DRIVE: Ellacotts LLP - One Year On
Review by David B Saunders, Managing Partner

Client and Contacts & Prospects Database: All information in one place provides huge benefits of efficient and accurate information retrieval. Because DRIVE uses Microsoft® technology – we have found the main Client and Contact database screen to be extremely versatile in providing a user specified overall view of the practice database. Each user can select or remove from a selection of columns displayed and group, filter and sort by any field chosen. This makes information quickly and easily accessible. This coupled with the fast search and all encompassing client status screen, means that any clients complete overview is available to anyone in the firm in just a few clicks.

Mail Merge (Letter Templates and Mass Mailing): When this area of DRIVE was first looked into we agreed that all letter generation should occur from within. This would ensure that all outgoing communications would be recorded in the software’s document management. We collated all letter templates to a template folder and standardised them with merge fields and fonts etc. We were able to list them all in one place in DRIVE within job related categories. These templates are now available single or mass mailing / marketing campaigns with automatic tagging to the appropriate file.

“The decision to take DRIVE was a big one. We did not make it lightly. We looked in detail at other major suppliers. But you never know how good something is until you start to use it. We feel that we made the right decision. The database and document management facilities alone are excellent and we believe essential for the efficient operation of the practice.”

Phone Call Logging: This feature is particularly useful in keeping records of conversations between ourselves and clients and contacts. It has the ability to assign the call to another staff member for follow up or their information, with an alert system to notify the user of the call. It also has the added benefit of recording the duration of the call and a hand ‘Generate Timesheet’ button to record the time spent on the call in the users timesheet.

Use of Memos: The memo facility has many similar benefits to the phone call logging. However our use is limited because the lack of an ‘alert’ facility to responsible individuals. The introduction of an alert facility would allow maximum use and correct classification of the document in the document management system.

Outlook Synchronisation Module: One of the most useful features in DRIVE and critical to us is the newly developed Outlook Sync Module which allows organisations with an exchange server to maintain their current infrastructure and still take advantage of the excellent document management feature for emails. We can select which emails are to be filed in DRIVE and keep them and other non-relevant emails in Outlook. This system means that no spam emails can be sent or received into DRIVE and every email in DRIVE is also secure in the exchange server information store. The email system with outlook is excellent with regard to ease in filing emails with attachments and retrieval of such information. We have all email addresses from DRIVE database within outlook for ease of use.

Managing Clients and Contacts: It has now become very easy to identify and use information from our database. We can now identify exactly how many clients we have in each sector of the business. We can group them into specific entities and identify performance within each job type.

How Document Management Benefits the Firm: The document management system is easy to operate and the ability to see information at a glance or retrieve details quickly and simply is excellent. We file information as permanent or current, breakdown to different job areas and show whether completed/ in progress or with client. The latter allows good controlled follow up of information.

Accounting: We operate full Nominal Ledger, Sales Ledger, Purchase Ledger and Work in Progress within the system. Almost all of the financial information is integrated to minimise input requirements. The reporting facilities and data mining within the nominal allow immediate and quick access. The budget facility within the nominal is limited and therefore we currently extract data from DRIVE and insert into Sage Winforcast for Practice comparison of budget to actual for the month end and year to date. The integration of the system allows us to make full use of the document management system for all suppliers and contacts.

Currently Bills are generated by means of a Word template outside of DRIVE. We have developed our own Bill template and hope to change our current process. We still have to have all bill and credit note paragraphs input in DRIVE in order to action this process. The bill will be allocated of a bill request and then printed by secretaries using the DRIVE bill template we have created. This is an area to be developed.

Timesheet recording & Staff details: We have used the full time recording system which allows timesheets to be entered online across the day, easy review and approval facilities of timesheets by partners, detailed analysis of chargeable and non chargeable time.

Accessing Communications (Having all Communications in One Place): Because DRIVE has the means to tag every physical means of communication with clients, it is possible to view all the communications in one place. We can choose to view those communications throughout the firm by way of the ‘All Communications’ screen, or by client from within the client’s status screen, or even by staff member – by clicking on the ‘All communications’ button and sorting by staff name. This kind of access to all documents means that partners no longer have to rely on wading through two inches of paper files to get a copy of a letter for example. Even incoming mail can be scanned and tagged into the clients communications. Many of the benefits are noted above under ‘How document Management Benefits the Firm’

Data mining and Reporting: DRIVE already has a huge range of reports for business reporting. They are all easily customisable and new reports can be generated based on other reports. The real strength is in the data mining module which allows any information from any part of DRIVE to be extracted in a list which can be used to mail merge directly or to export into Excel. We have used this to identify Clients with missing information, generate email list to use in Outlook and even target specific niches within our client base for sending out newsletters.

Managing Clients and Contacts: It has now become very easy to identify and use information from our database. We can now identify exactly how many clients we have in each sector of the business. We can group them into specific entities and identify performance within each job type.

How New Business is Generated: This area will be given more attention over the next twelve months. To date our use of system allows prospect details to be held within the database for ease of access and tagging of communications. We can obtain details of new clients taken on in a relevant reporting period and extract analysis as felt appropriate such as partner and trade classification.
Job Planning: We have not made use if the job planning facility to date. The use of this facility has not been fully examined but will be done as part of our future internal development.

Technology Updates: We hope to soon be scanning all incoming communications directly from our new Digital Copier / Scanners into the client communication within DRIVE, with a custom connector for DRIVE used to link the digital copier into the SQL database and populate it with existing client data selected from a query touch screen on the copier/scanner. This will be the final step in currently unhandled communications going into DRIVE. We are looking in the future for the database from DRIVE to be used to populate other software databases such as corporation tax. To date we have had a promising response to the ideas and we hope such links will become a reality. The progress we have made with the DRIVE Development team over the past twelve months has been excellent and we hope this good relationship continues for all parties benefits.