I am a fan of Timeslips. I began using Timeslips III about four years ago. Over a year ago, I wrote glowingly about Timeslips. Since then, I have graduated with successive versions to Timeslips V, the current version.
Timeslips is one of a new generation of time-bilhng programs. Unlike its precursors, Timeslips incorporates many features that encouraged-even forced-users to change the way they billed clients. Older programs are primitive in that they allow users to continue to keep track of time on everything from a sheet of peel-off sheets to a Chinese container. At the end of a billing period, old-time timekeepers transmit their time logs to a secretary who follows the same time-honored and laborious process of typing, transferring, and transn-dtting bills as her ancestors. Timeslips can, of course, be used in the ancient tradition, but the program also encourages decentralized, user data entry. Timeslips is designed to make timekeeper entry the rule. Using Timeslips, the clerical function is din-dnished to an hour or two, not a day or two.
Timeslips is my kind of program, elegant in its simplicity and effectiveness, designed to enhance the efficiency of timekeeping for business in general but easily adapted to the law office and easily customized for a particular practice. I am satisfied with Timeslips V for DOS, but there was a gnawing feeling in my neurons that improvement was possible.
Earlier this year, I took the leap to Windows. I dragged my feet as long as possible. Oh sure, I knew that I would migrate to a graphical user interface (GUI) at some point but I was searching for a 32-bit operating system that would be the OS for the next generation. OS/ 2 and Windows NT were a firm "maybe." So many readers told me they were looking for a GUI that I knew I had to make a decision. Gradually, I made the full migration to Windows and Windows programs.
I admit that the first few Windows programs I used caused more than a little concern. After all, I am a cornmand-line guy. Computers are supposed to be user-hostile. A real man or woman uses text commands at a prompt, not icons and cute graphical representations of functions. I adn-dt now that a well-written Windows program is not or-dy a thing of beauty but very efficient if used properly. Timeshps for Windows is such a program.
Timeslips V for Windows loads through Windows effortlessly but so did its older brother, plain old Timeslips V for DOS. What is striking about Timeslips for Windows is an extremely intelligently written graphical user interface called "Navigator." Navigator is the best interface that I have seen for a Windows program. Sure, there will be some tweaking of commands and layout, but Navigator as a concept is so intuitively easy to use that the basic concept cannot be improved.
Imagine a screen of labeled boxes each of which is the parent of another screen of commands in each function category and you have some feeling for the genius of Navigator. All Timeslips' Navigator-function screens have a sin-dlar look and feel. Navigator command boxes are connected with lines to direct users from one related function to another. Moving through the commands is as easy as following a simple outline.
Timeslips for Windows has the same time-saving functions of its predecessors. Macro commands make repetitive entry fast and easy. The client data entry screens are well-designed and make entering client information easier than in earlier versions. All the add-on modules such as the accounting link and the spell checker remain and have been improved. In short, Timeslips for Windows is really new and improved.
One Timeslips feature I think most useful in the law office environment is selective report creation. The ability to select reports means Timeslips is not only a timebilling program but an efficiency manager. Many law firms suffer from blind management because tracking of the ratio of flat fee cases, contingency cases, hourly cases, what work is being performed by whom, and how efficiently, is not available. Timeslips allows managing personnel to track user hours by type of cases, by activity such as research, and by the number of hours allotted for a particular case compared with the number of hours expended.
These functions are called Activity Summary Reports. The reports can be printed numerically or graphically in bar or pie charts. I checked my billing for the last few months by activity and found to my surprise that the majority of my time was spent preparing documents, conferring with clients, and reviewing documents. Other activities were minuscule in comparison. Actually, I was pleased with the breakdown. Had the majority of my time been spent on phone calls or travel time, I would have been disappointed.
As a practicing attorney, I continue to count Timeslips as one of my favorite programs because using it to practice law seems so natural. Sometimes I think Timeslips was not really written but discovered on a planet of legal professionals who perfected the practice of law over a few millennia. Timeslips for Windows is an excellent program, which, if integrated with an effective accounting program, keeps profits rolling in and warns of financial problems before they become critical. Timeslips for Windows has my highest recommendation for the small- to medium-size law firm.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Vol. 16, No. 2