What the…File type !

Hi there, Linda Artesani, Artesani Bookkeeping. This week I'm just going to do a very short video and talk about file types. So the blog is called What the File Type? And for good reason. One of the things that we really focus on here at my firm is we work on data migration. We take clients' clients off of software that's not working for them. A lot of times they're desktop software. So they're software like Juris, PC Law, Timeslips. We've done Bill4Time. We've done Cosmolex. The list goes on and on. And most of the times a client comes to us with a pain point. If it's desktop, the pain point very simply can be that they're not able to get their data out when they need it. So they could be in court and they want to know a balance on an account. account or a file, and they can't look up the balance, they got to call the office and say, hey, I need to know the balance. A lot of times the clients have come to us because they're not able to get the data that they want. So some of these programs like Cosmolex, it's a software for attorneys. But the software itself, it's like the accounting part was after the fact. So the software isn't exactly a full-blown accounting platform like QuickBooks Online Advanced is. That's my preferred software when working with law firms. I like working with LeanLaw. As you know, if you go through my blog posts, you know, I'm a big proponent of LeanLaw. It works the best with QuickBooks. It integrates, and also you can see— so the data is not hidden in one particular file. You can see the parent level trust account, and then you can see all the individual matters underneath, and then you can click on them and expand them to see the detail. I like that because it's really easier to manage, especially a larger list of, of, you know, when you work in the mid-market firms, you tend to get a larger list of trust accounts. It's nice to have that ability to be able to get deep into the details of the firm and the trust accounting and the IOLTA account. The fact that you can reconcile and do the 3-way and then also extract a lot of data points on the sales side, the client side, the matter side, and also with QuickBooks. So you get all of that in the LeanLaw side, and then you get all the other inside of the QuickBooks side. So you get the two, it's like this perfect, perfect storm. With working with the other types, file types, there's Excel. I've got a client right now, we're migrating him off of Excel. He was keeping all his files in Excel, worked out really well at first when he was just starting out, kind of keeping those little ledgers for each, each matter. and then keeping a spreadsheet for the, like, the COVID one to keep the total balance to do the 3-way reconciliation. But eventually he got busy, and that's where we step in and we help. And he knew, he knew very well that there was automation out there, and he knew he had a need for it because he was working very late in the night billing his clients and trying to get his firm in order, get his house in order when it came to the trust accounting, which is critical. But he was overwhelmed, new family, a lot going on in his world. And he was like, I'm done with doing this manually. Can you help me get the books off of Excel and put it into QuickBooks and LeanLaw? So that's one of the files that we're moving. And that's a simple one because it's not that large, but we've done some really big ones. We've done some with 2,000 matters that are estate planning that go back years and years and years. We have to rebuild all that data in. So when we do a migration, we pick a date that we do the migration. And then that date will have the opening balances. Anything that was open, any open AR, any open trust account balances get migrated into the new file. So it can tend to be, if the firm is larger, it could be a lot of work to bring all that in. And then of course, setup is key because you need to get the answers to a lot of the questions as you set it up so you're able to get the data points out that the client needs. And that's why We became experts in doing this kind of work because it's really important. Setup is important. Setting up LeanLaw is important. Setting up QuickBooks is important if you want to get the details of your firm and how your firm is doing. And if you're growing, a lot of these firms are growing. How am I going to grow in a really wise way so that I'm not looking back saying I am here But I'm not making any more than when I was here. That's where we come in. So I hope that explains it a little bit. We— if you have any questions about data migration, please reach out. I can tell you one of the things that ends up happening with every file is a lot of times the attorneys get busy, and the accountant or the bookkeeper on staff isn't really paying attention. They're reconciling and everything matches up, but they don't really clean house when it comes to the trust accounts. So we get this long list of here are the open ones. And then there's someone there with 5 cent. I've seen it all the way down to 1 cent. They're carrying 1 penny on their books for 5 or 10 years that just could have been returned to the client. You can, however you want to deal with it, but you want to get those little small amounts off the books because you're not going to— unless you have an ongoing engagement, a lot of these are closed matters and they just leave and lingering, this lingering amount of money on the books. It's a great time to clean it up, especially if you're thinking of migrating forward at the end of 2020 and starting with new software and automation. So on that note, I hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful week. If you're a bookkeeper or an accountant that needs help with QuickBooks, marketing, business related, join our Facebook group, QB Community Live. More than happy to have you in. We've got about 1,400+ members. And we share a lot of content, we share a lot of what we know. If you are an attorney or work in a law firm, and you know you want to move out of the old days and move into the being future ready, call us. We would love to help you get yourself in a place where you're just in really beautiful automated place with a nice app stack, good workflow, and it'll just save you some time where you can spend your time doing things that are more important than data entry. Have a wonderful week. Bye now.