Print and statistics modules assist law firm’s billing

TressCox Lawyers’ disbursements were costing more than they were worth so something had to change. TressCox Lawyers is a successful, specialised law firm focused on providing professional legal services to the public and private sectors. It has offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

With a head count of over 250 across its three offices, TressCox has a printing volume of around 14,500 pages per day, most of which are large and confidential documents. With this in mind, TressCox requires three elements for its printing to run efficiently. Speed for printing large contracts, deferred printing to ensure confidential documents are collected by the correct employee and accountability to ensure client disbursements are accurately recorded for billing.

TressCox commissioned a technology consulting agency to analyse the current system and explore alternative solutions. Based on the assessment, which did drill down into detail across all parts of the system, and advice from the consultants, TressCox decided to implement a new system that limited monitoring to colour printing, and photocopying only - as the law firm felt it was not necessary to pass on phone and fax charges to clients - and allowed improvements in print speed, security and cost recovery.

After careful consideration, Canon’s uniFlow document accounting software was recommended by the consulting agency for its ability to address all the issues at hand while being the most cost effective.

“We needed to simplify the process and manage our ongoing costs more effectively,” said Fintan O’Mahony, TressCox Head Office IT manager. “Our main objective was to set up a simple monitoring process that could accurately record print, scan and photocopy usage for each client account. On top of that we wanted to improve our print speeds to save valuable time around the office.”

Based on their specified requirements, Canon conducted a thorough site analysis to determine the most appropriate solution and implementation for TressCox.

The solution decided upon included use of uniFlow’s ‘secure print’ and ‘statistics’ modules to track colour print and photocopy activity and record for billing purposes. Two remote print servers were set up to ensure the Brisbane and Melbourne offices could also benefit from the central uniFlow server set up in the Sydney office.

Canon assisted TressCox with a test run of the system to ensure the implementation process ran smoothly with little disruption to staff and the actual implementation was staggered to ensure business continuity.

The upgrade provided faster printing, which increased employee productivity, especially when dealing with large legal documents. A simple code was assigned to each employee so that print jobs were released and collected by the correct employee. This significantly simplified the disbursement capture system, saving the business time and money.

Populating the uniFlow system with client data was also quick and easy, so things were underway with minimal disruption, leaving TressCox to focus on its core business.

“Everything is now remotely managed across the three offices following what was a very simple installation of the new software and hardware,” said Fintan. “And when we do have a query or issue, the Canon support team is on hand to help us with what I think is a five-star service.”