How Event Centric Workflow™ Helps you track and visualize your Staff's time.
Although your data is Matter Centric the Workflow in Houdini is Event Centric. You bill based on task you perform don't you? Well in Houdini Tasks are Events.
With HoudiniESQ Event Centric Workflow every action you perform on behalf of your clients is viewed as an Event/Task. Billing is painless, seamless and incredibly easy. Select the action, start the timer and you're billing for your time. Add a colleague to the Event and they too can bill on the same Event. Stop the timer. You can now Invoice the Matter at anytime with a single click.
Of course you get to choose what is billable and what is not, what your bill rate is for a particular action and when you invoice.
HoudiniESQ's Event Centric Workflow™ simply means that everything you do on behalf of your client is an Event.
You take a call it is an Event. You perform document prep, it's an Event, You hold a meeting to discuss case law, its an Event.
In other case management systems a Event is a scheduled item and that is all. In HoudiniESQ we look at your time as the most important element of the system. A Event is something that takes place; an occurrence which has a start time and a duration and therefore can be billable. Of course Matters, Contacts, Documents, Notes,To do's, etc are just as important but in most cases they are informational only. It is the time you put in to generate, review and or process this information that is billable. In HoudiniESQ the process in which these informational tidbits get into the system is just that, billable time.
In other case management systems billable time is viewed as a ancillary process where you add a Document, take Notes, add To do's and then bill for you time later.
In some cases you use an entirely different application. One which you have to continuously pay to upgrade.
How much time did you really spend creating that document, reviewing that Email, discussing case law with a senior partner or peer? In HoudiniESQ you bill as you perform all these task, effortlessly.
In other case management systems they provide a timer so you can record the time on a Phone Call. Why not allow for the recording of time regardless of the action being taken. For example, you and a colleague must perform some case law review. This is an Event. As is anything you do on behalf of your client. You create a event, select Case Law review and start the timer. The system knows your bill rate for such an action and that of your colleagues as well. You review a Email, prep a document, schedule a meeting, call a client. Its all the same to HoudiniESQ. Its billable time. Of course you get to decide what is billable and what is not.
In addition you can optionally add one or more additional staff members to these events which means they too can bill for this time. This information is clearly indicated on the invoices generated by HoudiniESQ.
Since everything you do is an Event, everything can be viewed on the Group Calendars. Of course this too is optional.
Event Centric Workflow™ does not change the fact that you have Matters, Clients, Contacts, Notes etc which are related. It just makes the recording, billing and viewing of your time the center in which everything else revolves.