Your matter and nominal structure
How matters are numbered and categorised, how departments and cost centres are set up, and how the nominal ledger is structured are usually decided in a workshop early in an implementation. They then define every report the firm will run for years.
Why it is bigger than it looks
- Too coarse, and you cannot see which work is profitable: "Litigation" tells you little if it hides five very different practices.
- Too fine, and people choose the wrong category, workflows multiply, and reports fragment.
- Mismatched between the legal system and the office accounts, and figures never quite agree.
- Changed later, and history no longer lines up with the present, so trends become guesswork.
Design it around the questions you will ask
Start from the management information partners need: profitability by work type, team and fee earner; lock-up by department; performance of fixed-fee products. Then design the matter types, departments and nominal codes that answer those questions, and check them with finance, practice leaders and whoever runs the reports.
What to ask, and what to see
- How flexible is the matter type structure, and what does changing it later involve?
- Show how a work type flows through to the office accounts and to reports.
- How will our existing history be mapped into the new structure on migration?
Technical notes: small decisions, big consequences
Start with the overview: The details that decide the project
Accounts and finance
- Core accounting is still the gold standard
- One-way or two-way sync? Connecting your legal system to Xero
- Units or minutes? How time is recorded
- Your matter and nominal structure (you are here)
- Making Tax Digital: the firm and its clients
Workflow, data and documents
- Workflow: deep, basic or none?
- Client onboarding and matter inception: portal, e-signature and ID checks working as one
- Custom data: what you rely on, and how you move it
- Precedents, merge codes and macros: your document bank in a new system
Your types of work
- Legal aid: your records, not just the Legal Aid Agency’s
- Litigation: Precedent H starts with time recording
- Family: Form E and financial disclosure
- Private client: where does the tax software fit?
Security and access
- Roles or individuals? How user permissions are set up
- Why manage security twice? Linking application security to Microsoft Entra
- How granular is the security inside the system?
- Who can see what in reporting?
- Shared platform, your data: separation, restore and erasure
- When the supplier is the target: where your data lives, who can reach it, and your real risk
Microsoft 365
- How does it connect to Outlook?
- What did you just give it permission to do?
- What happens behind the scenes? Background integrations with Microsoft 365
- OneDrive is not a document management system
- Microsoft 365 is not a backup
Data and decisions
Where does your firm stand?
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