People who have older versions of software frequently ask: “What are the new features? Will it be worth my while to upgrade?” This is easy enough to answer of they are upgrading from, say, version 8 to version 9, because software makers usually produce a “What’s New” document to answer just this sort of question. But what if they are on version 6, or 7? The old “What’s New” documents are usually lost in the sands of time and there is no easy way to answer this question (unless of course you had the foresight to save all the “What’s New” documents when each version and service release came out).
However, the other day I discovered that LexisNexis has posted all the old PCLaw “What’s New?” documents on their web site. While they may never have intended this to really be public, nevertheless, the documents are there, all 25 of them. I have summarized the main new features of each release in a document in the Cheat Sheets section my web site. Here is a shorter summary of the most major new features in each release.
Version 6-6.6 (July 2002-Oct. 2003. This is probably the most major release PCLaw ever put out. It included both the Matter Manager and the Register, which fully updated the graphical interface and allowed users to see all their entries in ways never before possible. Department Codes were introduced in v. 6.5. A number of billing features were introduced, including Quick Bill (great for real estate closings) and the ability to bill a minimum amount even if the hours don’t reflect it, or to add a percentage to billings. Custom Reports which let you design your own report were introduced in v. 6.6
Version 7-7.63 (Oct. 2003-Sept. 2006) was the longest-lasting release and included the acquisition of PCLaw by LexisNexis (April 2006). It introduced the Document Management and other “Front Office” features. It added improvements to closing matters, transferring matters from one client to another. You could now “drill down” on entries in Pre-Bills to correct them. V. 7 also let you produce bills, reports and G/L statements in PDF format. It enabled batch printing of checks. All in all, it build on v. 6 and was stable over a long period of time.
Version 8-8.20c (Sept. 2006-Sept. 2007). This was the first LexisNexis “yearly release” and was pretty incremental. V. 8.20c made major structural changes for Vista compatibility. It included the very convenient ability to change billing rates effective as of a certain date (so you don’t have to spend New Years Even changing your billing rates for Jan. 1). It allowed you to track time from within Word, Excel, Outlook, as well as Internet Explorer (which it had been able to do for some time). Data could now be exported to QuickBooks after Month’s End. The ability to export to Excel was added to the Register
Version 9 (Sept. 2007 - present). The initial version 9 didn’t offer much, and took away the Payroll feature (infuriating the small minority of clients who used it). It added a Credit Card processing feature via PPI. V. 9.2 let you jump versions if upgrading (previously, you could not go from e.g., 6 to 9, you had to go 6 to 7 to 8 to 9, which was a pain. V. 9.3, just out, added a very nice “Matters List” that for the first time let you see all your matters in a list and perform batch operations on them. It also allowed for printing G/L reports in both Cash and Accrual modes (or Modified Cash and Accrual). As usual, some of the newer functionality is still partial and needs to be rounded out (the search feature for G/L accounts for example).
To see the entire list, check the “Cheat Sheets” page on my web site or “What’s New PCLaw.”