Estate Professionals- What is in your toolkit?
Recently, ETP Canada has undergone an internal software review with the guidance of Sharon Hartung to identify how best to utilize programs we use for our services in Estate Administration. After much research, I have chosen to work with Estateably as a value add to our already pretty stellar service to clients.
The goal was to bring our process to the next level; you know that old saying….” work smarter, not harder,” -that is the current climate with the team here at ETP Canada.
Working with Ari’s team has been a genuine pleasure; the customer service aspect has been astounding….but that is a blog for another day. Today, I write about a tool that has been welcomed with open arms here at our company:
TASKS FEATURE
Estate Practitioners, if you are not fully utilizing this tool, I strongly encourage you to start playing with the various ways the tasks section can clean up your internal processes and record keeping. For example, when a firm opens a file with Estateably, the user can select the checklist they would like to use. Then, based on what is appropriate for your particular matter -you choose the best option.
Many of you may be thinking the tasks are simply a checklist, which, yes, in essence, it is. However, it is much more than that. While you can review the checklist to ensure items were not missed for a client, you can also use it as an internal client-specific project management tool. There are features such as setting due dates, assign an employee, and add notes. What are the benefits of these three features?
Set a due date: Let’s consider more than tax due dates or other requirements. Think of setting due dates for your internal team. Waiting for inventory values? Set a due date to follow up with your client and avoid the file being buried under others while you are waiting. Every time a user goes into that file, the reminder is right there on the home page.
Assign an Employee: If you are in a firm reading this, you likely have a team, which means not one person does everything. Therefore, you can assign different team members to tasks that make sense to their file roles. No more of the “I thought you were doing that.”
Notes: This has been my favorite feature; whenever I speak with a client regarding the estate, I add a note in the tasks section. If we ever go back to that particular item, we can quickly review what was said, who approved the information, etc.
While the above is a quick summary of how powerful the tasks tool is in Estateably, there are several more elements to the section than what I have outlined. Since our team has started fully adopting this feature, we have noticed a significant increase in cleaner record keeping and internal processes.
Want to learn more about how we can help with estate administration? Contact us here
This blog is not intended to be legal advice and should not be relied on as such. If you require legal advice, please contact a legal professional concerning your particular circumstances.