Actionstep Reviews

That you are able to operate your whole business on the one platform. Everything from the initial client contact through to completion of services, incorporating a single place to track all project related emails, time tracking for employees, easy billing process, tracking of invoices, creditors, production of financial reports, outstanding billing reports and numerous other customisable options.

The only downside I can think are that it is a little expensive (but then I am only a sole trader now not working full time, so if I was working this business full time then I would probably feel differently on this factor) It is generally easy to use, but maybe not as intuitive as programmes like Xero or MYOB, but that said I feel this system does a hell of a lot more than they do.

- Workflows that are customized for different types of cases - Customized tasks that are automatically assigned to particular employees - Case dashboard: the "one stop shop" for all basic info related to a case (employees involved, clients, other important players in the case, calendar appointments, notes, etc.) - Contact records that exist independently of cases but may be linked to cases -- so...

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- Challenging initial setup (customization of features) - Cumbersome process to unlock encrypted zip files after backup request - Previous difficulty with calendar integration caused problems with client scheduling and has made us skittish about returning to use of the calendar, even though we see this as a high-value feature of ActionStep

Nothing - I found it was more trouble than benefit. The software claims to manage emails, and it will manage them as long as you stay with that software. If you want to change to another software, you cannot retrieve your emails.

The description of using "work flows" sounds like a very good and useful idea. It is not. The company wants users to hire a "partner" company to set up the software or purchase pre-programmed workflows from third party vendors. "Partner" companies are extremely expensive, if they return your call at all. You pretty much have to hire a third party company to program the software just to use it. As far as I can tell, the workflows are so detailed that you will spend every minute typing data into the software system instead of doing legal work. When I got rid of the software, none of the thousands of emails flagged into the system could be exported into another system. It was very difficult to transition away from the program.

Hi Catherine. Thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback, and I'm very sorry you haven't had a great experience. In response to your points you raised: Actionstep allows you to export all of your data at any time, including e-mails. You can read more about this on our user guide. Data is exported in a standard format, but unfortunately it is beyond our control as to whether or not...

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the display of the program is good and some of the support team is quite responsive

The invoice system is terrible as it is not able to add it back to the matter. Further, the invoice system does not accept other currency billing method - this must be changed asap. Other CRM can amend the invoice on the matter file - not like actionstep need to download and upload the documents manually - that's ridiculous

Hi Arthur Thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback, and we very sorry you haven't had a great experience. We have made significant upgrades to our billing since this review and hope you have had the opportunity to try them. Additionally, we have recently released our Lawpay add-on which should help amend some of the issues raised here. Addressing your questions around implementation, our support team is available to answer any queries you may have to make the most of our software - support@actionstep.com Thanks

You can customize it according to your needs, including custom reports and exports. It's easy to use on a daily basis and has an attractive platform that is well organized. It has it's own document storage, so you don't have to use two different programs/services to get it to work (such as box or another doc storage service) It does conflict checks and syncs with e-mail so you can assign e-mails as you send/receive them to the matter they are relevant to.

The customer support is terrible. Response time has been poor. When there is a response, it typically is, refer to the on-line manual. My spouse is an IT person, so I'm fairly computer program savvy. So I don't contact tech support unless I've gone through everything in the manual and tried everything I can think of first. When that is met with "look at the manual" it's beyond frustrating. Once we get past that, it usually doesn't take them long to get the issue resolved or walk me through what needs to be done to achieve the goal. Also, in order to use the macros letters/documents where information auto-populates from your case into the letter or document, you pretty much have to be a computer programmer to get that to work.

Jennifer, thanks for your feedback. [Updated Aug 2020] - Over the last year, we have focused on improving our support teams response rate & the quality of their responses. We now see upwards of 90% positive feedback after customers have dealt with our team and strive to improve that even further. We apologize you had a poor experience with our team. If there is anything we can do to help you get the most from Actionstep, please do not hesitate to contact our team.

