Spreadsheets and email work — until they don’t.
Every practice management system is competing with the system most firms already have: a matter spreadsheet, an inbox, a messaging group and the memory of two senior people. It is free, it is familiar, and for a while it is genuinely fine.
What the status quo actually costs
The spreadsheet does not fail dramatically. It decays. A column stops being updated. Two versions circulate. A deadline lives in one person’s diary. A fee note is reconstructed from emails three months after the work was done.
The costs are real, but they arrive in small pieces that never appear on one invoice: the hour spent finding an attachment, the time recorded late and under-billed, the client who phoned for an update because nothing else told them, the matter that went quiet because a step was nobody’s job.
What firms actually need is not more software. It is one place where the matter, the dates, the documents, the time and the money agree with each other — and a way for clients to see progress without calling.
That is the whole argument. Everything else on this website is detail.
How the two approaches score
Scored on the things a firm lives with after the demo: separation of firm data, updates, operational burden, exit, and cost predictability.
Our own assessment of the approaches, not a vendor’s marketing claim. Disagree in the demo — that is what it is for.
The status quo versus a system of record
| What is being compared | Spreadsheets, email and messaging apps | OpenLPM |
|---|---|---|
| Where a matter lives | A spreadsheet row, an inbox and someone’s memory | One file: procedure, people, documents, dates, time and money |
| Deadlines | Individual diaries and goodwill | Calculated, owned, reminded, visible on the firm calendar |
| Client updates | A phone call to whoever picks up | Progress in the portal, without a fee-earner involved |
| Billable time | Reconstructed at month end, and partly forgotten | Captured as it happens, approved, and billed from the record |
| Client money | A second spreadsheet, reconciled by hand | Recorded as it moves, reconciled monthly, overdraws refused |
| Confidentiality | Client files in personal inboxes and messaging apps | Access on the file, matter walls where needed, every action attributed |
| When someone leaves | Their inbox leaves with them | The firm’s knowledge stays in the firm’s system |
What this approach is genuinely good at
- Zero setup. It works today, with the team you have, at no cost.
- Maximum flexibility. A spreadsheet can be bent into any process, however odd — and some firm processes are genuinely odd.
- Everyone knows it. No training, no migration, no change management.
- Fine for a very small practice where one or two people hold the whole picture in their heads.
When this is the right choice — and we are not
- You are two people, all matters are short, and nothing has ever fallen through a gap. Genuinely: stay as you are.
- You cannot spare a few hours in the first month to set procedures up properly — a system configured in a hurry is worse than a spreadsheet used well.
- You want software that behaves exactly like your current spreadsheet. OpenLPM has opinions: procedures, guards and approvals.
- Confidentiality questions have never come up with clients or insurers, and you do not expect them to.
We would rather lose a deal than win a firm that should have stayed where it was.
A calm migration, in the order that matters
Nobody needs a cutover weekend. Start with the thing that hurts most.
Start with the open matters
Move the live files first, not the archive. The archive can follow at leisure.
Get deadlines into the system in week one
This is usually the change staff notice and appreciate fastest.
Write two or three blueprints
The firm’s most common matters become repeatable, and new files take minutes to set up.
Turn on time and billing next
Once the work is being recorded, invoicing follows — and recovery usually improves in the first month.
Open the portal to clients last
When the firm is confident in the file, showing clients is straightforward.
Questions from firms still on spreadsheets
Yes — clients, matters and contacts import in batches, so you keep your history without retyping it. We map your columns to the right fields with you rather than guessing.
For the first fortnight it feels slower, because people are learning. Firms consistently report the opposite within a month — largely because nobody is hunting for a document or reconstructing a deadline.
Keep your spreadsheet for a while. Firms that move open matters first can judge the difference long before they commit the archive, and the data is exportable if the answer is no.
See what your current system is costing
Bring last month’s unbilled time and your deadline list. If the numbers are comfortable, keep the spreadsheet — and we will tell you so.