2012 Review of Office Tools Professional Practice Management 2012

MANAGEMENT FEATURES - 4.25 Stars

Practice Management 2012 provides partners and managers tools to reduce administration resources necessary to track staff and related projects. Partners and managers may view lists of outstanding projects filtered by client and staff. Partners and managers also have the ability to view schedules of staff in a calendar format listing each staff member side-by-side. Each staff member may also access this information, but through assigned access permissions, may be limited only to tasks assigned to them. These tools help provide a snapshot at any given moment of the workload within the office and aid in balancing the workload as necessary. Although no dashboards are currently available Office Tools Professional is currently in the process of implementing this technology and will integrate this feature in a future release.

Multiple reports are provided for billing, contact, staff and project management. All reports are currently static in design and are based on the Crystal Reports platform. Reports may be filtered through a variety options available within each report. A full audit trail is turned on by default and tracks all items throughout the system. Reports may be run to help rebuild time and expense items attached to projects, should an error occur.

INTEGRATION & DATA MANAGEMENT - 4 Stars

Practice Management 2012 offers a variety of integration options. Two unique integrations are with Dymo and Google Maps. Single labels can be directly output to any Dymo label printer simply by selecting the client and clicking the Dymo button. Maps and directions are easily obtained through right clicking an address and selecting Get Map. From there, users are automatically directed to Google Maps to obtain directions to and from a client’s location. Another native integration includes the newly introduced Practice Management Client Portal product offering, which allows invoice and payment options as well as document sharing with clients. Most reports generated within the system may also be exported to Microsoft Word and Excel.

Separate add-on integration is available for QuickBooks, Outlook and Lacerte. The QuickBooks integration shares all customer, vendor and employee codes and allows for direct import of invoices to generate accounts receivable within QuickBooks. The integration also allows users to run employee payroll through QuickBooks by synching all time and expense from Practice Management 2012. The Outlook integration synchs all client data and all currently scheduled projects and tasks. This also provides users the ability to keep all client contact information and client calendar appointments on their desktop as well as their smartphone. The Lacerte integration ensures all client contact information is unified between Lacerte and Practice Management 2012. Each of the above mentioned integrations is offered for a nominal fee.

HELP/SUPPORT - 4.25 Stars

Practice Management 2012 offers user guides for each of the features with the system and each is accessible through the drop down help menu. Online resources are available through the Office Tools Professional website, but are currently limited to the user guides and an online knowledgebase. Users may contact support through email, phone or fax and all support is included with the annual licensing fee. Office Tools Professional works directly with new customers to ensure the system is setup correctly to meet needs based on current work flow process. Additional training options are available and include three tiers of online training videos, web consultations and specific subjects and on-site training. All additional training options are available at additional cost and are priced according to training needs. Currently over 450 firms utilize a helpful group resource on LinkedIn.

SUMMARY & PRICING