The “What?”, “Why?” and “How?” of law firm management reporting

As part of its regular webinar series, designed to give law firm managers an opportunity to learn more about law firm IT, Finance & Strategy, Baskerville Drummond recently hosted a webinar on law firm reporting, held jointly with Katchr , the specialist legal Business Information tool.?

Drawing comparisons with smartphone apps designed to help you train as a runner or cyclist, Graham Moore of KATCHR made the point that every business needs feedback on how well it is progressing towards its goal. That feedback is most useful when it is “live” and not too long after the event. For example, hours recorded by fee earners can be monitored through the day and not simply at the end of the day, week, or month. This gives the managers the maximum opportunity to make corrections, should performance not be as the firm requires. Just as many of the apps we use daily in our lives gives real-time feedback, why shouldn’t law firm reporting be based upon real-time data??

Richard Wyatt made the point that a firm must not monitor and report too many metrics, otherwise, there is a risk that those receiving the information get muddled and unsure what action to take. “What” should be reported must be the metrics that most accurately reflect what is happening to the key issues the firm faces. For example, it might be cashflow that is most important – in which case cash received ought to the focus of attention. Or it is hours recorded that the firm sees as most critical to driving profit and cashflow, in which case, that ought to be the focus of reporting.? The reporting package ought to be flexible and report what matters most to the firm during the period being reported upon.?

In terms of “How” to report, it was agreed that charts and graphs are the best way to show the user what is happening with the metric under review. They are better at highlighting trends over time. Similarly, while static tables may have their place, each one is a snapshot and cannot show you those trends. Furthermore, that data is not normally able to be drilled into, to identify the key nuggets of information within the data. For example, if numbers for WIP days are going in the wrong direction and it is taking longer for the firm to bill its WIP, then being able to drill into those figures can identify which team, or fee earner, or even which matter, is the cause of the figures going in the wrong direction.?

Graham demonstrated that KATCHR can fulfil the real-time reporting and drilldowns that the modern Business Intelligence package requires and Richard confirmed that in his experience KATCHR does provide those vital facilities of graphical output, flexibility of what is reported upon and the ability to drilldown into the underlying data, and ought to be considered as the type of reporting package that every law firm should use – but first identify what it is that should be reported.