Home > Legal Software > Clio > Clio vs Centerbase

Clio vs Centerbase

Last Updated: November 18th, 2024

Our analysts compared Clio vs Centerbase based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Legal Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

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Product Basics

Clio is an industry-leading end-to-end solution to streamline all aspects of a law firm — case management, daily workflows, billing, client relationship and in-depth reporting. Firms can opt for its practice management and billing-focused Clio Manage, client-facing Clio Grow or combine the best of both worlds with Clio Suite. Users can access a centralized calendar to schedule workflows, deadlines and client appointments with reminders, checklists and follow-ups. They can also access and manage cases, matters, documents and clients in real-time and generate bills with personalized payment plans, track billable hours and account receivables to maximize firm revenues.

It provides a secure database for easy access to client records, documents and matters. It simplifies client intake, relationship and retention processes with lead generation, secure communication, client tracking and online payment modules. It also provides robust customizable dashboards and reporting to enable data-driven insights on different facets of the firm. Scalable for practices of all sizes, firms can leverage more than 200 integrations and its immersive referral network to enrich its functionality. Its dedicated cybersecurity and cloud deployment enable users and teams to connect securely and remotely from the devices of their choice.

Centerbase provides a cloud-based end-to-end legal toolkit aimed at enabling mid-sized firms to securely manage practice workflows and improve the client experience. Firms can leverage its billing and payment modules including e-billing, online portal and various payment arrangements to get paid faster. Users can maximize billable hours using remote timekeeping, accessible timesheets and reviewing workbench. It provides comprehensive matter management with configurable workflows, real-time dashboarding and relevant details. Practices can monitor goals, projects, tasks, deadlines, meetings and court dates effortlessly with color-coded calendaring, project management and activity reminders.

Administrators can utilize prebuilt and custom reporting and comprehensive controls to efficiently manage firm operations and make informed decisions. Users can streamline client intake and communication with its secure client portal. It also offers integrated legal and trust accounting modules and robust security.

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Small

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Large

Small

Medium

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Android

Chromebook

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Mac

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Cloud

On-Premise

Mobile

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Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation

In Person

Live Online

Videos

Webinars

Documentation

In Person

Live Online

Videos

Webinars

Phone

Chat

FAQ

Forum

Knowledge Base

24/7 Live Support

Phone

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FAQ

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24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

User-Friendly: Maximize ROI by reducing time spent on reskilling employees thanks to extensive training material and an intuitive UI.
Automatically Perform Core Processes: Save time with purpose-built automation such as email scheduling, automated workflows, task assignments, email templates and more.
Unlimited Cloud Storage: Store an unlimited number of case-related documents, audio and video files.
Prompt Support: The technical support team provides quick responses.
Comprehensive Mobile App: Offers on-the-go time tracking, business accounting and database access.
Precise Dashboard Tracking: Track invoices, receivables, deadlines, tasks, staff performance and more in real time.

Stay Connected: Access important case-related information and management tools from any device with an internet connection.
Accessible KPIs: Improve business decisions with the most current information from firm-wide calendar entries and custom reports.
Faster Billing: Increase cash flow with a billing module designed to reduce clicks, deduplicate entries and accelerate invoicing.
Customizability: Use in-house customization tools to appropriately scale the platform according to the firm’s size and maintain relevance in a changing legal landscape.
Flexible Subscription Charges: The role-based pricing structure provides multiple options for interested parties. Add or subtract any applicable licenses and pay only for the integrations and tools required.

