In a series of Supporters in Focus pieces, we are thrilled to introduce our sponsors of The British Wills and Probate Awards 2022.
Alongside headline sponsor Executor Solutions, we look forward to recognising achievement, highlighting progression and championing innovation.
We’re delighted to have Ochresoft on board for the fifth year of The British Wills & Probate Awards.
First of all, tell us who you are and what you do?
Ochresoft is an established, specialist team of legal professionals and technologists who utilise a wide range of expertise and experience to provide legal practitioners with comprehensive, market-leading legal workflow and case management software.
Intelliworks Private Client is designed and maintained by lawyers and focuses on areas of importance to practitioners and busy law firms. Intelliworks provides complete end to end task-based workflows, supported by comprehensive business tools which transform financial performance, compliance, risk management and reduces administration from instruction to closing the file and beyond.
Our legal and compliance team ensure that the latest legal developments, content, and best practice protocols are at the practitioner’s disposal. This enables practitioners to remain compliant and work effectively, whilst consistently delivering excellence to their clients.
How does Ochresoft Intelliworks Private Client software make life easier for firms and practitioners?
Intelliworks Private Client is a comprehensive workflow, interwoven with powerful business tools which assist and guide the practitioner at every stage of the matter, from the moment of receiving instructions, to closing and archiving the file. From the point of opening the file, pertinent processes and tools assist practitioners to reduce administration, address risk, and ensure dynamic compliance, specific to the particular matter type and client circumstances.
Practitioners are assisted in identifying and mitigating risk, whilst timely reminders are automatically generated to ensure all requirements are fully satisfied. Integrated “Task History” functionality provides the practitioner with the benefit of an automatically curated, easy access, audit history of the matter – recording every task, document and form completed.
Intelliworks’ task-based workflow is complemented by its extensive Legal Library of documents and letters which accompany every stage of the matter. The Legal Library is continuously maintained and automatically updated, so that practitioners can benefit from regulatory and content updates seamlessly.
Intelliworks Private Client workflows benefit from the expertise of a dedicated legal and compliance team, who continually monitor changes and updates to legislation, regulation, and best practice in order to place contemporary, compliant, and functional workflows at the practitioner’s fingertips.
Our Probate workflow tools manage the financial aspects of the matter through our comprehensive estate management, financial accounting, and automated Estate Accounts and IHT Form production. This coupled with our structured, task-based workflow, reduces administration, and facilitates risk management. Making it easier for teams to deliver to a consistently high standard, work efficiently and accurately, and mitigate risk without missing a single vital step.
What key changes have you seen over the past 12 months, and how have you innovated to keep on top of this?
The last 12 months have been very exciting for the business as we continue to grow and invest in Intelliworks to ensure it delivers the best possible service and solution to our customers. The Private Client sector has witnessed several interesting developments, both regulatory and in response to the global pandemic conditions.
Last year there was a significant increase in demand for Private Client services due to the pandemic. Ochresoft has striven to support and assist practitioners in meeting this increase in demand through the expansion of Intelliworks Private Client.
Following the government’s amendment of the Wills Act 1837 in 2020, permitting the remote witnessing of Wills, the Intelliworks Wills workflow was immediately updated to include additional resources to aid both the practitioner and their clients to navigate this new process. Our Wills workflow was further enhanced at the beginning of this year in response to the government’s announcement that the application of remote witnessing would be extended.
Regulatory updates in the sector have included the reduction of reporting requirements of non-tax paying estates, which was implemented at the beginning of this year. In response to the altered requirements of the reporting of excepted estates, the probate workflow process was redesigned and updated to accommodate matters which would no longer be required to follow the traditional reporting procedure and to ensure that these estates are accurately identified and recorded.
Intelliworks Private Client workflows are innovative and dynamic in their design and allow us to be highly responsive to changes in requirements and best practice as they arise. Intelliworks crucially provides practitioners with the flexibility to accommodate a variety of private client matters, all of which will have bespoke requirements – dependent upon their time frame and complexity – within a single, intuitive system.
What will be Ochresoft’s focus over 2023 and beyond?
Ochresoft will continue to invest in Intelliworks Private Client to deliver the best solutions for our customers and their clients. Our primary focus in 2023 will be on the practitioner and in providing them with relevant, integrated private client tools and services to aid them in working efficiently whilst delivering outstanding client service.
What made you support the Probate Research Firm of the Year and what is your message to its entrants?
Ochresoft are delighted to sponsor this award, it demonstrates how firms use their expertise and experience for the benefit of their clients and the profession as a whole. This commitment to excellence is shared by Ochresoft and we are happy to support such a prestigious award.
Ochresoft colleagues are looking forward to attending the award ceremony in October and would very much like to wish the best of luck to everyone involved.
What have been Ochresoft’s biggest achievements this year?
We pride ourselves on our customer service and achieve customer satisfaction in excess of 95% for our help and support and 97% for our training. To show our commitment to excellence we recently became members of the Institute of Customer Service and will be working with them to develop our future Customer Service strategy to build on our excellent foundation.
We have also been awarded ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 accreditations, underlining our dedication to quality processes, information security and customer care.
Can you share an exciting piece of news or company update with us?
Aside from our obsession with enhancing our private client matter workflows, the team at Ochresoft also love to support great causes wherever we can. Over the past 2 years we have planted over 2,500 trees, ensuring that the company becomes carbon negative. And on 1st October 2022, over half of the staff will be climbing Mt. Snowdon in order to raise vital funds for Macmillan Cancer Support. All donations hugely welcome: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/ochresofts-snowdon-challenge
What would Ochresoft like to be known for the most?
Ochresoft would like to be known for delivering the most comprehensive, risk managed private client software on the market which makes a real difference to transform the lives of our customers and their clients.
Thank you to Ochresoft for their support for The British Wills & Probate Awards 2022.
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