Mastering Data Migration for Law firm Software

This week we're going to talk about data migration and what that means when you work with attorney clients. Gone are the days that we would be just head down doing our accounting work and not being a partner with our client. And truly, you want to set yourself up in a place that we are the person that they look to. They see us, and this is one of my, I think, biggest compliments as an accountant that's forward-thinking is that the clients come to us, they come to us, and then they are having issues that you don't ever think that they would ever come to their accountant for. If you have that good working relationship with them, which is what I really want to see for everybody that's here in the Accountants Law Lab. I want you to be that premier-level bookkeeper or accountant that is not just heads down and never talks to the client. I want you to be that person that actually has the conversations. Data migration is going to come up. It can come up maybe when you do a, a project for a client. It can come up in just typical conversation with the client. Maybe it's more a conversation around data migration to some software that they were not using before. That's really a software tool for their firm. It can also mean that you're helping a client. Maybe you help with a big cleanup, and it may help to get them into a more forward-thinking, future-ready accounting platform. Maybe they're on QuickBooks Desktop and now is the time to move them over to Online. Maybe they're using something like Timeslips or PC Law or something that's— Abacus. There's some pretty old names out there of software that I'm still amazed that clients use. And they come to you and they say, you know, I really need to get off of this software, but I really don't know how and I don't know what it's going to look like on the other side. And this is where if you do the homework and set yourself up as that forward-thinking, tech-ready accountant or bookkeeper, that they can come to you with this conversation and then you can actually do the work with them and help them through the process. And let me tell you, any data migration is a process, even if it's just QuickBooks Online, a Desktop to QuickBooks Online. You're going to find that still there's things that don't come over. There's things that you'll have to work through with them. Even if you're just moving them to the other platform, you might want to add or layer on something to make QuickBooks more specific to law firms or specific to their practice area. This is things they've never had before. You may be able to give them metrics that they never saw before. Getting people out of the accounting software and into like a Clio or a LeanLaw where they're able to work one-on-one inside with the accountant or the bookkeeper on staff in the data set that's QuickBooks. But with their firm, they're really heavily invested in their client side where they like to focus their business on. So the staff attorneys aren't inside of QuickBooks as a user looking at the sales side. They're actually inside of Clio or LeanLaw or whatever product you, you're layering on top. And it will help them be able to keep them out of QuickBooks entirely, which is always the perfect world, right? So what I want you to think about here is you are upgrading them into a better place. You're automating parts of their workflow that they've never had automated before. You're able to get more data out that they've never been able to see before. That's the nugget, that's the Easter egg in all of this. But you have to get them there because they're gonna be scared to death to make this change. They might need some convincing. You may need to hold their hand through the whole process. You should take the lead in the data migration process. If you are taking them off of some kind of a desktop software and you're moving them into the cloud and you're moving them over to Clio, Cozy up with the folks at Clio, cozy up with the folks at LeanLaw, you know, get ahold of their person that's in charge of migration. Ask from them what you need. Do the homework to find out what can move over, what cannot move over. That's critical in a successful migration. The other critical step is to set realistic goals. So as you're moving them from one A to B, you're gonna be letting them know that to get to B, we're gonna have to do this, this, this, and this. Great time to clean up old data. Get rid of it. You're gonna still need to save some data to have conflict checks, because you need to do that as part of the work. When you work with attorneys, you're gonna conflict check whether or not this client was a past client, or was a person involved in a case with a past client. So you need to have that ability to do that. But also you want to be in the front and center of how this migration happens. If they keep you out of the loop, which has happened to us, they've had a few clients that have just decided to change their software, go right to the software provider. And they start to do the transition and they go to us kind of matter of fact, oh, did we tell you that on XYZ date we're moving over to this other software? And like, well, why weren't we in this conversation? This is where we work. So when you find that out, you really have to step forward. I have seen migrations happen where the software person will say, hey, we brought everything over and then nobody actually goes back and checks. Does the AR totals equal the AR totals here? Also speaking about AR, A lot of the software, if you're moving them off of something else, it can read QuickBooks. It can see QuickBooks like LeanLaw, two-way sync. It can see it. But if the data set wasn't created inside of LeanLaw, then the process to apply payments and to work inside the program, if it's not been created inside of LeanLaw via LeanLaw, then it's not going to be the same workflow until all those invoices from the past are paid off. So when you're doing this process, you can weigh the balance of should you bring everything over and all the open AR, all the open trust matters, rebuild all the ledgers. Kind of the where we sit a lot of times, it just makes life easier for the client. But that's more pricey than cutting that line in the sand and saying, this is where we're going forward. With Clio, you just enter all the open balances. But if you need to refer back to what's in the open balance, that won't be inside of Clio because it wasn't there in the first place. So if it wasn't created in Clio, it's not gonna be in Clio. And you're gonna sit with, I like to say, one foot on one boat dock and one foot on the boat. You're kind of in between places until that timeframe pushes by, that stuff is paid, and then you're in only data that was produced inside the platform that you're moving to, the new platform, whether it's a Clio or LeanLaw or something else. So you really want to look at it from that perspective and be realistic with the client. This is where we're gonna sit. Have them make the decision whether they want you to build it all