Client Management: Increase operational efficiency by automating standard firm procedures throughout the client lifecycle. Improve the customer experience by encouraging client collaborations in case operations.
- Client Intake Management: Automate logging and synchronization of client intake data, case management tasks and calendar information under one scheduling environment. Track potential client information and open new matters seamlessly with Quick Intake.
- Client Tracking: Never miss a single task or appointment with checklists, automated reminders and cross-platform sharing of client information and documentation. Follow up on potential clients and collect matter details with 24/7 secure access to cases, scheduling, contacts through Online Intake Forms and the Matter Pipeline.
- Client Services: Increase client engagement with automated follow-up emails and reminders. Offer flexible payment options including online credit cards.
Security: Secure your data from potential external and internal vulnerabilities with a dedicated cybersecurity portal. Enforce administrative, physical and technical controls like 2FA, criminal background checks, security training and more to protect against future liabilities.
- Compliance: Ensure GDPR compliance both as a data controller and processor. Get payments processed 39% faster with credit cards while operating in compliance with PCI guidelines.
- Data Encryption: Store and transmit data securely with HTTPS and TLS-based in-transit and at-rest encryption. The secure web interface is verified by DigiCert.
- Control Implementation: Control access to sensitive information with role-based permissions, login safeguards and session/activity tracking via IP information. Increase safety standards with strong passwords, regular password resets and two-factor authentication via the mobile app.
Firm Insights: Thoroughly understand the firm’s strengths and weaknesses with in-depth reporting on the most valuable referral sources, clients, and matter types. Compare actual matter totals to estimated ones and track billed, unbilled and collected amounts.
Case Management: Track and manage case-related documents, bills, time and client contact information from anywhere. Integrate pre-existing case information from over 200 applications including Dropbox, Outlook and Google Workspace.
Document Management: Remotely store and access an unlimited number of legal documents, images, audio and video files. Backup documents automatically, filter and sort using customized categories, search using keywords and send documents for signature through the e-Signature portal.
Billing Management: Create, approve and send bills electronically and process interest for late payments with the Clio Connect portal. Offer automated, flexible and faster payment plans with integrated credit card processing via the Clio Payments extension.
Contact Management: Track the firm’s clients and contacts with quick overviews of their connected matters, documents, transactions and bills. Trace their interactions with the firm, identify conflict of interests, if any, and log case-specific information in custom data fields.
Accounting: Create trust and operating accounts and produce invoices in compliance with legal industry regulations. Use the client ledger portal to monitor all accounts and transactions associated with a client and perform 3-way reconciliations either manually or with the help of third-party extensions.
Calendar Management: Stay on top of deadlines and important dates by synchronizing calendars with cases. Create custom entries to log more billable hours, share important events and dates with clients and keep track of firm-wide events, meetings and appointments.
Task Management: Keep track of pending tasks on legal cases, assign tasks to other members and set as many customized task categories as required using the Advanced Tasks portal. Get notifications about overdue tasks, organized by due date, in the main dashboard.
Time and Expense Tracking: Keep a record of time spent working by seamlessly adding entries from calendar events, tasks, communication logs, notes, documents, Outlook and Gmail. Track time and expenses in real time even when on the go using the mobile application.
Performance Management: Get detailed reports on the utilization of the firm’s time with insights on how to streamline workflows and reallocate resources for better productivity. Identify unbilled hours and write-offs to prevent further incidents.
Legal Client App: Clients can use the mobile app to receive push notifications, status updates and case details, contact their lawyer and scan and upload documents. Case lawyers provide sign up links via email for secure login with Face ID or Touch ID verification.

