Moving a law firm off spreadsheets.

To move a law firm off spreadsheets, pick a cut-over date, clean and export your contact and matter lists, import them into the new system, enter open balances and open deadlines by hand as of the cut-over date, run old and new side by side for one billing cycle, then retire the sheets and keep them read-only as an archive.

Do not try to move every historical row. Move what is open (clients, matters, deadlines, unbilled time, unpaid invoices and trust balances) and archive the rest. Trust balances need particular care: reconcile the account on the cut-over date and enter each client's balance from that reconciliation.

The LawAOS Switch importer, at Settings > Data imports, brings in contacts, companies and matters from Clio, MyCase or PracticePanther exports or from a CSV, with column mapping, duplicate handling and a review step before anything is saved. Documents are uploaded separately, and time entries, invoices and trust balances are not imported: a general firm-data importer is not yet shipped.

A spreadsheet is fast, flexible and familiar. For a new solo practice it is a reasonable matter list, time log or simple fee tracker. Many firms run well on sheets for their first years.

Sheets start to cost money when several people edit them, when the same client appears in five tabs with different spellings, and when nothing stops a formula being overwritten. A law firm accounting spreadsheet cannot refuse a trust payment larger than the client's balance, cannot keep an append-only audit trail, and cannot remind anyone of a deadline.

• More than one person edits the same sheet and versions conflict.
• Time is recorded in one sheet and invoices are typed in another program.
• Trust balances are worked out by formula, and nobody is sure the formula is right.
• Deadlines live in a sheet and personal calendars, with no single record.
• Conflict checks mean searching several files by hand.
• The person who built the sheet is the only one who understands it.

• Choose a cut-over date, ideally the start of a month or billing cycle.
• Clean your contact list: merge duplicates, fix spellings, split people from companies.
• Export contacts, companies and matters to CSV with one row per record.
• Import them, map the columns, review duplicates, and check a sample by hand.
• Reconcile the trust account on the cut-over date and enter each client's opening balance.
• Enter unpaid invoices and unbilled time for open matters as of the cut-over date.
• Enter every open deadline, court date and limitation date with its source.
• Upload the documents for open matters into each matter.
• Run one billing cycle in both systems and compare totals.
• Make the old sheets read-only and store them as an archive.