Blain Boland choose outsourced cashiering route for fee earning focus

Staff issues and legacy software troubles persuade Blain Boland to choose Quill and outsourced legal cashiering route

With an in-house cashiering function, Wirral-based Blain Boland & Co Solicitors was burdened by staff absences, complicated software and multi-site inefficiencies. The ensuing distractions affected the firm’s bottom line as fee earning capability was reduced.

When their last-employed cashier resigned, the practice decided to change over to an outsourced support structure, with Quill as their  supplier of choice. Their subscription to the Pinpoint legal accounts service means that their lawyers can go about the task of earning fees while their back office functions and IT are managed by the experts.

About Blain Boland & Co Solicitors

With two offices in prime Wirral locations, Blain Boland & Co has been practising since 1979, offering specialist legal advice in diverse areas of law to both private individuals and companies on personal and business matters.

The firm’s impressive heritage spans over 30 years, during which time they’ve established a reputation as a team of reliable and approachable solicitors willing to go the extra mile to achieve successful outcomes for the legal challenges faced by clients.

David Boland, Director at Blain Boland & Co Solicitors, explains:

“We provide a professional yet affordable solution to meet our clients’ advisory requirements. To help us to deliver timely, individual advice on legal issues, we need our back office functions to operate smoothly so that we’re free to focus our attention front office. With support from Quill’s legal accounts outsourcing service, we can do just that.”

About Quill

Prior to subscribing to the Pinpoint cashiering service, Blain Boland & Co performed the task in-house, but gnawing inefficiencies prompted a review of outsourcing options.

David adds:

“Previously we employed an in-house cashier and assistant to manage our legal cashiering tasks and accompanying compliance responsibilities. This caused two problems – the first being staff absences.

“We’re all inevitably absent from work at some point or other, whether relating to holiday leave or resulting from unexpected illness. With our old structure, being a team of two, any absence was keenly felt. To make sure cashiering tasks were still completed to deadline, it often meant that our lawyers would pick up certain roles which distracted them from vital fee-earning activities.

“Additionally, when cashiers decided to leave, we had the upheaval of finding a suitably qualified and experienced replacement, then training in the ways of our practice. Again, this was a time-consuming exercise which side-tracked us from earning fees.

“The second problem was the IT management of a multiple site. In the early days, we were a 3-office operation. IT was managed centrally in our main office, housing an up-to-date set of matters, accounts and time recording data. Meanwhile, the two satellite offices received accounts-related information via phone or fax. It was an incredibly slow, cumbersome and inefficient way of working.

“To make matters worse, the legal accounts software itself was considered far too complex, leaving a lot of surplus features dormant, thus making our cashier’s job that much harder.

“We already knew and were reviewing Pinpoint when our last in-house cashier left the practice. In hindsight, the departure was well-timed, assisting our decision to outsource the function.”

Solution Installed

Amidst concerns of recruiting another replacement cashier and the requirement for a better-organised IT set-up, Blain Boland & Co chose the Pinpoint specialised legal accounts outsourcing service for cashiering support, supplied with the Interactive hosted legal accounting software for offsite IT management.

David continues:

“The resignation of our cashier precipitated our decision to move across to an outsourced structure. In fact, we don’t just subscribe to the Pinpoint cashiering service, we also use the Quill Payroll service for processing of all our staff salaries and contribution payments.

“With the attendant Interactive software, we have an intelligent yet entirely logical tool for recording then reporting on our matter and accounts data. Brought to our two sites from the cloud, it means that our IT is outsourced too, so there are no more annoying diversions from fee earning.”

Results & Benefits Experienced

With the Pinpoint service, simultaneously-provided Interactive software and additional Quill Payroll service, Blain Boland & Co enjoys all the benefits of outsourced legal accounts, IT management and payroll processing.

David concludes:

“We have an assigned cashier running our accounts, backed up by the 50-strong Pinpoint team, so there’s a continual presence and staff absence or resignation worries are a thing of the past.

“Our cashier is friendly and helpful. She feels very much like an extended part of our team. At certain periodic times we simply wouldn’t want to be without the service – for example, monthly balances and year end procedures.

“The same has to be said of the payroll service. There’s year-round support and any last minute salary changes are dealt with promptly, without question, so our staff are paid correctly and on time.

“Interactive gives us the level of simplicity we craved in our software. Navigation is straightforward, the features are easy to use and we don’t suffer from a whole load of unnecessary, complicated functionality, so wasting time is avoided.

“Being hosted, staff in either office can immediately access accounts data through an online connection, whether they’re on premises or working remotely. This means improved efficiencies and gives our directors the flexibility to work from home on occasion.

“Another of our prerequisites was better security and IT responsibility handover, both in terms of issue resolution and infrastructure management. The data is safely stored in a primary and recovery data centre, subject to various types of encryption, back-up and protection, so it’s totally secure  and uptime is guaranteed. The technical team manage our IT, responding quickly to any queries, sorting any arising issues and hosting our software. In return, we save money because we don’t need to employ dedicated personnel or maintain any hardware or software.

“The all-encompassing support we receive from Quill is comforting and gives us the chance to channel our efforts into providing high quality legal services while they do the rest.”