Digital White Papers

25 WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT Migrating on Our Own Terms: A Finance System Conversion Having this list of wants and needs is essential to choosing the right product and can help you narrow things down to one or two vendor possibilities prey quickly. Orion and Rippe & Kingston were good matches for our firm. We made our final selection, checked references and contacted peer firms within ILTA for additional insight. When our contract with Rippe was finalized, we contacted Orion by phone to lay out as best we could why we had selected their competitor. Call me old-fashioned, but I think it is very important to show respect and gratitude when vendors put a lot of effort into earning our business. As anyone in legal technology knows, it's a small world. Time for the Move Then it was on to the scary part –– migration. One thing we liked about Rippe was their detailed migration project plan. We started our activities right away. We needed a third party to convert our data to a format usable by the vendor, so we found one who had Omega-to- Rippe experience. Remember to lean on your peers in ILTA and other professional networks for this step; someone probably has faced the same challenge and can make helpful suggestions. Overall, our migration went smoothly. The biggest problem with a system conversion can be messy data, particularly with financial data. We did a test conversion a month before the real one and corrected several issues in the old system before the final conversion took place. If you know you have messy data, you might as well fix it now. We also took steps to ensure that all of our stakeholders were on board with the coming change. We talked to partners about the new capabilities they would have and explained to timekeepers that we would continue using iTimeKeep so they would see lile difference. We used the excuse of a system migration to improve our timekeeping firmwide, working individually with most aorneys to find the most accurate time entry process for them. With the vendor, we meticulously planned every detail of the migration weekend. I made two copies of the database for conversion on two encrypted hard drives and shipped them in two separate overnight deliveries to hedge against FedEx losing one of my packages. On Our Own Terms A finance system conversion can be daunting but it does not have to be overwhelming. As with any critical administrative function, evaluate available options every few years. Learn what other firms are doing and what other vendors offer. You might discover the product you have can do more or that it is holding you back. If you need to migrate, do not wait until a vendor consolidation or decision to stop support pushes you into it. Gather your stakeholders, figure out your current and future needs, and plan it on your own terms. ILTA FRANK SCHIPANI Frank Schipani is the Director of IT at Gilbert LLP in Washington, D.C. and a 20-year veteran of the legal profession. He's been through the trenches of countless implementations and upgrade projects, from finance systems to co-location facilities and everything in between. Frank is an active member of the ALA Capital Chapter and helps advise fellow members on technology issues. Contact him at schipanif@gotofirm.com.

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