on and on...

Excellent Technical Support

Comentarios: Does just about everything I need to for law firm practice management, once I've tinkered with it enough.

Puntos a favor:

Because I am a power user, I am able to make it do everything I want . There is not any other PM software out there that is as customizable. However, that comes with a cost in usability (more on that below). However, I have had excellent technical support. I had an issue that I could not solve on my own. I called CS and, although they were not able to resolve it in that session, I was impressed with the thoroughness of the work and the help offered. They went above and beyond to to try to ID the issue. After tinkering around more, I called back with more info and was connected to another tech who was able to resolve the issue. Both had excellent professionalism and telephone demeanor. I was very impressed by these two experiences and with the quality of the technicians. This was much better service than I expected and there are only a few companies who have provided this quality of support.

Contras:

There is a cost to customizability. That is that it can be quite difficult for a non-computer-guy to set up beyond basic calendaring and contact tracking. The workflow and database relationships are not particularly intuitive. Even simple things like creating a search query take more computer knowledge than most attorney will have. Setting up reports or calendar rules is extremely user-unfriendly. Without my computer background I could never have done it. Because I'm a power user, I can adapt it to meet all of our needs. But out-of-the-box, it's a little too generic to be really useful for most attorneys, even with the "Special Editions." The attorney who referred me to Abacus uses it as nothing more than a calendar and client contacts and it's too expensive to use it that way.

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

Comentarios: 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.

Abacus Law is not a good product

Comentarios: Really terrible. We have had an unworkable system and yet we are expected to still pay $860 a month and they have our prior cloud services and files held hostage and refuse to release files. DO NOT USE ABACUS LAW!

Puntos a favor:

We have had the worst customer service. The program has constant problems (not synching, billing is a nightmare, lost entries) and it has cost my firm $100k in lost billing and administrative time on hold trying to reach the support team.

Contras:

Billing, mobile app, customer service,. In fact, I can’t think of a single aspect of this program that has worked well without issue or that I would say I liked.

Good but could be improved in certain areas

Comentarios: We need to store a lost of data related to the health care sector. Abacus was not designed for our specific needs but we have incorporated our needed information into your field ranges. Its not perfect but works.
We bought your product mostly because of the email feature. That has not worked well.

Puntos a favor:

It captures all of the data we need. The queries work well. Your support team is fairly fast to respond and when they do respond most of the people we have dealt with speak English quite well. As a person with hearing issues, this is extremely important to me.

Contras:

The emailing feature needs to be improved. Constant issues with trying to add links, photos, logos or graphics, can't add attachments. We do a mass newsletter monthly and almost always have issues. We want our newsletters to look better more eye catching but with this program we can only send boring basic emails with little chance of catching the readers attention. If we want to do something with graphics, logos, links, or add attachments we have to do a query and export the email addressing into an excel spreadsheet then do batches of emails in Outlook. This is our biggest complaint with Abacus.

Abacus for the Paralegal

Comentarios: I am able to update our dockets and manage our monthly client billing with ease. I occasionally get kicked out of Abacus but overall enjoy the software.

Puntos a favor:

Creating a docket is simple. We are able to quickly review the attorney notes and provide updates to the clients without having to get the attorney involved.

Contras:

I wasn't involved in any training so I'm sure there are lots of features that our office is not taking advantage of.

Everything was fine until we went to the Abacus Private Cloud

Comentarios: Check out other options if you want a cloud bases case management program before going with APC. I am waiting for my 5 year contract to expire and then reevaluate my options. I would like to have more control over "my cloud" and have local, on the scene tech support like we used to enjoy before we were forced to upgrade to APC, or else pay a high price for non-supported, prior versions of the software.

Puntos a favor:

It is nice to be able to access the case management software through the cloud. It allows you to take you work with you where ever you go - which can be a good thing or a bad one.

Contras:

Abacus Private Cloud does not play well with anything but MS Office 365. I had to buy a more expensive version of Dragon Naturally Speaking Legal and there is such a lag between dictation and text, that the Dragon software never gets used. We also use Essential Forms for our Judicial Council Forms in CA. APC tech support has left me hanging for over 2 weeks, and countless hours trying to figure out software that they had previously installed on their server for our use. It also seems like every time I call support to change something, there is a horrendous charge.

