Do you remember the eighties movie The Money Pit starring Tom Hanks? The one where he and Shelly Long need a new home in a hurry and they settle on buying a beautiful country estate outside New York City that was available for a suspiciously low price. They quickly discover the reason for the price as doors start falling off, a bathtub falls through the floor, and the staircase collapses. As a result, the couple’s relationship also starts to fall apart.
Finding the right legal operations software to help your in-house legal team and your company save time and money and reduce risk is challenging – much like buying a house. You have to figure out your specific needs and do your due diligence to find a solution that fits the way you do business. This task is difficult enough without having to be concerned that you might make a significant financial investment in a provider that over-promises and under-delivers. The last thing you want is to invest in very expensive software for it only to become dusty shelfware. You don’t need your house falling apart!
At Bigfork Tech, we pride ourselves on being fair and transparent about our legal operations services and pricing. Quite simply, we tell you upfront exactly what your price will be for all the services you are requesting. If we don’t provide a requested service (e.g., ebilling), we will tell you. If there are some highly customized services you require that are not normally included in our pricing, we will tell you exactly how much it will cost to add that to the included services. In other words, we are not going to promise you the world to get you to start onboarding, only to surprise you with “oh, we didn’t realize you needed that too – that will be another $100 per user please”, or worse, “sorry, we don’t provide that service, you will have to go elsewhere for that”. That’s just not the way we do business and you should beware of any provider that operates that way.
I can’t tell you the number of times I hear from our customers that there are many hidden costs among other providers – for example, integrating with outlook, adding customized workflows, and adding intake forms and customized templates, to name a few. Other providers typically price these out separately after quoting a much lower price per user license fee. This allows these providers to keep a lower monthly price per person, not taking into account all the needed functionalities. In contrast, our customers know exactly what they are getting and there are no surprises down the road.
Another key money-saving capability of Bigfork Tech’s legal operations software is that we don’t require licenses for users who only interact minimally with the software. For example, people who only request work from legal or only need to approve, reject or comment on a contract do not need a license to do these simple tasks. We designed our software so that only those users who substantively interact in the tool, as in drafting contracts or collaborating on projects, require a paid license. If you are merely requesting a document, we do not require a license. The end result is fewer license fees, lower costs and more value for your dollar.
Our cost per user also takes into consideration that in our software, you can manage contracts and matters – like litigation, HR issues, finance and so on. Customers do not need to source another digital tool to manage other matters – we are a one-stop-shop for your needs. We find that most of our competitors only offer contract or matter management, but not both.
So when comparing Bigfork Tech’s legal operations solution with other options, here are just a few of the important questions to ask:
- What is specifically included in the monthly license fee?
- Do you charge a license fee for every user no matter how little they interact with the tool?
- Do you provide contract, matter and project management all in one?
- Does the price include integration with Outlook, Gmail, DocuSign, Salesforce, and other systems? If not, how much are those integrations?
- How much do custom integrations cost?
- Does the price include a searchable, document repository?
- How many workflow boards are included?
- How many workflow automations are included?
- Do you provide remote tracking and approvals?
- Do you include customized permissions?
- What kind of document security and protections are included?
- How much is onboarding and how long does it take?
- What kind of technical support do you provide and is that included?
- How long will you lock in the licensing fee?
If you would like to learn more about what is included in Bigfork Tech’s pricing or to find out more questions you should be asking in your search, contact us at info@bigforktech.com.
