Your working method is your product. But it lives in shared folders.
Every firm has its own way of handling matters, deadlines and documents, built over years. Pwas writes it down and has the system enforce it, instead of leaving it to people's memory.
The vertical software does its part. You do the rest by hand.
Almost every firm has a vertical application covering the specialist part of the profession. Then there's everything else, which is where the time goes: knowing where each matter stands, who's handling it, what the client still owes you, which deadlines are approaching, how much time was spent and how much was billed. In most firms this part lives in shared folders, spreadsheets, personal calendars and email. It works while the firm is small and everyone knows everything. It stops working exactly when the firm grows — that is, when you'd need it most.
illustrative scenario
Coming back from the summer break at a firm with three partners and twelve staff.
First Monday in September. A staff member who handled forty matters left for another firm in August. The responsible partner has to work out where they stand. Reconstruction takes a week and goes like this: open the network folders, look at the files' last modified dates, search the shared mailbox for correspondence with clients, phone two clients to ask whether by any chance they had sent that document.
Three unpleasant things emerge. Two matters had been stalled for weeks waiting for a document nobody had chased again. One deadline is eight days away and nobody knew. And part of the work done in July was never billed, because the timesheet was filled in at month end and that month end coincided with the departure.
What changes with Pwas
The work begins by writing down the firm's method, which the partners know perfectly well but have never formalised: what a matter is for us, which types exist, which phases each type goes through, which documents the client must provide and when, which deadlines are calculated from which dates, who is responsible for what, when a matter becomes billable.
From that description come the screens, the per-person work queues, the permissions and the automation. Above all comes the matter as shared data, with its state updated by whoever works on it as they work on it — not reconstructed afterwards from file modification dates.
The same return, a year later
The partner opens the dashboard of the departing staff member's matters and sees them all, with state, last movement, missing documents and calculated deadlines. Reassignment is a ten-minute operation: responsibility moves and everyone else's queues update by themselves. The two matters waiting for a document weren't stalled, because the system had chased the client automatically twice. The deadline eight days away had been at the top of the dashboard for three weeks.
Time, meanwhile, is recorded as the work happens: the activity is linked to the matter, and at month end the billing proposal is generated from what was actually done — not from a timesheet reconstructed from memory, which is where firms quietly lose a meaningful share of their revenue.
When the firm opens a new service line
The firm starts offering a new service with a different workflow, different documents and different deadlines. Conventionally that means a new shared folder, a new spreadsheet and a new set of conventions someone will explain verbally to colleagues.
Here it means describing a new matter type in the same model: phases, documents, deadlines, responsibilities. Dashboards, queues, chasers and billing know about it without anyone modifying them. And the new service's method is written from day one, instead of settling into two years of habits nobody can then pass on to new joiners.
the comparison
What happens today, what happens afterwards.
The situations that repeat at every deadline and every staff change.
Today
The method exists, but isn't written anywhere
Only the person handling a matter knows its state, and you have to ask them.
Deadlines live in personal calendars and hand-maintained spreadsheets.
Missing documents get chased when someone remembers.
When a person leaves the firm, their working method leaves with them.
Time is recorded at month end, from memory, and some of it is lost.
Clients phone to find out where their matter stands.
With Pwas
The method is written, and the system enforces it
Every matter has state, owner and last movement visible to whoever has permission.
Deadlines are calculated from the matter's dates and sit on a single dashboard.
Client chasers go out automatically according to the rules you chose.
The method is in the configuration: new joiners find it already written and enforced.
Time is recorded against the activity as you work and feeds billing.
The client checks their own matter's status, if you choose to give them access.
how you get there
The path, concretely.
Without replacing the vertical application and without stopping work in progress.
01
We draw out your method
A session with the partners and the people who work on matters. The aim isn't to design the ideal process: it's to write the real one, including the shortcuts everyone uses and nobody admits to.
02
We formalise one matter type
We pick the most representative service line and describe it: phases, documents, calculated deadlines, responsibilities, billability conditions. You validate it before anything gets built.
03
We connect the vertical and the archive
The specialist application and the document archive stay where they are. Pwas exchanges the necessary data with them through available interfaces, without asking staff to enter things twice.
04
One service line in real use
We work a real line with the new system alongside the current method for as long as needed. Exceptions emerge here and get formalised, instead of becoming yet another verbal convention.
05
Rollout and self-sufficiency
We extend to the other lines — repetitions of a validated pattern — and train whoever in the firm will maintain the configuration, so that opening a new service doesn't require calling the supplier.
an example flow
A matter that carries its own checklist.
The type of matter generates documents, deadlines and activities; time is recorded where the work happens and billing follows what was actually done.
what changes structurally
Properties of the system, not promised outcomes.
Characteristics verifiable in a demonstration, not averages of results at other firms.
1
place where every matter's state lives
Partners, staff and — if you choose — clients read the same data, updated by whoever works on it, not reconstructed from file dates.
automatic
deadlines and chasers
Deadlines calculated from the matter's dates and client reminders following the rules you declared, without anyone having to remember.
written
the firm's method
The way you work becomes a structured document the system enforces: it stays when a person leaves and can be taught to whoever joins.
same day
the time to add a matter type
A new service line is the description of a new type in the same model, not a new tool to introduce.
These figures describe how the platform works, not results measured at specific firms. The impact on your margin depends on how much time is lost today in coordination and time recording, and we estimate it together.
in depth
The questions partners ask us.
