Educated Attorney Software Review: Credenza

First of all, lets cover the basics. Credenza integrates nicely with Outlook, in fact, the entire program is within Outlook. It actually snaps in and integrates with a sidebar which is great and easy. Installation is a breeze and it also integrates with popular accounting software like Quickbooks & Timeslips. For the solo practitioners, your in luck, it’s free for a single user license. For more than 1 user, it’s actually very affordable @ $24.95/month/user. I like to think of Credenza as the first stop toward document management. Credenza is easy enough to work with that it will ease you into larger and more functional applications as your firm grows.

Accessing email, documents and billing information can be easily done through Outlook from Credenza Files. With Credenza you have the option to work  within Outlook. Often times, law firms skip document management systems due to the lack of support by Outlook or if the application looks scary or intimidating to learn. Credenza is easy to work with and support Outlook fully. What’s great about Credenza is that some say it’s like Amicus Lite. Since Credenza & Amicus were both made by the same companies, there are similar functionality between the 2, but as a whole Amicus is a much more beefier product. The benefit is that you can work on Credenza for a whole, as your firm grows, you can upgrade to Amicus and not be totally in the dark in terms of functionality and use.

Credenza will track your billed time. It can be configured to automatically update Quickbooks and also, automatically remind you to track any unbilled time. There is also a portion of Credenza which track phone calls and phone call notes. Any information received during a phone call can be easily documented within the phone call note function. As far a document security goes, a single user that does not want to share their documents with other users in the firm has the ability to do so.

Credenza looks good for small firms, The price is right and it’s awesome that it integrates with Outlook so well. I don’t see many negatives here. For more detailed information watch the overview video with the link above, it provides some more detailed information in terms of billing, time tracking and functionality. If you a small firm that is in dire need of some management software, I say go with Credenza. It’s cheap, very functional, and very easy to learn, especially if your involved with Outlook already.

Great Credenza Video Overview: http://www.credenzasoft.com/help/videos/Overview/Overview.html