by Stephanie Nordlinger, LACS

Timeslips is an award-winning time and billing program for service professionals, including lawyers like myself. It is available in various configurations for firms of various sizes. This review is of the standalone version of the Standard Edition (Level 2 of version 9.x - 10.0). Sage also has a simpler version called Timeslips Express, which costs less ($130 list) and produces far fewer management reports. It has fewer features than Level 1 of versions 9, 9.1 and 10, so that anyone upgrading from Level 1 cannot upgrade to Timeslips Express. The former Timeslips Level 3 has the most capacity and reports and is now called Timeslips Enterprise.

Some of you may remember my scathing review of Timeslips v. 9.1 in the August 2000 issue of User Friendly, p. 13. Well, some others agreed and filed a class action against the company, Sage US Holdings, Inc. The company settled the case in February 2001. Claims forms were due by August 6, 2001, but they only got you discounts on Sage products. I previously reviewed v. 8 which trashed my v. 5 or 5.1 database.

Installation was relatively easy. The configuration diskette requirement of version 8 and 9.x has been replaced by a 25-digit number plus a serial number which were on the outside of the box. This is a lot easier to find than a single 3.5" floppy among hundreds that you use more often. I quickly imported my v. 9.1 database after a compulsory backup. Installation of the Service Release was also easy.

Timeslips has changed its data format in this and most of its recent versions. Now, the default is a Paradox database on a standalone computer or a network. All versions also support connectivity to the Microsoft Database Engine. The Enterprise version can be used with a Microsoft SQL Server v. 7.

Most of the version 10.5 interface is similar to v. 9, so that wasn't generally a problem. The differences are listed in the documentation.

One of my clients decided to pay part of her bill and stiff me for the rest. When I tried to enter two simple entries - a bill payment and a write-off, totaling the entire bill - the program wouldn't take the write off. I entered the date, selected the client from a list, and entered the amount. However, the "Apply" button was grayed out and didn't work. The Save and Revert button also wouldn't work because I hadn't applied the amount to the bill. The error message said, "This transaction must be fully applied to the listed invoices. It still has money that has not been applied." But there was no way to apply it. What next? This reviewer does not understand why the program requires several separate steps to apply a write-off to the balance due on an account, but if it does, it should at least let you do it or explain what the problem is so that you can fix it.

I tried Help. The help files are similar to those in previous editions - extensive and wordy but not very helpful. The 17-chapter, several hundred-page Timeslips 10.5 User's Guide is more useful. I immediately found the right pages without any hint of why I was unable to apply a write-off to the client's balance due. I fiddled around, and nothing made sense. I validated the data (as I had before transferring it), and there were no errors or corrections. I checked the last bill; it was correct and had been approved (i.e., made final). I did a pre-bill worksheet, which erroneously showed several items that had previously been billed as "billable" but with no dollar amounts shown. I finally printed two bills, one with the old data and the payment and one for the write-off. That worked, but it was a time-consuming and inelegant way to bill, especially if you must mail the bills to a client.

The program's Report Designer is improved. It shows margins by default and gridlines if requested. But it still doesn't include the firm's telephone number by default. Given my previous experience with versions 8 and 9, I improved the default bill template (changing fonts, adding the word Statement and my firm's phone number) reasonably quickly without referring to the manual or help files. Numerous Windows fonts are available.

When I added a field for Firm Phone 1, the program didn't ask what data should be there. There is such a field in the Firm Data (the bills picked up my name and address from that file just fine). Why didn't the bill include my firm's phone number? I prepared several bills before I noticed the error. It was such fun wasting time redoing those bills.

You can backdate bills and reprint previous bills. While you can restrict bills to a particular client or group of clients, I could not figure out how to restrict them to transactions before a particular date in the billing part of the program. You can do this in the Client Info section. Thus my May 1 bill issued on June 1 included a May 15 receipt. No intelligent program would do this without an error message. You should be able to restrict data entry at the reporting stage without going back to another part of the program.

When a client's accountant asked me for a report of the bills the client and his trust, etc. had paid me in the last couple of years, I tried to run a report. Under the Reports section, there was no way to get this information for a single client. From the Names menu, I could get a report for one client and various time periods, but I couldn't save it (icon grayed out) or print it (no icon at all). Nor did Control-P print the report. The program sometimes seemed not to include the appropriate data in its Client History Report. What good is a long list of "available" reports if you can't get the data, customize it, and save or print the report you need?

This reviewer does not recommend Timeslips v. 10.5. You shouldn't have to fight your billing program. Billing is enough of a pain for those who don't like to ask for money or know some of the effort will not produce fruit. It shouldn't be any harder than necessary to do routine transactions. While version 10.5 is better than its predecessors and can produce detailed bills and perhaps numerous reports for professional services offices, it is unnecessarily ornery (buggy?) and difficult to use. I recently purchased another inexpensive time and billing program (PC Law - $179 list) to replace Timeslips.

This reviewer doesn't think most billing should be done on (or exported to) a word processor or spreadsheet. Intuit's QuickBooks Pro 2001 is a double-entry accounting program that creates invoices and handles payroll calculations and forms, but it does not have the productivity reporting features of Timeslips. Most of the other time and billing programs marketed to attorneys are expensive, designed for larger offices and often parts of practice management programs. They cost thousands - not hundreds - of dollars and perhaps require an annual subscription to software to reflect changes in court rules. If you have a varied legal practice as I do and don't need automatic calendaring of civil litigation deadlines, such a program may be overkill.

Timeslips v. 10.5 Standard Edition - $400 list; single user upgrade from v. 9, $150. Street price: N/A.

Support seems to be adequate but potentially expensive. Each registered user gets 30 days of free telephone support starting from the date of the first phone call. Later you can buy hourly support or call a 900 number and be billed at $4 per minute ($40 maximum). For $15, you can get an answer to an e-mail within 24 hours. Use of the Fax system costs $30 per fax. Web-based information is free. An 11 MB Service Release 1 is available as a free download. The Timeslips Web site also provides a free tutorial and information on finding training and consultants.

The Billing Assurance Plan support package includes unlimited, toll-free telephone support for a year; priority support by e-mail and fax, with a response the same business day (if it is submitted by 2:00 p.m. CST - in most cases); access to Timeslips' Premium Knowledge Center; access to Timeslips' toll-free Fax Back system; technical newsletter subscription; a 10% discount on software purchases; use of discussion boards; and discounted renewal rates. A single user plan costs $150; the network plan is $260.

Maintenance Plans are also available. Sage Holdings, Inc. also offers Data Recovery for $250 - $500 and Data Conversion Services from a number of competing programs.