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Create Legal Documents Without Excel or a Calculator
When ATMs started accepting deposits, it freed law firms and small businesses from having to rush to the bank. But the experience wasn't 100% automated because you had to place your checks into an envelope, stick the envelope into the machine, and hope for the best. Nowadays, ATMs scan your checks and print the images on your receipt. Full automation plus peace of mind. Document assembly programs suffer from a similar problem. They can automate the entry of variable words and clauses into your documents, but they can't crunch numbers. A new product aims to make document assembly fully automated.
TheFormTool PRO 2.0 … in One Sentence
Your Dollar Matters' TheFormTool PRO 2.0 automates the creation of legal documents in Microsoft Word, including math calculations.
The Killer Feature
A growing number of enterprising law firms use document assembly software to create complex legal documents quickly so they can charge clients a flat fee yet still earn more than if they charged an hourly fee.
However, many documents require math calculations that document assembly programs can't handle, forcing you to switch back into manual mode to use Microsoft Excel or a calculator. This slows you down, reducing your profit per document. It's also error-prone.
TheFormTool PRO 2.0's new math functions enable you to automate both the words and the math all in the same document template.
"Cutting and pasting numbers from a spreadsheet into a contract, or worse, from scratch paper, is fraught with risk," TheFormTool's creator Scott Campbell told us. "Including the variables and the computations within the document they support is a best practice. Any other approach is just an invitation for trouble."
Other Notable Features
TheFormTool PRO 2.0 offers five types of math functions -- finance, basic, descriptive, logical, and time.
The PMT finance function can determine periodic payments for a wide range of common documents such as alimony, promissory notes, real estate transactions, and settlement agreements to name a few.
Basic math functions include Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, and Division. Thanks to the ability to nest these functions, you can perform complex calculations in your documents. For example, in a trust or will you could calculate distributions depending on variable factors at the time of death such as the number of beneficiaries and/or their ages. Corporate lawyers can use these functions to determine the voting rights of each shareholder in a company.
Descriptive math functions include Integer, Round, Absolute, Logarithm, Remainder, Exponentiation, Root, and Constant. Patent lawyers often need these functions in scientific patents. Also, environmental lawyers use them in assessments.
Logical functions include List, Sum, Max, Min, Multiply, Item, and Count. These functions often play a role in SEC filings, wills and trusts (oldest/youngest), real estate transactions (maximum/minimum value), and inventory agreements.
Finally, the time functions such as Now, Days, First Date, Last Date, Months, Years, and Fixed and Variable Offsets play a role in transactions (e.g., amortization), employment agreements, wills and trusts, etc.
What Else Should You Know?
TheFormTool PRO 2.0 costs $89. It works with Microsoft Word on Windows PCs. Learn more about TheFormTool PRO 2.0.
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