I feel really sorry for Phil Hodgen. Check out how he has to run his law practice with a junkyard of applications:
I thought that software would be the solution to all of my problems. Thus, I bought an expensive “do everything” software package. It was cumbersome, non-intuitive, and extremely difficult to get data into it and reports out of it. I spent a couple of tens of thousands on accounting and consulting and training.
I probably lost hundreds of thousands of dollars of billable time over the course of three years. It was during this time that I had an employee embezzle from me. I think the accounting system turmoil helped open a door of opportunity for that person. (Yes, I pressed charges).
Finally, it was impossible to easily provide data to accountants or to hire bookkeepers who knew the system.
The perceived benefit–a completely integrated business system (calendering, task tracking, contact management, marketing, etc.) simply didn’t materialize.
My guess is that a juggernaut system MIGHT be useful if you had the budget to throw a couple of expensive people at it full time. (You don’t want just one, because what if that person quits or is sick or goes on vacation? Then you, the business owner, are hosed.)
He was using ProLaw, now he’s on QuickBooks but still uses ProLaw for some parts of his small practice. This highlights just how hard it can be to develop a packaged application that has great vertical market focus and is still usable by the intended customer group. It won’t get any easier as more packaged app vendors try and shoehorn their general purpose applications to the processes required of their chosen vertical market. To me, that represents a very good argument for going back to the drawing board and building from scratch but with an online mindset and getting a lot of end user user input.
What does this apparently inefficient setup mean for Phil?
Yeah it means double entry of data. Yeah, it means address changes need to go in 2 places. We take the A/R data out of ProLaw and manually stick it into QuickBooks. A check coming in from a client has to be entered in both places.
But we have simplicity. And I can see my numbers, in real time, and know where things stand.
Surely as an industry we can do better than that?
