CARET Legal

Best overall in case management software, but has minor UI annoyances

Commentaires : After using Clio, MyCase, and PracticePanther at various points in my career (and testing CosmoLex and RocketMatters most recently when opening a new firm), none of the CMS programs on the market have come close to ZolaSuite's comprehensive functionality. Having the ability to do not just case management and billing, but complete firm accounting/reconciliation is a godsend. The integrated CRM in the Enterprise Plus tier is fantastic - no need to have an outside CRM that may or may not fully integrate with your CMS. The email feature is the clencher - having an actual, FULL email inbox that syncs with Gsuite email makes keeping case-related correspondence a snap.

Avantages :

Robust program that covers everything from case management to client lead intake to comprehensive firm accounting. Easy to use and navigate for the most part. Integrated CRM and FULL accounting of all operating and trust accounts with triple reconciliation keeps the entire process streamlined and accessible without having to utilize a dozen different programs and hoping nothing falls through the cracks.

Inconvénients :

Has minor UI issues that can be annoying, particularly the inability to active a full subscription without going through a multi-step process involving both the sales department and support team at Zola. This should be a "click here, pick your plan, enter your payment method" process with no need to have it "activated" by the company before being able to use it. That being said, there are some additional features that I would love to see Zola add/integrate/improve ASAP (which I am sending to Zola as suggestions for future improvements). If these features were incorporated, ZolaSuite would certainly be a category killer and rapidly take over the entire market, but they are not "dealbreaker" items as far as I'm concerned for overall ratings.

Cloud-based practice management

Avantages :

Built-in accounting was important and Zola's accounting features are excellent, though we'd occasionally like to be able to customize reports. Even so, we can get the info we need. Time entry is easy and set up to facilitate completeness. The automatic time entry windows help us not to lose time. Matters management is simple and flexible. Document upload and management is good, with features to avoid duplication, track versions, view documents easily, automatic OCR, integration with Word. Email handling and the ability to associate emails with matters is good. but the change from server-based management comes with

Inconvénients :

Some of the issues are simply the result of being a web-based program, so navigating and using requires people to change habits, and some features of local server-based management are not available. OCR is not always consistent - some documents that OCR in a local pdf editing app do not seem to OCR on Zola. Wish list: a plug-in to permit creation of a spreadsheet in Excel and direct upload to Zola like the Word plug-in; Outlook shared calendar integration so the entire firm calendar would synch with the shared Microsoft Exchange Outlook calendar; an invite mechanism like Outlook; the ability to save all email attachments at once to a matter folder; the ability to move documents from a matter to another matter subfolder; the ability to change the document menu from white lettering on grey to black lettering on white; the ability to import V-cards; icon notification of email receipt; document searching by date created/modified

Problems Never Seem to End

Commentaires : Overall - Be very careful before going Zola Suite. It's not a panacea. I'm currently looking into other programs that may be a bit more expensive, simply because Zolasuite has made me lose too much client chargeable time dealing with all their random quirks. I'm a solo practitioner and, literally, time is money for me. I don't have an IT department to deal with the growing pains that Zola Suite is making their users experience.

Avantages :

Robust all-in-one package, which makes it very unique in the law practice management sphere. Very reasonably priced for the functionality. Relatively easy to use once you get past the learning curve. US-based support that is very responsive (more on that below).

Inconvénients :

Where do I begin?! I have had nothing but problems since the beginning - and I've only been using it for about 4 months. I prepaid for a year and now I regret it. I wanted an all-in-one reasonably priced software that includes CRM, accounting/billing, and time tracking without having to integrate with other apps. However, the program is a bit slow and clunky (I have a new laptop, so it's not the specs of the laptop). At one point I could not access Ad--be pdf files, and I was on with support for about 3 hours trying to get it fixed. Turns out - they never saw this before. They fixed it, but it cost me 3 hours of client chargeable time. Next issue was billing. Apparently, I had to SET UP bulk billing (which is free), if I wanted bulk billing. No one actually told me that through the whirlwind of training I initially received. First month I sent manual bills - no biggie. Next month, I had my web developer set it up on the back end as instructed. Turns out we ran into problems. BIG PROBLEMS. First, emails wouldn't go out b/c ONE client didn't have an email address. Their response - just add a dummy email. So I put in a dummy address - result: emails with invoices were sent to the clients, BUT they had NO ACCESS TO PAY ONLINE via email link. I spent hours with them to deal with the various billing matters. Again - their response - we've never had this issue before. FINALLY - they removed Enterprise access to edit documents within Zola WITHOUT notifying me.

Significant upgrade from our last billing software

Commentaires : Zola Suite is significantly improving the efficiency of our timekeeping and billing processes. We are spending less time to get bills out, and they are going out faster. I am very happy we made the switch.

Avantages :

First and foremost, being able to access the software via a web-based login is extremely useful, especially when so many of us are working from home. Time entry is straightforward and easy. I do feel like it is helping us capture a higher percentage of our billable work than we did in the past. Most of the reporting functionality is really great. Customer support has been extremely responsive and helpful. Integration with Quickbooks Online is really nice.

Inconvénients :

The transition from our old software to the new (e.g., data migration) was tough. To be fair, we expected it to be tough: we used the old software for almost 15 years so it had a lot of data and we were heavily reliant on it and very used to the way it worked. The Zola customer service folks worked with us tirelessly to make it happen and that was great, but even though we expected the transition to be difficult, it was slightly more difficult than we expected. Access to historical data (data imported from our old software) is more limited than I was hoping for. The default user types are a little too limited (there's no middle ground between "has all access and all rights" and "doesn't have sufficient access to do essential tasks") but the customer support team very quickly found a custom solution for us, which was great.

Zola Helps Greatly with Productivity

Commentaires : Zola has definitely made billing and invoicing much more efficient. Not just for us, but also for the client. Being able to easily pay their invoices has been very helpful. Also, Zola has a variety of reports you can run to see all aspects of your firm's financial and billing records. There are so many reports which you can create to determine how your company is being run.

Avantages :

The customer service is excellent. Sometimes a software can be good, but if the customer service is not as good or better, it can make working with it more difficult. I have always had great customer support whenever calling Zola, and I called a lot at the beginning of the software implementation. I don't call as often now, but I know when I do call, I will get the same customer support as I did when I called more often. The Customer Support team is very good!

Inconvénients :

In the Documents section, there is no way to easily blackline documents and keep newer versions. Zola's software does not recognize the newer versions of documents. I'm hoping they will change this in the future.