Rocket Matter

Time capture - both via a timer and manual entry, makes sure you can get all the time entered on a regular basis in a quick and easy manner.

Decent mobile integration. iPhone and iPad app typically work well and allow you to input time and expenses away from the office.

Generating invoices and reminder statements is a snap, as are generating reports on income received and outstanding receivables as well as time worked.

The mobile app on occasion does have hiccups, especially on the iPhone. It can be cumbersome to enter time on it, and on occasion, time does not seem to get properly entered back into the system after entering it on mobile.

Having to create a matter and then go back in and edit it to set customized rates is a bit cumbersome and an unnecessary extra step. Setting rates should be easier.

Generating reminder statements is not very intuitive.

The monthly invoice report does not print out well from the website, and there should be an easier way to get a good printout to make a master list of invoices to be made. Earlier iterations did this better.

Tracking billable and non-billable hourly work is one of Rocket Matter's best functions. There is a timer that can be used to track work as it occurs, or billable time can be recorded manually after work has been completed. A complete record of time worked per client, per matter, and per staff member is created. I used this data to generate invoices and also to analyze how time was being spent on billable and non-billable tasks by myself and the attorney.

Rocket Matter offers ample features for invoicing and managing client payments, all of which are highly customizable. Billable work, costs, fees, and client payments are all recorded per matter. An invoice can be generated from this data, based on a template provided by Rocket Matter or a customized template. Though I did not use the client portal feature, users can invite clients to an online portal to view invoices and submit credit card payment via LawPay. Alternatively, invoices can be printed and mailed or emailed to clients. Billing structures, such as monthly installment payments and evergreen retainers, can be set up per matter, as well.

By recording billable work, expenses, and payments, I was able to use Rocket Matter as a secondary IOLTA trust accounting record. When a client deposited into a trust account, I recorded the payment in the client retainer in Rocket Matter. Each time I transferred funds to pay for earned work, I recorded the transaction when I invoiced the client. This record demonstrated why, when, and in what amount earned funds were moved from client retainers.

While the Notes feature was immensely useful for keeping track of the last work completed on a matter or to keep a record of discussions with clients or relevant legal research, it could have been far more user-friendly. There is no way to export Notes saved to a .doc, .pdf, or any other format. To print or download Notes, I would have to painstakingly click on each entry and copy it into a word document, then go back to the previous page to click on the next entry to repeat the process as many times as there were notes. If printed directly from the website, the formatting spills off of the page.

I am pleased with the amount which can be customized in invoice templates in Rocket Matter. However, to create your own template you need to use fields recognized by the program. Rocket Matter provides a guide and a list of available fields, however, it is a fairly complex undertaking for anyone unfamiliar with using fields in Word documents or using other code, such as HTML. It would be more intuitive for users if Rocket Matter employed a template customizing feature similar to that of QuickBooks, where text boxes and fields can be inserted and manually dragged to the desire area of the template.

Rocket Matter can run very slowly and can slow down your computer quite a bit while it is running. I upgraded to a newer laptop with higher RAM after my first year of using Rocket Matter, and there was a noticeable difference in the speed and ease of use.