Your practice doesn't work like everyone else's. Your software shouldn't either.
Most case management systems offer you the same deal: here are three spare text boxes, you may change what they're called.
That's not customisation. That's a suggestion box.
A text box can't tell you a retainer is overdue. It can't stop somebody typing a case number in the wrong format. It can't be a dropdown of the six referral sources your firm actually uses. It can't be added up, sorted by date, or filtered on. It's a place to put text that nobody will ever query again.
BeornNotes takes a different view: the fields on your records should be the fields your practice uses, with the right type, in the right order, under the names you already say out loud.
Fifteen custom fields, and they're properly typed
Every account gets fifteen fields of its own, and they are real types — not text boxes wearing a label:
- Three text fields — for names, references, identifiers
- Three date fields — sortable, comparable, usable in "what's coming up"
- Three whole-number fields — counts, ages, quantities
- Three currency fields — retainer, balance, fee quoted; formatted in your currency symbol, and totalled properly
- Three dropdown lists — with the values you define, so everyone in the firm picks from the same set instead of typing four spellings of the same thing
Typed fields aren't a technicality. A date that the system knows is a date can be sorted, filtered, and flagged as an important date coming up. A date typed into a text box is a string that sorts "10 March" before "9 March" and can never remind you of anything.
Rename anything — including what you call a record
The custom fields are only half of it. Every field on the form can be relabelled, including the ones that ship with the product. If your firm says matter number rather than external ID, say matter number.
You can also rename the record itself. BeornNotes doesn't insist you call them "entities" — pick Client, Case, Matter, Contact, or something else entirely, and that word appears throughout: in the menu, page titles, buttons and messages.
Move fields where they belong, and hide what you don't use
The form has five tabs, and you name them. Any field can be placed on any tab, in any row, in any order.
Just as important: fields you don't use can be hidden entirely. Not greyed out, not left empty for everyone to skip past — gone, from the form, the picker and the grid. A form with eleven fields your firm actually fills in beats a form with forty where the useful eleven are scattered among them.
Make the data correct on the way in
Every field can carry rules, enforced when the record is saved — not as a polite suggestion afterwards:
- Required — the record won't save without it
- A format — digits only, letters only, a US ZIP, a web address
- An input mask — for a code like
AAAA9999-A, where the letters must be letters, the digits must be digits, and the hyphen types itself - Length limits, minimum and maximum
- Number ranges — a retainer between two amounts
- Date limits — no future dates on a date of birth; no past dates on a hearing
- Automatic capitalisation — UPPER, lower, or Title Case as typed
- Uniqueness — no two records may share a matter number
These are checked on the server, not just in the browser, so a rule you set is a rule that holds — including for data arriving through a bulk import.
Every person sees the right fields
Customisation isn't only about the firm — it's about the person. Fields can be made read-only or hidden per role, so a paralegal and a partner can work from the same records without seeing the same things. Users can be restricted to only the records they own, or given read-only access to everything.
And because people work differently, each person's own column layout, sorting and filters are remembered — while an administrator can publish shared saved views that everyone starts from.
Set it up once, and every new matter inherits it
Configuration is per firm, not per record. Set your fields, names, tabs and rules once, and every record from then on uses them. Change your mind later and the change applies everywhere — no re-entering anything.
See it on your own data. Start a free trial, set up your fields the way your practice actually runs, and import a handful of real matters. If it doesn't fit the way you work in the first afternoon, nothing has been lost.