Departments

The departments

A department is how the firm organises its work: a practice group that does client work, such as Litigation or Conveyancing and Property, or a business support unit that runs the firm, such as Accounts and Finance, Compliance or Records. The firm starts with Litigation, Corporate and Commercial, Conveyancing and Property, Accounts and Finance, Compliance, Administration, Records and IT, and renames, adds or closes them as it is organised.

Settings, Departments lists them with who heads each, where each sits and how many members and open matters each has. New department opens a page for its name, code, kind, work queue, head and deputy head, office (or firm-wide), the department it sits under and its cost centre.

Who is in a department

Open a department and choose Members. Add member names the person, the day they joined and the reason. A person may be in more than one department; one is their primary department, where they are reported. The first department a person joins is their primary one, and Make primary department on another membership moves it.

End membership records the day they left and why. The membership is kept in the department's history: choose Ended under Membership to see it. A person's page lists every department they are and were in, and their primary department reads beside their name.

Roles kept for a department

Some roles belong to a department's members alone: the Compliance officer role to Compliance, the Accountant and Bookkeeper roles to Accounts and Finance. A role's page shows the departments it is kept for, and Seniority on the role changes them. Membership decides who may hold the role; the role decides what they may do.

Giving such a role to somebody outside those departments is refused with the departments named: add them to the department first. When a member who holds such a role leaves, the firm names the role they take instead. The person and those who approve role changes are told.

Matters and figures

A new matter starts in the department that runs its practice area (Practice areas it runs on the department's menu), else in its responsible partner's primary department; the matter's Details change it. The matters register and the people directory filter by department.

A department's Overview leads with its figures: its people, its open matters and those opened this month and closed this year, time worked this month and not yet billed, and, for whoever reads the firm's journals, what it billed and collected.

The work queue

A support department reads the work waiting on it on its Overview. Compliance sees reports to the Financial Intelligence Centre not yet filed, concerns raised and not yet closed, data subject requests open and practising licences running out. Accounts and Finance sees pre-bills to approve, bank reconciliations open, receipts held and client money requests to decide or pay. Records sees originals checked out and records due for a destruction review. Each item opens its record, and each section reads only for somebody who may read those records across the firm.

Closing a department

Close department asks the day and the reason. It is refused while people are still members, open matters are run in it or open departments sit under it, and the refusal says which. A closed department keeps its history and can be reopened.