Actionstep's fields and layout are intuitive, data is easy to enter, monitor and track.

additional tiers of user privileges would be nice

Hi Krys, Thank you for such a positive review. Great to hear that your firm is making the most of Actionstep & seeing the results! Also fantastic that our webinars are helpful to you and your team. I have passed on your feedback on additional tiers of user privileges to our product team. If you do have specific requests or other suggestions, please do not hesitate to email support@actionstep.com so our product team can assess them in light of upcoming development. Thanks, Matt

e-mail integration is easy and seamless highly customizable excellent document management

steep learning curve weak online training materials requires a consultant to truly make it work our version does not yet sync with Quickbooks

Richard - thanks for taking the time to review Actionstep - it's great to hear such positive comments about email and document management. I just wanted to acknowledge your comments on training. We are working on improvements to our on-boarding materials will most certainly use your feedback to improve training. I will ask someone in our our support team to get in touch with you about your Quickbooks Sync. Thanks again and do get in touch with our support team anytime you need help: support@actionstep.com

ActionStep is easy to use and maintain as a central portal for keeping up with client files and work between staff.

I wish the software had better search functions including an ability to look up contacts by phone number.

Hi Kimbro, Thank you so much for such a positive review! Fantastic to hear that Actionstep has helped to keep your files & team organized. Thanks

I like the ease of use and intuitive format of the software. I have worked in a number of different law firms with a number of different software packages, and Actionstep is by far the best. Opening a new matter is super easy, which is important.

I can't think of anything right now but will come back to you if I do.

Hi Paula, Thank you for such a positive review. Great to hear that your firm is seeing the benefits of Actionstep. Should you do have specific requests or suggestions, please do not hesitate to email support@actionstep.com so our product team can assess them in light of upcoming development. Thanks, Matt

Improved over time; Covers all requirements; Integrates well with MS Office

There is no way to download all emails in a matter, for example, to provide to a consultant for a taxation of costs, or when transferring a matter

I now have an almost complete solution to practice management. Before, I had no system, no way of keeping things straight. But then I started to become too busy to keep track of things in my mind, and it started getting chaotic. That's where Actionstep has saved my practice from disorganization. I track all of my time and do all of my billing from Actionstep. I keep my entire database of contacts on Actionstep. Trust ledger accounting is great. Tasks, calendar reminders, document storage, file notes. It's all great. When a client calls, I quickly pull up their file and *bam*, there's everything. There are many other useful features that I know I just haven't even tapped into yet.

- There is a pretty steep learning curve, and the user guides aren't always that helpful. Sometimes I find myself spending 20 minutes trying to figure out a very simple thing, like how to reopen a matter that I accidentally closed. - Before using Actionstep, I kept everything on Google Drive. Great, Actionstep integrates Google Drive. But not as well as I would like it to be integrated. I had to...

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Ease of use, ability to automate a number of tasks, oversight of office time.

Inability to convert $ format to € format, for example $4,000.85 needs to be manually converted to 4.000,85€ and 1.5 hours manually converted to 1,5 hours. Inability to customise the automatic email that is sent to client portal users to grant them access. Inability to select size and font of text that will automatically be generated when copying text from Actionstep system to a word document. Sections of the system still refer to GST when using a different tax. Inability to change a matter type once a matter has been created, instead a completely new matter with a different matter type needs to be created.

The product is easy to use. It provides many opportunities for making the running of a law firm a seamless process. The support is excellent. In our firm, we are able to keep tract of Matters, Clients, Calendars, and we are just starting to use ActionStep more in-depth with respect to storing documents, creating correspondence, and billing. I cant say enough about how this software helps to organize our small firm and keeps us on track with respect to keeping track of revenue goals, etc.

Integration in our firm was somewhat difficult only due to time constraints; nothing to do with the product itself.

Hi Maricatherine, Thank you for such a positive review. Great to hear you have had an excellent experience with our support team. We are delighted your experience with Actionstep has been great. If you do have specific requests or suggestions, please do not hesitate to email support@actionstep.com so our product team can assess them in light of upcoming development. Thanks

ActionStep runs a variety of reports and queries from our data tables very quickly, and we can customize views and reports as needed. The financial software and G/L is included, which is rather rare. Trust accounting is treated as it should be with separate reporting and functions. Their development of the APIs to connect to Microsoft and Outlook has given us a lot more efficiency in workflows. The support staff is very responsive and will try to thoroughly understand and address the issues for us.

Some of the accounting functions need some work to run smoothly and to be more intuitive. Also the Outlook add-in and Microsoft Plug In are nice to have but the average user cannot properly install them and maintain them it seems on their own, there are too many steps to the install and updates.

