How to switch case management software without breaking your trust ledger
Firms stay on software they have outgrown because the move looks dangerous. The risky part is not the matters or the documents. It is the trust balances, and there is a right way to move those.
Firms stay on software they have outgrown for one reason, and it is not loyalty. It is that the move looks like it could go badly in a way that ends up in front of the bar. Matters and documents are a logistics problem. Trust balances are a compliance problem, and that is the part worth being careful about.
Done in the right order, a migration is boring. The sequence below is the one that keeps it boring.
Seven steps, in this order.
Confirm you can get your data out
Before you sign with anyone new, find out what the current vendor will export and in what format. A full export including documents and transaction history is what you want. A CSV of matter names is not a migration. Ask this while you are still a paying customer with leverage.
Inventory what actually has to move
Open matters, closed matters, contacts, documents with their version history, calendar and deadlines, time and expense entries, invoices and payment history, templates, and trust ledgers. Decide which of these you need live in the new system and which you only need to be able to produce later. The two answers have different costs.
Clean up before you move, not after
Duplicate contacts, matters opened twice, and clients who left in 2019 all cost the same to migrate as real records, and they are far easier to deal with before they exist in two systems. Deduplicate at the source.
Reconcile the trust account on a cutoff date
Pick the cutoff, run a full three-way reconciliation in the old system, and print it. That reconciliation is the number the new system has to match. Migrating trust balances that were never reconciled just moves an unexplained difference into a new database.
Verify balances client by client
The account total matching is not enough. Every individual client ledger has to arrive intact, because a total can be right while two clients are wrong in opposite directions. Check the list, not the sum.
Run both systems in parallel
Keep the old system readable while the new one takes live work, for at least one full billing cycle and one full reconciliation. You want to have closed a month in the new system before you rely on it alone.
Do not cancel until you can produce the records
Trust records must be retained for years after the representation ends, and "the old vendor deleted our account" is not a defence. Either the history came across in usable form or you have an export you can actually read. Confirm which, then cancel.
Five things that quietly do not come across.
Trust transaction history
Many migrations move an opening balance per client and nothing behind it. You are then holding money whose history lives in a system you are about to cancel. Insist on the transactions, not the totals.
Document versions and dates
Files usually arrive. Version history, the original upload dates, and who edited what frequently do not, and they flatten into a folder of current versions all stamped with the migration date.
Custom fields
The fields your firm added to model its own practice are the least standard part of the data and the first thing a generic importer drops. List them before the move and check them after.
Unbilled work in progress
Time entered but not yet invoiced sits in an awkward state and is easy to leave behind. It is also money. Bill it out before the cutoff if you can, and check it if you cannot.
Calendared deadlines
Dates that were calculated by the old system's court-rules engine may migrate as plain events, losing the rule that generated them. Re-verify anything with a statute or a filing deadline attached rather than trusting the import.
Move without a single balance out of place.
A CaseFuze specialist runs the migration with you: matters, contacts, documents, and trust ledgers mapped across, every client balance verified against your last reconciliation before go-live, and your old system left running until you have closed a month on the new one. It costs nothing.
Common questions about switching software.
How long does a migration take?
When in the year should we switch?
Do we have to move closed matters?
What if the old vendor will not export our documents?
Who should verify the trust balances?
The software that does this for you.
CaseFuze handles the ledger, the statement, and the checks. $49 per user per month.