Billing Management: Digitize the firm’s entire billing cycle. Prepare and approve a single bill with a log of all inline markups.
- Client Service: Allow clients to pay bills, view invoices and track payment history via the billing portal. Create an audit trail with .txt eBilling files email multiple invoices at once.
- Simple Payments: Provide clients with a single, integrated payment method to settle current charges and/or fill the retainer at the same time. Control payment options and payment methods on a matter-to-matter basis.
- Billing Support: Access support for hourly billing, flat fee billing, expense-only billing, project billing, consolidated billing and more. Prepare electronic invoices with the help of UTBMS codes.
Legal Accounting: Set up all firm accounts under a single infrastructure and organize them based on location, matter or practice area. Link checks directly to expense accounts and provide free platform access to the firm CPA.
- Vendor Management: Set up automated vendor bills for recurring payments. Enter vendor checks and invoices into the system database and automatically track due dates.
- Online Payment: Accept credit card payments securely with the accounting module. Link payments directly to transactions and track client expenses. Eliminate manual data entry and human error.
- Trust Accounting: Create and operate multiple trust and IOLTA accounts. Automatically approve payments from invoices and log all trust fund expenses.
- Trust Reporting: Run reports to trace the flow of money going in and out of trust and IOLTA accounts. Keep a detailed record of all transactions, receivables and matter expenses.
Time and Expense Tracking: Never miss out on a single minute of billable time with round-the-clock time tracking. Automatically log time spent on client calls and messages as billable hours.
- Simple Time Tracking: Track time directly from in-platform applications or external integrations like Microsoft Word or Microsoft Outlook. Enter time while on the move from mobile devices.
- Time Entries: Update, edit and sanction time entries at the end of the month. Hold or approve billing based on the case status and merge multiple associated time entries into a single entry.
- Rate Tables: Prepare tailored rate tables with built-in date ranges effective all year round. Exempt specific matters and clients from the rate table under special circumstances.
- Budgets: Create and track timekeeper budgets for client work. Benchmark staff productivity against firm averages.
Firm Reporting: Generate reports in real time with accounting, billing, productivity, budgeting and compensation data. Group associated reports together and safeguard sensitive information with permission-based access.
- Insights: Get detailed insights into aging receivables, profitable clients, staff compensation and productivity, annual budgets, valuable practice areas and more.
- Custom Reporting: Run custom reports to highlight specific firm strengths and requirements. Increase stakeholder engagement with detailed spreadsheets and data visualization.
Matter Management: Organize and manage all legal matters from a single dashboard. Track contacts, client information, documents, meetings, deadlines, notes and tasks associated with relevant matters.
- Matter Dashboard: Access the matter dashboard for a quick overview of trust balances, WIP, client payment history, ledger, credits, outstanding receivables and more. Prepare matter budgets for individual clients and run reports on fees, expenses and staff productivity.
- Matter Layouts: Create matter layouts with customized data fields. Organize matters on the basis of relevant case information.
- Matter Automation: Design and integrate matter-specific workflows directly into the platform. Automatically assign tasks and execute the next step in the workflow. Update the firm database, team members and clients with new information.
Calendar Management: Create and track calendar entries in real time with a legal calendar. Toggle between firm-wide and personal views, color code entries and print calendar reports as physical reminders.
- Calendar Sync: Design automated calendar entries for recurring meetings and notifications for upcoming events. Connect to the Outlook 365 application for real-time synchronization of calendar entries.
- Deadline Management: Steer clear of malpractice claims with the LawToolBox portal. Automatically add jurisdiction-based deadlines and time-based triggers to legal matters.
Client Services: Improve the overall client experience with an efficient intake process, communications module and client portal.
- Client Portal: Share messages, calendar entries, documentation and invoices with clients securely via the client portal.
- Direct Communication: Communicate with clients via dedicated private lines. Control client access to sensitive information and keep track of their communications with the firm.
- Client Intake: Streamline the firm’s client intake process with self-populating contact forms, automated emails and documentation. Schedule tasks and perform conflict checks against client databases.
- Reporting: Run reports to track marketing ROI, profitable practice areas and referrals.
Document Management: Manage documents directly from associated matters or from integrated web browsers or applications like Microsoft Word. Access and share legal documentation securely from any device with an internet connection.
- Email Management: Store emails to associated matter files in its native .MSG format. Search for specific emails based on subject, content and date sent/received. Integrate with Microsoft Outlook and automatically log any time spent reviewing, sending or editing emails.
- Document Tracking: Search for individual documents using multiple data fields. Track changes made across different versions of the same file.
- Integrations: Open, edit and save documents with the built-in Centerbase Drive inclusion. Integrate with NetDocuments to seamlessly consolidate documents into workspaces.

