Practice management software

Software that runs the day-to-day of a professional firm - clients, jobs, deadlines, time, billing and documents - in one place. Common in accounting and law firms.

For example, an accounting practice might use its practice management software to track every client's year-end deadline, log time against each job and raise the invoice when the job closes. The gaps show up where it doesn't connect to the firm's other apps, so someone copies data across by hand.

Why it matters to your firm: it is often the backbone of the firm, so whatever it doesn't do becomes manual work for your people. Knowing where it stops - and what gets rekeyed around it - is where the hours are. Start with an ops audit to map those gaps.