Stamping & Land Tax

Our specialised staff have been trained in the technical and procedural aspects of duties and land tax. Our long standing relationship with the OSR allows us to perform your stamping and land tax requests to the highest standard. Alternatively if you are registered to perform stamping yourself, you can use our fast and efficient online stamping system.

Registrations

We utilise a sophisticated recording, tracking and reporting system for all documents being lodged at the land titles offices. Matters are tracked throughout the process of lodgement, requisitons (if any) and registration. Legalink offers two different service levels:

Standard - documents are lodged via bulk. LPI usually processes those within 48 hrs.

Premium - documents are lodged face-to-face and processed on the spot.

Property Enquiries

We are market leaders in the provision of National Property Enquiries including Council Certificates, Government Authorities and rates checks. All property enquiry requests we receive can be ordered and delivered through our online interface, whilst behind the scenes are experienced Property Enquiries Team process the orders and ensure a premium level of service.

You will find our online interfaces extremely convenient and easy to use. Property Enquiries for the Eastern Seaboard (excluding ACT) are integrated with online searching, providing a convenient mechanism to order your Titles and Plans, whilst NSW CRRs are either delivered online or returned as part of the Enquiries package if an authority interest is held. Wherever possible, forms are auto-populated as you progress through the order process, maximising your processing efficiency.

We have national coverage.

NSW CX Property Precedents

Our New South Wales property precedents provide you with a complete collection of LPMA dealing forms, State Revenue forms and our library of conveyancing correspondence precedents.

We have also customised our conveyancing workflow to assist New South Wales users with their responsibilities under the Conveyancing Act 1919, in particular under Part 4 of that Act, by providing a visual guide to the documents required to properly take a conveyance to completion.

QLD CX Property Precedents

Our Queensland property precedents supply you with a complete and up-to-date library of Queensland Land Title, State Revenue and PAMDA forms as well as the complete set of Lexon Insurance "best practice" conveyancing letters.

We have also customised our collection of general conveyancing precedents, which include letters to client and letters to other side, for use in Queensland.

All our forms and precedents are prepared, maintained and supported in-house by our dedicated legal team.

VIC CX Property Precedents

Our Victorian property precedents include the latest version of Land Victoria and State Revenue forms in addition to our comprehensive library of conveyancing correspondence and letters.

Our software also incorporates the requirements of section 32 of the Sale of Land Act 1962 into its visual representation of the conveyancing workflow; another way we assist you to save time and manage risk.

Fastfinder

Locating current court fees, professional costs, interest rates can be difficult, time consuming and often the information is of questionable accuracy. An annual subscription to Legalink�s Fastfinder saves time, money & the inconvenience of rejected court documents.

Benefits

• Your time is valuable and FastFinder saves you having to plough through piles of regulations to find the correct court fees and other charges.
• Avoid additional costs and time wastage through rejection of your court filing.
• Knowing about changes in advance allows you to get documents processed at lower fees thereby saving your clients money.
• FastFinder lets you know exactly when fee changes will be made by emailing you prompt updates throughout the year.

Features

• Fast Finder covers more than 20 Courts, Tribunals and Government Departments.
• It is distributed in printed & electronic versions.
• Current and historical versions are accessible 24/7 via www.legalink.com.au.
• All changes are notified via email.

Billing & Collections

Open Practice offers a fully integrated billing system. You may retrieve all time entries, disbursements, creditors and sundry recoveries into an invoice. You can write up/write down, apply discounts at the time of creating your bill. It is designed to allow flexibility to suit individual billing formats and preferences e.g. different format if you are acting for Insurance Company as opposed to a Government organisation. Features include draft invoices for approval before final processing. Bills are printed through industry standard Microsoft Office.

Credit Collection

Open Practice gives you the flexibility to setup a collection plan for individual clients or for various areas of law via a series of letters or chase up tasks. This flexibility gives the firm the ability to tailor their debt collection to meet the needs of their clients. Automated debt recovery ensures debts are followed up in a timely manner which improves the collection rate, reduces the average debtor days and thereby improves the firms cash flow.

CRM & Marketing

The client relationship management module is fully integrated with Open Practice and provides the database structures and tools necessary to assist with the coordination and management of marketing and other events.

Diary & To Do Lists

Open Practice offers a simple to use calendar and To Do manager schedule. You can register all important To Do, Personal Tasks, Events and Appointments as well as setup Court (or specialised) calendars. OP integrates with Microsoft Outlook allowing you to use an industry standard application.

General Ledger

Open Practice General Ledger provides for either a standard General Ledger Profit & Loss / Balance sheet or firm defined Chart of Accounts allowing for sub-ledger mappings and budget setting. OP GL is a real time system that automatically posts each transaction directly to the General Ledger.

