Law firms have deployed document management, case management, client relationship management and other systems to capture and distribute the knowledge of members and associates. These systems have been major investments, both in the technology itself, and in the setup and training to make it part of the firm.

The key to realizing this value is getting the attorney to provide data to the system. This is actually two challenges: the attorney (or in some cases an assistant) must input data in the first place, and the attorney must populate the fields in the system with useful information that will help the later retrieval or reporting.

An integrated time capture system should accommodate these needs seamlessly, requiring input on the back-end of what version and type of KM systems are deployed, and allowing changes on the fly, so that all the potential time is captured with zero clicks on the part of the user, and minimal input required by information managers.

With automatic time capture, taking the extra ten seconds to attribute the time to the proper client-matter is reaped immediately in appropriate assignment of that time for every time he/she works on that document from then on. The firm realizes a similar immediate benefit in the form of additional hours captured. The more the timesheet is filled out with useful context, the less the attorney has to ask “what was I doing last week” or “and what client was that for?”

Read the full paper! http://www.element55.com/publications/white-paper-capture-billable-hours-with-km

The paper was written for the Institute for Time Capture, a non-vendor-specific organization for promoting awareness and use of technology to automate the time capture process. The web site is http://www.timecaptureinstitute.org.

The mission of the institute is to let the community know that technology can help automate this process. Instead of relying on imperfect memory and trying to enter time on a timesheet, automatic time capture fills out the timesheet for the attorney, minimizing work when it is time to submit to accounting.

Element55, creator of automatic time capture software Legal55, and Airtime Management, makers of AIRTIME For Professionals (A4P®) software, are proud to serve as the founding sponsors of this organization. Said Element55 CEO Ray Deck, “the Institute’s educational mission dovetails with our own of evangelizing automatic time capture, and the Institute can do this in a non-partisan way, focused on the needs of the community instead of the agenda of one particular vendor.”

“What’s interesting are the differences as well as the similarities in our approach to the same business problem, namely the automated capture of billable time and expenses otherwise lost,” said Kirk Fackre, AIRTIME’s VP of Strategic Alliances. TCI provides a forum for billable professionals to explore how technology can streamline time capture while driving up personal and corporate income.”

Founding sponsor Element55, a division of eGlean, Inc, is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 2000, Element55 is a rapidly-growing developer of automatic time capture solutions. Legal55 is Element55’s flagship product, offering reliable and accurate automatic time capture. As of January 2006, the software has evolved to version 5.4, capturing time from dozens of applications, phone systems, and knowledge management systems, and routing time entries to major accounting systems, including CMS by Aderant and Elite by Thomson West. Clients using Legal55 have reported capturing an additional six hours per attorney per month through making the automatic time capture software available to their billable timekeepers. For more information about the highly respected software offered by Element55, please call (617) 423-0692 or visit the company’s web site at http://www.element55.com.

Founding sponsor AIRTIME-Manager was formed in 2003 for the express purpose of developing and delivering innovative mobile time-capture and billing applications. Its core products allow mobile users to monitor and manage their airtime by providing timely detailed information. AIRTIME-Manager’s product portfolio includes Airtime for Professionals (A4P), Airtime for Business (A4Biz), and Airtime for Sales Management (A4Sales). For further information, contact AIRTIME-Manager sales at 877-247-4464 or visit www.airtimemgr.com.

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Contact:

• Element55 Ray Deck press@element55.com
• AirTime Manager Kirk Fackre kfackre@airtimemgr.com

To this end, the organization was formed as a “vendor-neutral” venue for providing educational publications and presentations.

Initial sponsor organizations Element55 and AIRTIME-Management are proud to be at the forefront of a movement that will create real value for professional service organizations, including attorneys, consultants, accountants, and everyone who values keeping track of how they spend their time throughout the business day, but who haven’t the time to do it.