back, because it's not an easy process. Rebuilding the AR, rebuilding the, the trust account matters. If they're, you know, they're lengthy, like a, a law firm that has legacy clients that have been around a long time. You have to be realistic that rebuilding that whole data set of all the open trust is going to take time. And then give them that window of time when you're working with them directly to know that there's going to be a couple of months, months that are going to be a little bit of a bumpy road as you start to work through the system. It's, it's something that we see a lot with clients. They're expecting to see one thing, and they're seeing something else. And as you do the migration, another great tip is to take a moment as you bring the data over to bring it over in little small pieces and let the client look at it and say, yes, that's what I was expecting, or no, that's not what I was expecting, so that they have the ability to— you're not putting the whole data set in and then having to recorrect it or do it a way that they weren't expecting. Do it a way that they were expecting. It didn't come over the way you wanted it to. If you say to a client, I'm gonna rebuild your AR inside of LeanLaw, and this is what it's gonna look like. We're just gonna do a summary view. And then they're expecting to see that full line-itemed out invoice. This is different expectation, and it will take more time, and it's gonna be more expensive to do, because some of that work is manual. We haven't gotten to the point of just flipping a switch and moving it over, although a lot of it's a lot better than it was. Every day it gets better. Maybe by the time you watch this video and it's 3 years down the road, you might go, oh, she's wrong. That's not how it is. But that's what happens with, with with technology. It's constantly moving forward, driving forward. But know that you're going to want to work with the open AR. You're going to want to work with the open client costs. Also know how that's presented and how it will be moved over or imported as work in process in your other software. You want to look at all the open trust balances. Do they align? So draw that line in the sand, run your accounting reports, your financial reports, and then run those identical reports on the AR side inside of— Clio, LeanLaw, the other technology, and make sure the numbers line up. You want to have that clean space to move forward into the future. I think that's one of the most important parts that I think gets lost in these migrations. Find out from the provider what copies over, what does not, what's going to get imported, what does not. Not everything will port over. You want to know that, especially if you're coming from some older legacy firm, legacy type of product to the new one. We do have ways to magically bring it over with QuickBooks Online with their datasets, their, custom fields, but sometimes that are not always viewable. And if they've used, if they've used those custom fields in the past and they use the magical 3, then we're kind of dead in the water for only detail reports. If we start to bring in any new ones, you can't magically make them show up on reports today. They just, this, it's very limited in the custom fields department. So know that those are kind of what you wanna work through. And really you want to look at how can I make this better for my client, right? That client relationship is so valuable. Make sure that you really work towards that. Have a good line of communication. If you are doing the migration with them, every week send them a little 15-minute blurb about what's been done. Don't leave them in the dark. Clients hate when you leave them in the dark when you're doing a data migration. Give them space with a little piece of knowledge of this is where we started, this is the phase we're in, we've completed this phase, this phase, and now we're onto this phase. They will love that. They'll appreciate it. You can do meetings with them too, like a 15-minute meeting if that's a client— the client wants. Mm-hmm. Or you can just do something like we send Lysio messages to let them know the status. If we need more information, obviously we'll pull them into a regular meeting. So we try to keep it concise and not too time-consuming because it does take time to do these conversions. Really important to make sure that you're in a space where you're able to help them along and give them a realistic deadline. This is when we're gonna be done. Try to make sure that you actually meet or beat that deadline. That's always important. And know that we've had our bumps in the road, but sometimes with clients where they have reverted back to the old software, maybe the person that's gonna be doing the work is really not all that on board with it. They're not comfortable with the new system. So they're actually still working in the old system and the new system, which will slow them down. Make sure they understand what the line in the sand means, that you're no longer adding data or changing the data set that was copied over. Don't have them putting things in and past that deadline and beyond that deadline. Actually prior to that deadline because that'll change the numbers. And when you're done doing the reconciliation of everything and everything aligns, provide documents to show here's our starting balances, here's our ending balances in the old system. That is gonna save you a lot of, uh, guff in the future. If you do have that person that goes back and changes that data, you want to make sure that they know that they're not supposed to be entering data. That line in the sand was very meaningful. You don't want them to go back and change any of that data because that will ruin everything going forward or things might get missed. So you really wanna make sure that that's important. We've had clients that actually kept working in an old file. So you really don't want to have that happening. You don't want them— if you're moving them forward, let them have a clear expectation of this is when we start, this is when we end the data migration, and this is when you're gonna start working in the new platform. And don't leave them high and dry. Hold their hand through it. It may take months, couple months, several months. We've got a client that stayed with us a few years for any time that they need us. They pay us ongoing just to stay as, as a place to go, a resource when they need help. So know that we can, you can do that as well. It's an extra kind of source of revenue for you as well. You could do just extra training or support, call it tech support for the new platform. So I hope that was helpful. I know there's a lot, but if you have any questions, comments, feel free to reach out. And if you are interested in data migration, you're like, I really don't want anything to do with that. We can support you and do the data migrations. For your firm and partner with you to do the data migration that you take on to keep that client ongoing, and we just move on our merry way. Thanks for joining. Bye now. Bye.