Member Article

How Buchanan serves the country’s largest charities

Buchanan & Co Solicitors Ltd, based in Chesterfield are working with some of the UK’s largest charities such as Cancer Research, Macmillan Cancer Support, RNLI as well as local charities like Bluebell Wood.

Their pressing need was to update their existing systems so that they could serve their partner charities and clients far more efficiently. They felt that their existing case management system did not have the flexibility to meet their demands.

They wanted to process work faster and have tailorable dynamic screens so that when looking at a case they could see all their clients’ specific requests regarding their estates and donations to charities in one place. They also wanted to present ‘a multitude of permutations’ that their staff can choose from one easy-to-use screen.

Other key demands were to save time producing wills and documents for their case.

When looking at systems they identified DPS’s Wills case management software & Financial Director accounts as being best suited to their needs.

’The main aim was to choose a flexible system that allowed the business to develop it according to our changing needs without being a programmer or having to call on specialist skills.“

Once chosen, DPS was installed on the cloud for the business and Alex altered the front end screens of the software to suit the business. The firm’s software development efforts were complemented by the work undertaken by DPS. ’‘One of the key advantages of using the Practice Management software from DPS is being sent regular updates that incorporate our requests.’’

’’The transition to DPS was a revolutionary change for us’’ said Alex who described DPS’s case management software as very flexible and user friendly.

The result of the development work undertaken by Alex Gibbons is a faster, streamlined will drafting process. ’’We have cut down the time needed to complete wills by 10 minutes for each will we draft. If before using DPS, we were producing two wills an hour, the number has gone up to three in the last 3 years. We are now taking no more than 20 minutes to complete a will with everything this involves including the engagement letter.’’

As a Practice Manager, Alex uses the standard Practice Management Reports provided by DPS’ PMS to monitor each fee earner’s performance and profitability. These reports have allowed him to identify areas of improvement and thus help his staff do more work while decreasing the labor costs by 10%-15%.

The accounting side of DPS’s Practice Management System is performed by Financial Director which enables Buchanan’s fee earners to raise bills and chits that are instantaneously received by the legal cashier. ’’Financial Director shows us the most and least profitable periods of each month and thus helps us manage our cash flow better.’’ added Alex.

The entire system is provided as part of dpscloud, DPS’s holistic IT solution. This offers Buchanan & Co all the software solutions they need as well as razor-sharp technical support, protection for their data, as well as business continuity and disaster recovery plans.

’’DPS’s after-sale service is very good. They really do what they say on the tin’’ concluded Mr. Gibbons.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by DPS Software .