Ongoing diffciulties

Comentarios: 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.

Puntos a favor:

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

Contras:

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.

DO NOT FALL FOR THIER EXCELLENT SALES PITCH

Comentarios: This was probably the worst decision I have made in my 38 year career. Our firm is still not operational and we've been working with them for six months. The main issue is that Abacus will not connect from San Diego to Colorado: the internet based program shuts down suddenly and your work is missing if you have not saved it on your server (outside of the Abacus program). This is a problem if you are on a deadline. When we brought that to Abacus attention, they blamed a third party connection. We had our IT guy call the third party but because we are not customers of the third party, they would not talk to us. So basically we are paying for a program that does not work AND Abacus wont fix it or even contact the third party with whom they contract for the connection. Furthermore, the migration of my billing program to Abacus billing was a nightmare as Abacus loaded the trust account into the operating account as a credit, i.e. zero in trust. Once they sorted that out, the billing program would not accept payments from clients. My bookkeeper was on the phone with Abacus techs for countless hours trying to work that out to no avail. Finally I sent them a certified letter terminating the contract for cause and guess what? Action! now I had ten technicians working on the multiple issues trying to get it all resolved. But that took time and my attorneys were required to spend literally hours on the phone with these guys. Billable hours lost, meant they did not get their bonuses this month, as well as the firm lost revenue. To make matters worse, the response from Abacus was that it was our fault because our attorneys were non responsive: a complete lie, unless you want to complain that sometimes our attorneys are in court handling actual client matters and cannot be on the phone with them while they are doing actual attorney work. Emails are still floating in cyberspace, not received. Printers don't work. etc etc. My choice is to litigate in another state -- completely untenable. Don't be stupid. Upgrade your server and stick with your current billing program.

Puntos a favor:

Great sales pitch. If the program worked, it is a lawyers dream. It doesn't.

Contras:

The program does not connect and shuts down. Then you cannot do anything. It does not operate.

Straightforward legal calendaring software

Puntos a favor:

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.

Contras:

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

AbacusLaw is Essential for Saving Time and Money

Comentarios: Our experience with AbacusLaw has been very beneficial in keeping matters organized and running smoothly. And also, knowing that if any issue should arise, it will be promptly seen to by their very capable IT team, which may be what makes AbacusLaw essential. Their team is always courteous and ready to serve you in a timely manner. As far as the software itself, there is rarely a problem.

Puntos a favor:

Organization is key, so being able to link matters with the calendar and pull up events with so little effort makes my job much easier. I cannot imagine running a law firm without this program. It makes all the difference when you are in the business of billing clients based on time spent on their particular matter. The full scope of events, dates, time and time spent are at the ready, saving a tremendous amount of time. AbacusLaw is incredibly functional. This software has it all, and I feel that our small firm isn't implementing the software to it's fullest capabilities. This is apparent as there are helpful suggestions each morning when I login and go to my calendar.

Contras:

There is little to not like about the software. I suppose if it were free and could read my mind, but...

The Best Legal Software

Comentarios: Our intention was to keep our law project as paperless as we could and AbacusLaw plays a big part in allowing us to achieve this goal.

Puntos a favor:

What I like most about AbacusLaw is how user-friendly it is and how we were able to use it to keep the project organized on a daily basis. It is a complete package.

Contras:

I think I liked everything about AbacusLaw. I cannot think of any problem that I had with the software.

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

Comentarios: 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.

Essentially a very good product!

Comentarios: Generally, Abacus is a very good program for our needs. We are able to keep client/matter information in one location that can be accessed by everyone offsite. Recently, I was involved in a trial in Federal Court and it was very helpful to be able to access our file without delay.

Puntos a favor:

Generally Abacus Private Cloud is easy to use and is fairly intuitive to move around. Setting up new files, adding and/or linking appropriate parties/individuals, attaching emails are all very simple.

Contras:

Fairly frequently the system slows down such that you type ahead of the action on the screen. This can be frustrating and annoying. When updates are made, we are not notified of the changes and must learn how to use or work around those changes. Sometimes it feels as if changes are made without talking with users to see if the change will help or hurt.