Making enhanced reporting available to the business early on will help the program focus on additional reporting requirements as they come up.
Good programs start out with the goal of configuring the PMS application to deliver the information requirements of the firm, and yet this aim tends to get lost somewhere along the way. Additional content will of course be available and there may be additional functionality to train and learn, but the change and disruption should be limited. While there will be “behind the scenes” changes on PMS at go-live, the look and feel of the reporting layer will remain consistent. Carving reporting elements out of the PMS program will de-risk the upgrade for the front office and reduce the scope of the main program. The firm doesn’t need to wait until the final PMS solution is delivered to start to feel the benefit of enhanced reporting. It maximizes the return on investment made. Prioritizing reporting in order to deliver some of the perceived benefit of the PMS upgrade early has several major advantages: While the methods and systems will change on upgrade, the information that is required to support effective reporting exists on a firm system prior to the commencement of any project work. Timekeepers record time today, and they will record time tomorrow. Why Reporting Should Come First When Upgrading Hence comes the logic of advocating for firms to take the enhanced reporting capability out of PMS change projects or to make it the first phase of the program work. Even well-resourced PMS change programs will need to prioritize the ability to process an invoice over the ability to produce information that is relevant to the audience and easy to interact with and understand. Meeting front office expectations while ensuring that the basic elements of system functionality are delivered is not easy. The priority is always, and some would say must always be, the ability to efficiently process transactions. 
But this aim is rarely reflected in the focus of the implementation program. The front office (fee earners and secretaries) invariably think that more modern systems will equate to better information and user experience. If the firm can make better, faster decisions, it should be more profitable and carry lower risk. The upgrade of a firm’s practice management system (PMS) is always driven by multiple factors, but enhancing a firm’s capability to produce, distribute, and consume information is always near the top of the business case.
By Michael Turner, Principal Consultant and Team Lead, Data Insights, Pinnacle
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