Product Ranking

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#60

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Analyst Rating Summary

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User Sentiment Summary

93%

of users recommend this product

Clio has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 93% when considering 1435 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

92%

of users recommend this product

Centerbase has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 92% when considering 60 user reviews from 3 recognized software review sites.

4.6 (18)

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4.5 (243)

3.8 (2)

4.7 (1147)

4.61 (31)

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4.7 (27)

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Awards

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Ease of Use: All the users who reviewed this aspect found the UI intuitive and easy to pick up.

Functionality: According to 73% of users reviewing capabilities, basic functions such as time tracking, accounting and document management perform satisfactorily.

Service and Support: 83% of users who mentioned this element said they’re satisfied with the customer support and response rates.

Task Management: Regarding this feature, 71% of users said the softwaremade task management easier.

Robust Billing: Centerbase offers advanced billing and accounting features that streamline the process of generating invoices, tracking payments, and managing client accounts.

Streamlined Matter Management: Centerbase provides robust matter management capabilities, allowing law firms to effectively organize case files, track deadlines, and manage client information.

Customizable Workflows: Centerbase allows firms to create customized workflows to automate repetitive tasks, ensuring consistency and efficiency in handling routine processes.

Document Management: Centerbase offers integrated document management features, enabling firms to securely store, organize, and retrieve case-related documents within a centralized system.

Integrations: Integration options are limited and plagued with bugs, according to 60% of users mentioning this aspect.

Speed and Performance: According to 100% of users who reviewed this element, loading speed is slow, negatively affecting performance.

Reporting: 56% of users who reviewed this feature found that reports lack customizability.

Training: 80% of users found the training resources to be insufficient.

Cost: According to 80% of users who reviewed this aspect, the software cost is higher than its competitors.

Complex Setup: Centerbase requires significant setup and configuration, demanding more time and resources compared to other cloud-based legal software options.

Limited Client Intake: Users have reported that Centerbase's client intake features are not as robust as desired, potentially slowing down the onboarding process for new clients.

Expensive Support: While Centerbase offers support, it comes at a significant cost of $200 per hour, which can be a deterrent for firms operating on tighter budgets.

Reporting Limitations: Some users have expressed frustration with limitations in Centerbase's reporting capabilities, particularly the inability to customize column headings within specific data sets.

Customer Service Concerns: Several reviews have highlighted concerns about Centerbase's customer service, citing issues such as slow response times, difficulty reaching support staff, and unresolved technical problems.

Clio offers practice management capabilities, along with data and task management modules. According to reviews, its primary functions like time tracking, billing and matter management meet modern legal requirements. It’s scalable, secure and easy to use, with a responsive support team to back it up. However, reviewers noted that integrations are buggy and loading time is slow. While the features make it worthwhile, many users feel that the cost could be lower. Overall, Clio is an excellent package if you don’t mind paying a bit more and dealing with extended load times.

Is Centerbase the center of attention when it comes to legal software, or does it strike out? User reviews from the past year reveal a mixed bag. While many users praise Centerbase for its robust customization options, powerful features like automated time capture, and seamless accounting integration, some express concerns about customer service and initial setup complexity. For instance, one user raved about how Centerbase's customizability allowed them to tailor workflows and improve efficiency in identifying and managing projects. Conversely, another user found the customer service, which relies on third-party partners charging $200/hour, to be a significant drawback. What truly sets Centerbase apart is its comprehensive approach to law firm management, encompassing everything from matter management and billing to document automation and workflow customization. This makes it a one-stop shop for firms looking to streamline operations and boost productivity. However, this strength can also be a weakness, as the sheer breadth of features can be overwhelming for smaller firms or solo practitioners who may not need such an extensive suite of tools. In a nutshell, Centerbase is like a Swiss Army knife for law firms – incredibly versatile and powerful, but potentially daunting to use effectively without proper guidance. It's best suited for mid-to-large-sized firms with 5 or more lawyers who can fully utilize its extensive feature set and afford the potentially high support costs. Smaller firms or those seeking a simpler solution might find Centerbase to be overkill.

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FAQ

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