By Legal Futures Associate Quill
Learnings from our webinars with integration partners, Hoowla and Redbrick
We teamed up with our software integration partners, Hoowla and Redbrick Solutions, recently to discuss the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of efficient, compliant conveyancing. In two half-hour lunchtime webinars, we discovered the benefits, and ease, of integrating specialist conveyancing case management software (Hoowla and Redbrick) with dedicated legal accounts software (Quill).
This type of seamless integration is now commonplace and is simple to achieve. In this instance, it allows law firms to operate smarter with workflow and cashiering functionality linked in real-time to guide through the time-sensitive conveyancing processes and intricacies associated with accounting regulations.
Here’s what industry professionals Adam Curtis (Hoowla) and David Sutton (Redbrick) had to say to our executive chairman Julian Bryan…
Conveyancing state of play
Since the lifting of Covid restrictions, the workload of conveyancing solicitors has risen dramatically. The residential conveyancing marketplace is so buoyant, many properties are selling even before estate agents are listing on Rightmove, and conveyancers are turning away work as they struggle to clear the backlog and handle the spike in new matters.
As such, client expectations have increased and the conveyancing cycle has decreased. This means providing an excellent service is essential; as is speeding up work to the now-standard two-to-three month timescale which clients have come to rely upon.
Law firms are businesses like any other, so maximising profit margins from fee earning activity is fundamental to success. Alongside these growing demands from consumers and management teams alike is an absolute necessity to comply with complicated, ever-present legal accounting rules.
With higher numbers of property completions comes greater risk of fraud. When you consider the average home in the UK is now valued at £278,000, it’s unsurprising that criminals actively target conveyancers in increasingly sophisticated ways with the aim of securing house deposit or balance of purchase monies, both of which represent substantial sums. Being vigilant to fraud, protecting client money and adhering to accounts rules has never been more important.
But, how do busy conveyancers cope with these heavy pressures?
Best-of-breed technology tools
The answer is by using ‘best-of-breed’ digital solutions from software providers and their integration partners, resulting from close links between their and other systems. Essentially, adopting a ‘best-of-both-worlds’ strategy gives you the benefit of the optimum features to perform your day-to-day tasks from tools that run seemingly (and seamlessly) as one.
No one wants to enter data multiple times; let alone overloaded conveyancers. Duplication is prone to error, confusion and wastes valuable time. With true integration, data is entered once only in either system with automatic feeds into the other, maintaining data integrity throughout.
Hoowla and Redbrick are conveyancing experts. Quill’s a legal accounting expert. Our integration initiatives enable you to tap into our combined expertise to do your work in a way that’s guaranteed to achieve service level, instruction volume, profitability, milestone and risk management objectives.
The functionality available includes:
- Case workflow assistance. ‘Workflow’ isn’t a scary word, as some people mistakenly assume. You don’t have to become an IT technician overnight to use workflow software. The beauty of systems like Hoowla and Redbrick are their options for out-of-the-box and custom-made versions. In basic terms, workflow is simply the same as your paper file with big advances to really drive efficiencies.
- Extra third-party integrations. The nature of conveyancing is such that liaising with a range of third-party companies is required, for example to action property and land searches, anti-money laundering and credit checks, and SDLT submissions. Quill integration with Hoowla and Redbrick has this type of functionality built in so you perform everything from quote to post completion within a unified environment.
- Legal accounting module. This is where Quill really comes into its own. Our SRA and CLC compliant software uses data feeds from Hoowla and Redbrick – that’s database content and time records – to manage your law firm’s money, keep client money safe, and meet the stringent demands of the SRA Accounts Rules, CLC Accounts Code and Scottish Accounts Rules. You’ll find features spanning automatically calculated and pre-populated bills, to online payment links, to clear VAT and audit trail, to free accountant licence, to MTD for VAT submissions, to powerful bank reconciliation, to prompts and warnings of financial anomalies and more.
Watch our webinars
Quill-Hoowla and Quill-Redbrick integration is about much more than this. Watch recordings of our 15 June (Hoowla) and 16 June (Redbrick) webinars to see our integration in practice as well as learn how to automate and streamline your time-intensive processes, and deliver a compliant service which delights your clients.
