Michael J. Kehoe Attorney At Law
Legal Howell, MI
Legal Howell, MI
Mike has been an attorney for nearly 30 years and during that time has provided legal services in a wide variety of practices including, criminal, domestic, business, real estate, wills, estates and governmental. He currently concentrates his services in the areas of real estate, business, and governmental law, representing 3 municipalities in his locale.
First and foremost was my switch to the Mac platform but I used Parallels for over a year with Timeslips. I wanted something with network capabilities that would allow for integration between my secretary's billing and mine. I was also looking for something that would or could be more streamlined.
The biggest hassle for me was that I had to maintain a somewhat separate database on my laptop. When it was time to bill I would have to create a separate file, transfer it to my secretary's computer (main DB), then I had to combine the files, get back a new database for my laptop and then re-open it on my laptop. I did that at least weekly to avoid a file loss or corruption from my laptop. When I my secretary went part-time due to her wish to retire, I then had to walk to her desk and handle the data transfers. Very time consuming, to put it mildly.
The main database structure with the syncing capabilities. Every minute of time I mark on my laptop goes to the main database so that I never have to go back and forth between computers. It just works and has been very seamless. Another feature was its ability to sync and coordinate with Daylite, which I was already using.
First, the syncing and integration allow me to stay at my desk and work. Billable time is just entered with no extra steps needed. There are times when I have to do some work at my secretary's desk and I can do the work and then enter the time at her desk. It syncs with the main database and I don't need to do anything else. No extra steps or effort is required. I can instantly monitor costs or billable fees regardless of where I'm at in the office.
My secretary wanted to retire but she had been working a couple of days a week and always helped with the bills, which I do religiously on the first of every month. It just so happened that the second month of being on BP fulltime, she went to Florida and was gone past the first of the month. I did the bills myself and had them done in over half the time it used to take! I was amazed at the ease of use. The next month my secretary helped but she wasn't used to the Billings Pro program and the bottom line is that she is retired now and I just do the bills myself. It works so well that I don't mind the couple of hours it takes and it just gets done. I've been able to save the overhead of my secretary because Billings Pro works so easily. It has made my entire billing process so much simpler. I truly used to dread the first of the month and billing with Timeslips. It was so clunky and awkward. I have no such hesitations with Billings Pro. Efficiency and time make money and the lack of it costs money. Billings Pro has actually made the retirement of my secretary not be as painful as I thought it would be and has allowed me to continue on with a significant drop in overhead.