First Look: Centerbase

Centerbase is highly configurable cloud-based law practice management software. It is designed for small firms of five lawyers or more.

It has the major features that lawyers have come to expect from practice management software, such as timekeeping, billing, calendaring, and matter and document management. Centerbase distinguishes itself, however, by offering very customizable reporting and workflows configured on a firm-by-firm basis.

Features

Centerbase is functionally three separate products: a business development program, law practice management software, and an entirely customizable product that can integrate with other programs such as Stripe, QuickBooks, and Office 365.

Centerbase starts out as a robust business development and contact management tool geared specifically to law firms. The base program acts as a customer relationship management (CRM) tool and will help you track referrals and send mass emails to your contact list. The base program also gets you non-customized workflow—a neat feature where you can drag and drop actions into a list to create an automated task.

For an additional cost, Centerbase acts as complete law practice management software, with built-in timekeeping and billing, the ability to accept credit card payments, and manage matters and documents. It also ups the ante with workflows, giving you access to their full workflow engine so you can completely customize your tasks.

At its top tier, Centerbase has an open API, which means it can integrate with programs such as QuickBooks, Stripe, and Office 365. At that tier, Centerbase also provides development of custom modules for your firm.

All versions of Centerbase include robust reporting, with the ability to create charts and track key performance indicators (KPI) on a per-individual basis as well as a firm-wide basis.

Pricing

Centerbase structures its pricing based on which features your firm needs. For $39/user/month, you get the business development features such as contact management, reporting, event tracking, mobile access, and integration with Outlook and Word. You also get the custom forms and non-custom workflows. $52/user/month adds the practice management features like accounting, credit card processing, invoicing, matter management, and timekeeping. Finally, for $79/user/month, Centerbase provides the custom module creation and an open API so you can integrate with other programs.

Final Thoughts

Centerbase, while likely overkill for a solo practitioner, is a good solution for firms that are interested in tracking their performance at a very granular level. The ability to create any sort of report or track any type of KPI is highly useful for business development and for determining where your firm is succeeding and where it falls short. It is also a good solution for firms that have a lot of repetitive tasks that would benefit from automation.

First Look: Centerbase was originally published on Lawyerist.com.