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Document management for consulting firms

Find the proposal you wrote last year

In a consulting, legal or accounting firm, most documents are written once and looked for many times, often by someone else. M‑Files files each one under its client and engagement and searches the text, so last year's proposal is there for whoever writes this year's.

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A customer opened in M-Files to its documents, a Word agreement, a proposal, an Excel price list, a PowerPoint presentation, minutes and a PDF order, and to its emails filed from Outlook
Client work

Use what the firm already knows

  • Client and engagement files — The engagement letter, the working papers and the deliverables are found together under the client and the engagement. The same document also shows under the responsible partner, and it is still one document.
  • Templates and approvals — Proposals and reports start from approved templates. When a manager or partner has to review one, M‑Files gives them the task, tells them and records the approval.
  • Past work you can find — Search reads the text of the documents as well as what they are filed under. Narrow the result by client or type of document, and save a search you use often.
  • Confidential engagements — A sensitive matter is visible only to its own team. Access follows the engagement, so it covers everything filed under it.
  • Email with the engagement — Client emails are saved to M‑Files under the client and the engagement, where the whole team can find them.
  • When the engagement ends — You set how long documents are kept, per type of document or per engagement. When that period has passed, they are deleted automatically.
A customer in M-Files opened to its documents and emails, beside the metadata card of the framework agreement
Knowledge reuse

Find past work and reuse it

A firm's knowledge is in the proposals, reports and working papers it has already written. M‑Files keeps each one once, shows it wherever it belongs, and can summarise it.

One document, many places

A proposal is kept once and appears under the client, the engagement, the partner and the sector, so it is found whichever way someone looks for it.

Views for each practice

A team or a role has its own views: one partner's engagements, last year's proposals, reports by sector, filled in from the metadata.

Summaries with M‑Files Aino

Aino summarises a text document, answers questions about it and shows the documents the answer came from, using only content the user is allowed to see.

Questions across the vault

Set up for it, Aino answers questions across the whole vault, such as which proposals covered a topic, and it can translate a summary into another language.

See how search finds past work

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The M-Files web client with a customer opened to its documents and emails beside the metadata card of its framework agreement, with class, customer, contact person, dates and the workflow band at Approved
With clients

Deliver to the client from the same file

Deliverables leave the firm from the client file, and what comes back is filed in it.

  • Hubshare for invited clients — With M‑Files Hubshare, a client sees the deliverables you share in a hub they are invited to, and nothing else.
  • Edit one document together — CtrlShare, from our development partner CtrlDocs, opens a deliverable for a client to edit with you. They are invited by email and confirm with a code, there are no public links, and the finished document returns to M‑Files as a new version.
  • Engagement letters signed — With the DocuSign or Adobe Acrobat Sign integration and your own subscription to that service, a signed engagement letter returns to M‑Files automatically.
Integrations

Works in Outlook, Office and Teams

The firm writes in Word, sends from Outlook and talks in Teams. M‑Files sits inside all three, so filing is part of saving.

Outlook

Client emails are filed from Outlook under the client and the engagement with their metadata, and M‑Files can pick up the client or the contact from the email.

Word, Excel and PowerPoint

Proposals and reports are saved to M‑Files from Office with their metadata. A template fills in the client and engagement names when a document is created from it, and details from M‑Files in the document are kept up to date.

Teams

Open M‑Files content and search the vault from Teams.

Time

Record hours where the work is filed

CtrlTime, from our development partner CtrlDocs, records time in a calendar against a customer or a project in M‑Files. Weekly timesheets go to a manager or administrator for approval, and the recorded hours produce specifications for salary and client invoices.

CtrlTime at ctrldocs.com
Two pictures of CtrlTime: timesheets waiting for approval in M-Files beside one week of entries by project, and a process diagram from recording time and approving the weekly timesheet to the specifications for salary and invoices
Timesheets waiting for approval, and the route from recorded hours to salary and invoice specifications.
Next step

Start this year's proposal from last year's

We answer the same working day. Ask about templates, reviews and search, or spend 30 days with M‑Files in the free trial.

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Questions about search, access and hours

What does the search cover?
The simple search covers the text of documents and their metadata. The advanced search narrows the result by client, document type or any other property, and a search you use often can be saved as a view.
How can one document sit under both the client and the partner?
Each document carries the client, the engagement and the document type as metadata. It is stored once and shown wherever that metadata matches, so there is no second copy.
How is access to a confidential engagement set?
Access can be set on any metadata, including the engagement, and on document classes. Deletion rules sit on the document class or the engagement in the same way.
How does a review reach the partner?
Review runs as a workflow. It creates the assignment, notifies the reviewer and records the approval.
What can time be recorded against?
CtrlTime records time against any kind of M‑Files record, such as a customer or a project. It is an add-on from our development partner CtrlDocs, and it runs on every M‑Files edition, in the cloud or on your own servers.
Is this for consulting firms?
Yes. The set-up serves consulting firms first, and legal and accounting practices the same way: the client and the engagement are the records everything is filed under, proposals and reports start from approved templates, reviews run as workflows, and full-text search finds past work. We are an authorised M‑Files reseller in Copenhagen, we scope and deliver full implementations, and we can start quickly with a pilot.
Can we share deliverables with clients?
Through M‑Files Hubshare, a client sees the documents you share in a hub they are invited to. To write a document together, CtrlShare from our development partner CtrlDocs opens it for an invited client to edit, and the finished document returns to M‑Files as a new version.
Can M‑Files Aino summarise past work?
Yes. Aino summarises a text document, answers questions about it and shows the documents the answer came from, and it only uses content the user is allowed to see. Set up for it, Aino answers across the whole vault as well. M‑Files states that your documents and questions are not used to train Aino. M‑Files Aino goes through it.
Related solutions

Solutions that sit next to client files

Contract management

Agreements filed by counterparty, with review and approval workflows.

See contract management 

CRM

Leads, opportunities and customers with their documents, from lead to closed as won or lost.

See CRM on M‑Files 

Project management

Project documents and tasks filed against the project.

See project documentation 

Document management

Every document found by what it is about, with its versions and approvals.

See document management 

Microsoft 365

Proposals in Word, emails from Outlook and the vault in Teams.

See M‑Files in Microsoft 365 

M‑Files Aino

Summaries and answers from your own documents, within M‑Files permissions.

See M‑Files Aino