"We already have a sector application. Why add another?"
Because it's almost never the same problem. The vertical application covers the specialist part — the filings, the calculations, the forms of your profession — and covers it well, because that's what it was built for.
What it almost never covers is governing the firm's work: which matters are open, where they stand, who's handling them, what's missing, how much time was spent, how much is billable. It doesn't cover it because that's the part that varies from firm to firm: it's your method, not a standard filing. And it's exactly the part that today lives in folders and spreadsheets.
In practice, Pwas takes that layer and leaves the vertical where it is, exchanging the data it needs. If you change sector application one day, the firm's method doesn't leave with it.
"The real problem is time recording. We lose revenue and we know it."
This is where, in a firm, the economic impact is most direct and least disputed. Unrecorded time isn't recoverable: what isn't noted within a few days is, in practice, lost.
The reason it's lost is almost always the same: recording time is an activity separate from the work — done at a different moment, on a different tool, and therefore postponable. When it's done at month end it's done from memory, and memory systematically underestimates.
The workable alternative isn't demanding more discipline from people: it's attaching the recording to the activity at the moment it happens. If a phone call, a document produced or a phase transition are already objects in the system, attaching a duration to them is a gesture, not a chore. And at month end the billing proposal is built from what was actually done, with the billability rules you declared — fixed fee, time and materials, thresholds or allowances.
No system removes the problem entirely. But moving the recording from the wrong moment to the right one is the difference between an approximate figure and a usable one.
"If I hire someone, how long before they're self-sufficient?"
Over the medium term this question matters more than any other, because in a professional firm the ability to grow is the ability to transmit the method.
Today, in most firms, that method is transmitted by shadowing and osmosis: a new joiner learns by watching, making mistakes and asking. It works, but it's slow, it depends on who's doing the shadowing, and it's fragile: if the person who knows a practice best isn't around, that practice degrades.
When the method is written and enforced by the system, a substantial part of that learning becomes structural. The new joiner doesn't have to remember which documents a matter type requires: the system asks for them. They don't have to know when a deadline falls: it's calculated. They don't have to guess when a matter can move to the next phase: the conditions are declared.
What remains to be taught is the part that actually matters, which is professional judgement. Which is exactly what a professional is paid for — and the one thing no system can take off their hands.
"Do we need AI or is it a fad? We don't want it writing opinions."
And you're quite right: a professional opinion carries a signature and a liability, and it cannot come out of a probabilistic model. Where it does produce measurable savings is in the document work that today consumes qualified people's hours.
Extraction from inbound documents: client documents arriving as disordered scans are read and their data proposed already structured in the matter, with human verification. Search across the firm's archive: finding how an analogous situation was handled in past years, with a natural-language question instead of a filename search. Drafting repetitive correspondence: document request letters, status updates, deadline reminders, compiled with the matter's real data — and remaining drafts until someone approves them.
The rule that makes all this acceptable in a firm is the same as everywhere: the agent does nothing that isn't declared as possible for the user who asked. It builds a plan, the plan is verified against real permissions, sensitive actions require confirmation and every step stays traced. An agent doesn't close a matter, doesn't contact the client on its own initiative and doesn't produce anything carrying your signature.
quick check
Is this your firm?
Probably yes
You've grown and the method that worked with five people no longer holds.
You have to ask the person handling a matter what state it's in.
You suspect you lose revenue in unrecorded time, but you don't know how much.
A person leaving leaves you exposed across a set of matters.
You run several service lines with different workflows.
Clients ask for visibility on their matters and today you can't provide it.
Probably not
You're a very small firm with a simple, stable flow.
Your vertical application already covers matters, deadlines and billing well.
You're looking purely for an invoicing or accounting tool.
Nobody in the firm is willing to write down how you work.
frequently asked
Professional services: the specific questions.
Does it replace our sector application?
Usually no: it sits alongside it. The vertical keeps handling the specialist part and your profession's filings; Pwas handles matter governance, deadlines, documents, time recording and any client portal, exchanging the necessary data with the vertical. Some firms over time move functions into Pwas that used to live elsewhere, but that's a later choice.
Can we give clients access to their matters?
Yes, and the visibility rule is declared at data level: a client sees only their own matters and only the fields you choose to expose. The same rule holds in internal screens and automated flows, because the system enforces it in one place. Many firms start by showing only status and requested documents, and widen later.
How do you handle documents and archiving?
Documents can stay in the archive you use today, referenced by the matter, or be managed directly in the system, depending on what makes most sense in your case. In both cases the document is linked to the matter, the phase and the moment it was produced or received, which is what makes a file genuinely reconstructable years later.
How do time recording and billing work?
Time is recorded against the activity linked to the matter, at the moment the work happens. Billability rules — fixed fee, time and materials, thresholds, allowances, rates by grade — are declared in the model, so the billing proposal is built from what was actually done. They remain proposals: issuing and posting invoices happens where you do it today.
How long to the first service line?
For a well-defined line the order of magnitude is a few weeks from the agreed formalisation of the method. Later lines take less, because they repeat a validated pattern and differ only in their specific phases, documents and deadlines.
Who maintains it? We have no IT staff.
Ordinary changes — adding a required document, changing a deadline, describing a new matter type — are within reach of a trained staff member with normal IT confidence, because the configuration is a readable structured document. For technical extensions, such as a new integration with the vertical application, a technical profile is needed: ours or a partner's.
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