Clio vs. NetDocuments

Clio is a wonderful practice management solution for small firms that do billable work. The Clio manage software is excellent for tracking your time at different rates, tracking matter budgets, and tracking expenses. Clio is also great for firms that want to implement and use tech in their offices. If clients are at least somewhat tech-savvy (have and know how to use email), they will also benefit and enjoy the implementation of Clio.

Incentivized

NetDocuments positioned itself to work in the legal industry, and it has done a very good job. It's kept pace with the challenges presented by the law and it's grown in its offerings. Any organization that must balance mobility and security would benefit from the use of NetDocuments as a platform.

Incentivized

• Timekeeping. All I have to do is open Clio in the morning and press the "start timekeeping" button if I am too lazy to type in a few words.
• Billing. The new interface is really easy to use.
• Calendar. I use two calendars for deadlines, etc. My G-Suites calendar and Clio.

Incentivized

• File Organization. Netdocuments is a great tool to neatly organize your virtual files and separate them by workspaces (matters). Each workspace contains folders (document types) that can be customized according to users' needs and preference.
• Searching your data base. All the documents and emails saved in Netdocuments are searchable. The search feature works great.
• Cloud based document management system. Simply put, Netdocuments can be accessed from ANY web-enabled device. This is becoming more and more important in the age of satellite offices, working on-the-go, and telecommuting.
• Disaster preparedness. Should something happen to your office, your documents are safe, secure and accessible.
• Seamless integration with Microsoft Applications. Netdocuments provides users with Microsoft applications integrations that can be easily installed on each individual machine.
• Support. There is an extensive on-line help library which provides incredibly helpful articles with step-by-step instructions. If you cannot find solution on-line, telephone support is staffed by courteous and knowledgeable people.
• Security. This is especially important for a law firm. A designated administrator can put in force workspace, folder, document, or profile-based security.

Incentivized

• The billing screen is serviceable but unwieldy. It is hard to get your bills to look the way that you want in many cases.
• The document management process could stand some improvement. In order to manipulate a document, you have to download it, work on it, then re-upload the new version. I'd like a local client or a seamless way to edit and then automatically see the update taken into Clio.
• The task entry is good but not great. I'd like to see a way to have it integrate into my iPhone's reminders list.
• The quickbooks online sync has been a constant source of frustration for our bookkeeper, who has to monitor daily and hardly ever goes a day without an item failing to sync.

Incentivized

• In my opinion, VERY Expensive. You can not find documents without OCR. OCR doubles your storage cost as they save the OCRd document as a second version.
• In my experience, very annoying latency, even when trying to preview documents. As a result, folks in my office often try to save locally as opposed to storing in the cloud.
• I orginally signed up for NDMax. However, it would only process one document at a time. I am not a transactional firm, so, in my opinion, this was essentially worthless.

We have been able to streamline our task management and everyday office procedures by using Clio to its fullest potential. We have a hire client retention rate because we can easily keep track of leads and follow ups. Clio Draft is saving us time on drafting legal documents and correspondence espondence. Overall, we are able to save time and money on everything tasks

Incentivized

Clio is intuitive and easy to learn. Even new staff or attorneys with limited tech experience can quickly navigate through tasks, matters, billing, and calendars. This reduces training time and increases productivity, especially in a busy mid-sized law firm. Because it’s cloud-based, Clio can be accessed from any device, anywhere. Whether I am working in the office, at home, or in court, I have full access to my cases, documents, and time entries.

Incentivized

The product is simple to learn and adheres to well-known web user protocols. The NetDocuments team spends a lot of time talking to customers regarding how to improve their interface, and are pretty quick about implementing good ideas. The system is reliable and repeatable, and similar functions are laid out consistently and in formats that users are used to.

Incentivized

NetDocuments is a performant web app. It is reliable and provides all the functionality of a sophisticated document management system. It also can serve, through its APIs, as a base system for other applications, which enhances its value. Other vendors find the company easy to work with, and it consistently seems to be the first to offer new features and technologies to its customers.

Incentivized

Rather than talk in generalities, I'll give two specific examples. First, after updating my OS, I got locked out of Clio. I was back in, up and running, with no loss of data, within an hour thanks to Clio customer support. Second, I made some specific recommendation for features that I thought would be useful. Those recommendations fell in a black hole, with the suggestion that I try a very buggy third party integration app. Clio is making lots of money from lawyers using its software. Why can't Clio create the integrations and test them if Clio is not willing to build them into its platform?

Incentivized

I've never had to contact support, but I won't give it a ten. We've had a few hiccups along the way, but nothing that couldn't be fixed within 24 hours.

Incentivized

Clio offers integrations such as Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, QuickBooks, Zoom, Dropbox, and more. This allows me to customize my tech stack to fit my specific needs. Clio’s mobile app is more feature-rich, offering time tracking, document access, calendaring, and even billing on the go. It’s ideal for attorneys who work remotely or travel frequently.

Incentivized

WatchDox and WorldDox both provided what looked like similar features but too much of the technical requirements fall on the customer and they, at the time of my evaluation, were not true cloud products. They were client \ server-based product hosted in the cloud. If you do not know the difference, research until you do. iManger is a viable alternative if you are just not able to get the internet speed you need for NetDocuments. But heads up it is not the Swiss Army knife for security features like NetDocuments.

Incentivized

• It has improved our ability to capture billable activities.
• It has increased our efficiency in regards to onboarding clients and getting retainers signed.
• The integrations with QuickBooks and other software platforms such as Mailchimp has allowed us to improve our marketing efforts and overall operations.

Incentivized

• Allowed the elimination of large amounts of in-house storage and the support required to maintain it.
• Eliminated the need for backups and disaster recovery for large amounts of data.
• Enabled secure remote access wherever the Internet is present.
• Provided enhanced security without the necessity of a large number of people and infrastructure.

Incentivized