OP GL provides for greater reporting flexibility by allowing users to consolidate financial data across all entities. You can print a profit & loss for a department, branch, ledger or the entire practice.

End of Month

There is no mandatory end of day or month process in Open Practice. The General Ledger is not locked thus enabling back processing, as required.

Firms save considerable time because there is no end of month posting and a real time General Ledger means that management reports can be printed at any time during the period or at the end of a previous period. No end of period processing saves time and eliminates the need to lock users out of the system at the end of the day or month.

Matter Management

The key of your business is the ability to manage your clients and their matters in the most efficient way possible. Open Practice single interface gives you quick access to critical information about your client and their matters.

All information regarding the Matter is accessed via one simple screen with drill down functions to view WIP, Disbursements, Anticipated Disbursements, Fees Billed, Debtors and Trust.

Reporting

Open Practice contains a wide variety of reports which are supplied as standard with the product. These reports include standard financial reports, fee-earner productivity reports as well as Client and Matter based reports. Reports can be generated through industry standard Microsoft Excel. In addition, users are able to create their own reports using Microsoft Excel or other ODBC compliant report writers such as Crystal or SQL linking directly to the Open Practice database. Once these reports have been created they may be added to the Open Practice Reports list.

Safe Custody

Open Practice Safe Custody is fully integrated with your practice management system. Safe Custody packets are created to store clients' wills, valuable items or documents. A safe custody packet could be an actual packet or locked box. When documents or any other contents are released to the client, a receipt is produced for client signature, and the movement is recorded in the register. The register includes many features such as:

• Multiple packets for a client
• Unlimited number of documents stored for each packet
• Receipts issues for documents released
• Automatic sequential numbering of packets
• Ability to track and monitor documents as they move in and out of storage
• Open Practice safe custody feature allows the user to document when and by whom a packet is being removed from custody. There is an audit trail of packets being removed and/or deleted.

Search Integration

Open Practice Searching provides access to a wide range of information products used in the law practice, from property information including nationwide access to land registry information, corporate information including ASIC and credit reporting, through to personal information and vehicle data. This is supported by our range of AML and KYC due diligence reports providing an easy solution to your AML legislation commitments. Open Practice Searching is integrated into the practice management software so that you can perform your searches within the Open Practice window, and all disbursements are written back to Open Practice Billing.

Time Recording

The Open Practice interactive legal time recording system was designed and tested in consultation with practicing professionals. It is intuitive and easy to use. Similar in layout to a conventional time sheet, it is instantly familiar, but with the advantage of having all information about the client and matter available.

Details are recorded directly into the system, eliminating duplicated data handling and reducing margins of error. Multiple views of time sheet data (controlled by security levels) enable departmental and team leaders to track performance of all members. As an additional option, time recording notes may be dictated using voice recognition software, generating further time savings. All information recorded in the time sheet is immediately available for billing.

Trust Accounting

Open Practice Trust Accounting includes general trust accounts for client records (multiple bank accounts per matter), Client Regulated Funds, Power of Attorney and Estates, Controlled Money, Transit Money and Trust Investments management. The software allows you to maintain client trust ledgers which can be viewed or printed at any time. It is fully integrated with the office practice management system. You do not need to invest in a separate module.

Workflow

OP Workflow is a dynamic tool for matter management and case management, allowing you to set automatic to-do list reminders and provides you with the ability to escalate critical tasks. With Open Practice Workflow you can setup and design your own streamlined tasks to interface directly with your precedents, keeping track of your To Do list and sending and receiving inter-office emails.

Database Extensions allow the firm to create specific fields to record information about clients, matters or safe custody documents within the Open Practice database. These fields can simply record text as a user enters it or be linked to other information in the database and are an excellent way to record the contact details of parties and barristers for a matter, the names of children and their schools, pets and type of car a client drives, or specific information relating to powers of attorney, deeds, leases or bank account documents held on behalf of clients.

The information may be reported using a third party report writer and/or merged with word processing precedents utilizing standard WP merge facility.

Property Precedents

Our conveyancing software is a document automation and file management system designed for property solicitors and conveyancers practicing in Australia.

Our software promotes time-efficiency by only collecting information from you once. This information is then merged into comprehensive precedent library and used to automatically produce a wide range of conveyance documents, such as letters to the other side and transfer forms.

Collected information is also used to create a visual representation of the conveyancing workflow, enabling both the user and their supervisor to determine the progress of a matter at a glance, including the status of any critical dates and events.

Our software also offers integrated "one-click" property searches: you click on the search you want and that searches is automatically ordered and tracked. This saves you time and reduces your risk.