Hi Jennifer, Thank you for such a positive review. Great to hear your firm is embracing the all-in-one functions of Actionstep. Additionally, glad to hear your experience with our support staff has been excellent. Thanks

Very customizable!!!! This gives us everything we need to sort through as many files as we give it! We can sort via very specific criteria!

Although we are the kind of people that put a lot of time into things we want exactly the way we want them, we don't believe too many others are willing to put in the time to learn this program to customize it to their liking. The people that do put in the time will be greatly rewarded. This is the best program for Law Firms and Public Adjusters.

John - thank you for your really positive comments about Actionstep. We are delighted you have customized the system to the way you want it to work for Florida Hurricane Adjusters. One of the things we believe in at Actionstep is supporting unique and valuable ways of working!

It's thorough knowledge of the special rules that apply to law firms; the ability to modify your processes to reflect your specific jurisdiction and forms. I like the ability to see who did what, and when. There is a lot of accountability in this system.

Some of the accounting modules are (rightly and deliberately so) difficult to correct if an error is made in parts of the accounting system. The system forces a great deal of transparency. They just need to update all the accounting modules.

No pros were added to this review

No cons were added to this review

Thank you for the feedback Mark.

Actionstep makes it so easy to manage our hundreds of cases, by use of customizable overviews and matter data.

Sometimes our emails do not come through to the inbox in actionstep- mostly internal emails and sometimes emails from outside parties go straight to the case.

Narissa - thank you for your review. It is great to hear how Actionstep helps you manage such a huge caseload! I will raise your note about emails with the team here. If you have any other questions about the system, please do contact our support team (support@actionstep.com) and they will be happy to investigate.

The potential - it seemed like it was going to help me automate and streamline

The level of set up involved. The subscription basis meaning time put in not retained. The email functionality - non existant. The integration with Xero - very minimal and wont do the same standard of invoicing. The support in WA - customer support online not bad, although timewise for WA meant they were responding when I wasnt at work. When I requested local support they kept sending me to interstate firms. One very helpfully said he would fly over and solve all my problems - it would take three days plus travel from Qld - in the vicininty of $10,000

Hi Susan, Thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback, and I'm very sorry you haven't had a great experience. We take pride in our software but understand implementing any CMS like Actionstep does take some time and effort. We have thoroughly revised and expanded our onboarding processes for Express customers such as yourself - meaning a much more structured & documented implementation lessening the need for a small business to employ an implementation partner. Once again, we are sorry you didn't get the most out of Actionstep. If you have any questions or to see how we can work together, please do not hesitate to contact our team at support@actionstep.com

This was my first practice management software. I liked the price and the ease of the setup. Since this was my first experience, I don't have anything to compare it to.

Sometimes the software has glitches and looses things like notes that you put on the scratch pad. If there are multiple windows open with the program, it doesn't always save the information that you enter on one page. Customer service is absolutely terrible. There aren't clear cut customer service hours and I can NEVER reach anyone by phone. If I'm lucky I will get a response via chat a few days later. I am looking to make a change.

Hi Tausha, Thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback, and I'm very sorry you haven't had a great experience. To address your feedback; we have expanded our customer service team and have prioritized chat responses. If you have any more feedback we would love to speak to you and see what we can do to help. Please contact our support team at support@actionstep.com Thank you again for your response

Love how everything relating to a client emails, documents, notes, calendar is all in one place. Plus reasonable cost even for small firm. We like integration with gmail.

We're waiting for integration of accounting software which is the last piece of the puzzle. Wish we could have faster upload/download times for documents. But that could be a function of cap of internet speed in a rural area.

I like the ease of use and the fabulous customer support. The product can be customized with your specific workflows and keeps everything on track.

I do not like that you cannot turn off the portal chat. Which is a small thing.

Ability to generate documentation. Could-based (no servers needed). Document management. Trust accounting works very well.

Interface with Xero is a bit clunky. A bit complex when trying to set up new Action Types.

The reverse process of the checks.

I don't like that the checks for costs filter to the settlement step.

Thank you for the feedback Donna!

In the practice of law, there are numerous individuals that will work on a respective client's file. Making sure that everyone is up-to-date on the status of the file is essential. Actionstep provides a user-friendly platform where all communications can be tracked and recorded.

There have been times where the connection between Actionstep and NetDocs seems off. Though I'm not sure what's necessarily causing the problem, i.e., a system issue or user error.