TrustRadius Insights
HotDocs is a versatile document generation tool that is widely used across various departments in organizations, including legal, human …
Starting at $25 per user/per month
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What is HotDocs by CARET?
HotDocs is a document automation and assembly software product, acquired and now supported by AbacusNext since 2017.
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Pricing
Basic
$25
Cloud
per user/per month
Enterprise
Contact sales team
Cloud
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Product Demos
FinovateSpring 2017 / HotDocs
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Product Details
- About
- Tech Details
What is HotDocs by CARET?
HotDocs by CARET Technical Details
| Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
| Mobile Application | No |
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(13)
Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Business Problems Solved
- Recommendations
HotDocs is a versatile document generation tool that is widely used across various departments in organizations, including legal, human resources, and marketing. Its primary purpose is to automate the process of generating frequently used documents, saving both time and money while ensuring accuracy. Companies with a large number of documents that are needed repeatedly find HotDocs particularly useful.
One of the key use cases of HotDocs is transactional drafting. Users can create templates and a master questionnaire to automate the drafting process. This feature is especially beneficial for tasks like drafting multiple documents with the same information for government-insured construction loans, where it saves an impressive six to seven hours of manual document drafting every day. Real estate professionals also rely on HotDocs to quickly generate group forms for the same transaction, streamlining their workflow.
Another significant use case for HotDocs is its ability to produce letters and standard documents consistently across multiple locations. Users can easily create templates and customize them based on specific requirements. Paralegals utilize HotDocs to draft estate planning documents by conducting an interview with clients and then editing the generated documents in Microsoft Word before presenting them to clients. This powerful document generation application ensures proper formatting and includes all necessary information, making it a valuable asset in an estate planning practice.
Furthermore, managed services companies specialize in installing, configuring, and providing support for HotDocs on behalf of their clients. This enables organizations to leverage the benefits of HotDocs without the burden of managing the software themselves. Overall, HotDocs is user-friendly and seamlessly integrates with other software platforms, making it an indispensable tool for automating document assembly across various industries and departments.
Users commonly recommend the following:
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Get proper training and support: Many users advise booking training sessions and doing tutorials to learn how to use HotDocs effectively and efficiently. They recommend taking as much training as possible to save time in the future and suggest paying for training with a third-party consultant. Users also emphasize the importance of having a solid relationship with the salesperson and architecting a plan for implementation and roll-out.
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Invest time in learning the software: Users recommend taking the time to learn HotDocs thoroughly, as it speeds up the template building process once known. They also suggest automating several forms to get a feel for the software and recommend using cheat sheets and practicing with it. Users advise ensuring that the developer receives training as well.
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Consider overall costs and alternatives: It is recommended to do due diligence when looking at alternatives and testing them thoroughly. Users advise considering the overall cost, not just the licensing, and having a plan for return on investment. Additionally, they suggest consulting someone who has used HotDocs before and keeping in touch with them. Some users also recommend comparing HotDocs to Acrobat's similar features to assess ease of use.
Overall, users find HotDocs to be a great tool that can streamline document creation, but they stress the importance of investing time in learning the product properly and considering all aspects of its implementation.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
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February 19, 2021
Transactional Support Excellence
We are utilizing HotDocs to help us with transactional drafting. While facilitating government-insured construction loans, there are often 30-40 documents that need to be drafted, much with the same information. We created templates of each of these documents as well as a master questionnaire. After completing the questionnaire, all necessary documents will be drafted in a matter of minutes. While setting up the templates took a decent bit of time, training, and learning, they save us six to seven hours of document drafting every day, allowing us to greatly increase our workload.
- Personalized training. We were able to get an expert on a video call who walked us through solutions to each of our unique problems (i.e. all fifty states have different notary blocks, how can we auto-populate it when the state of the deal is selected?).
- Team access. Multiple people can work with the templates at once, thus allowing the members of our team who deal with financials to work on their documents while others focus on the organizational and legal documents.
- Once you have successfully drafted your templates, it runs incredibly smooth (barring any minor hiccups that happen with software updates) and efficiently.
- This is a software written by coders. Unless you have a background in coding, some of the thought processes going into how to set-up a template are not intuitive. This is definitely software that you need guidance through. (The on-boarding template practice is a must.)
- Some of the template building icons could be more defined and explained in a way that a non-coder could understand them.
- There is no mass-document download. So we have to individually download 30-40 documents one-by-one instead of clicking "download all."
- In the setup process, we lost a lot of billable hour time to creating templates.
- However, since then, with our increased capacity due to less drafting time, we had our best year ever in the midst of the 2020 pandemic.
- It has increased the amount of training required to start off in the transactions, but then allows more of us to complete work on these deals, ever increasing our capacity.
An attorney in a different area of practice (Wills & Estates) brought this program to our attention after witnessing how we typically drafted documents for these deals. He had come from a financial firm where they used it to create forms for trusts and retirement plans and thought it would greatly help in our practice. We got lucky in that we weren't even looking for software (we were honestly too busy drafting) and it managed to exactly solve a problem we weren't even aware that we had.
April 24, 2020
How Hot is HotDocs
Hot Docs is the engine. We use it for real estate forms. It makes it easy to generate a group [form] based on the same transaction.
- It allows you to fill a form OR to use the Q&A approach.
- It takes a particular fact pattern and applies it over several forms.
- It does not allow an edit to a form to be saved. If you edit a form and close out, you have to start all over again.
- It should fill in certain items that are usually the same , with an allowance for revising if necessary.
- Lender credit cannot be shown as a "minus" on the closing disclosure , even though it is supposed to be.
- There needs to be a signature line on the Seller Closing Disclosure.
- It is not compatible with the newest version of WordPerfect (X9).
- It makes it easy to fill out the form.
- I really only use it for the one form, it doesn't do as well with the other forms.
There used to be a product called Easysoft but I didn't like it as much - I might look at it again.
No
- Vendor Reputation
I would evaluate all similar software.
- Implemented in-house
No
Change management was minimal
- Doesn't interface with WordPerfect X9, our word-processing software.
- no training
Easy to learn.
Yes
It comes with the package - you have to pay for a "subscription" annually.
Yes
A long time ago I assisted the developer with debugging.
Twice. Once, right before a real estate closing, I had left the form open on my computer, the computer shut down and the program wouldn't launch - I called product support, in a panic, and they got me up and running before the clients showed up.
Second time - right after purchasing new Windows 10 computers, we couldn't install the software because it was not compatible with our new WordPerfect X9 software so they had to do a work-around.
No
Yes
Must upgrade every year.
- None.
No
No
January 14, 2020
Challenging but helpful at gaining efficiencies
Our Firm letterhead and proprietary standard forms are in HotDocs and used across the Firm at all locations. This allows us to produce letters by location quickly as well as produce standard documents by practice area consistently. We also purchase standard forms from the State of Iowa which are also held in HotDocs. These forms provide consistency as well as a quick start to drafting documents and letters.
- Letterhead template - Creates quick letters with standard branding. Able to set locations, writer, etc.
- Answer sets can be saved and reused. This eliminates the need to reenter client information.
- HotDocs is difficult to develop new documents as it's as complicated as programming at times. I often have to call for assistance.
- The tables can be frustrating. It makes it hard to insert between items as you have to make sure it doesn't offset other areas.
- Positive - Quicker turn around on producing standard documents tailored to the client's specific needs.
- Negative - Long learning curve. Not an "out of the box" program. It has to be customized.