Enterprise DNA

Instead of Actionstep

Stop renting Actionstep. Own your practice management system.

We build your version around how you open files, track time, and bill matters, bring your Actionstep data across, and run it for you. No plan tiers, and the system is yours.

Actionstep charges a per user price you have to request, plus implementation fees and separately priced add-on modules for time capture, analytics, intake and document automation.

Get your version built See it working
  • check_circleYour data in a database you own
  • check_circleOpen source, no lock-in
  • check_circleBuilt and run by Enterprise DNA

What you are paying for

Most of an Actionstep bill is the front end

The matters are yours. The screens around them are what you rent, and the rent starts with a quote, an implementation partner and a per-user price you have to ask for.

paid

A price you have to request

The pricing page publishes no numbers. It is priced per user plus implementation fees, behind a Request Pricing button and a demo call.

engineering

An implementation project before day one

Actionstep's own guidance is six to twelve weeks of implementation through certified partners, with costs that vary by firm. There is even finance offered for it.

extension

Add-on modules for the good parts

Time capture, analytics, intake and document automation are separately priced modules on top of the core subscription.

trending_up

Price rises that arrive by invoice

The vendor maintains a price increase FAQ, and firms have reported year-on-year jumps large enough to trigger a search for the exit.

lock

Your practice behind the subscription

Departing firms report access ending at the subscription boundary. Your matters, your time records, your conflict history, on their clock.

settings

Workflows that need a consultant

The configurability is real, and so is the cost of it: changing how your own firm works routes through billable third-party configuration.

What you get instead

A practice system you talk to

The week

The dates and the register, watched

Limitation dates, settlements, hearings and undertakings live in records with countdowns, and one simple step shows everything that wants a decision, worst first.

  • check Key dates with limitation dates outranking everything, counted down daily
  • check The undertakings register: who gave what, in what wording, due when
  • check An attention list ordered by what it costs, not what is easy
  • check A matter cannot close while an undertaking is open

The file

Conflicts and the client care file, enforced

One name searched against every client, party and matter the firm has ever recorded, and a six-record client care file on every matter with the rules cited.

  • check The conflict search reads the whole history, forever
  • check Opening a matter runs the check on every name on the other side and refuses on hits
  • check Engagement letter, scope, fees, conflict, CDD, instructions: each record cites its rule
  • check Billing is refused while the engagement letter is missing

The money

WIP, lock-up and honest recovery

Time recorded the way people say it, bills drafted from the ledger, and the numbers a principal manages by, without an analytics module.

  • check WIP per matter with the oldest unbilled entry flagged
  • check Lock-up per client: unbilled plus billed-and-unpaid, the money asleep
  • check Recovery per fee earner after write-offs, with the real effective rate
  • check The estimate alarm fires before the client finds out from the bill

Yours

A database you own

Runs on a laptop with nothing to install, or on your own system for the whole firm. Plain records any tool can read.

  • check A built-in database for one person, or a shared database for a firm
  • check Import your Actionstep export in one command
  • check Renamed into your firm's own words by customising it
  • check MIT licence, no vendor to leave

Make it yours

Design your own Actionstep replacement

Everything starts from the open-source base. Then it gets your name, the parts you run, your rules and your data from Actionstep. Try it here, and we build the real one.

2. What it runs

3. Make it fit

4. Your colour

Your business · your Actionstep replacement Your version
YB Your business

auto_awesome

Answered from your own database

Build my version

We build it from the open-source base, bring your Actionstep data across and run it for you.

What it looks like

Ask it like you would ask a colleague

Real answers from the demo data that ships with Matters for Claude Code. It runs in Claude Code inside the Claude app, so it feels like any chat you already use.

forum

Matters for Claude Code

Connected to your own database

What key dates are coming up in the next 60 days?

Key dates, next 60 days (8 pending, 1 MISSED)

filing

Matter
MT-1008
Client
Rachel Ormiston
What
File the amended s 21A agreement affidavit
Due
2026-09-15
Days
2 AGO
Lawyer
Priya Sharma

settlement

Matter
MT-1003
Client
Alan & Judith Prescott
What
Settlement, 8 Marine Parade
Due
2026-09-20
Days
3
Lawyer
Mark Donnelly

renewal

Matter
MT-1009
Client
Totara Grove Pharmacy...
What
Serve the lease renewal notice
Due
2026-09-22
Days
5
Lawyer
Tane Rewiti

settlement

Matter
MT-1004
Client
Sione & Mele Tuipulotu
What
Settlement, 21 Warspite Ave
Due
2026-09-29
Days
12
Lawyer
Mark Donnelly

filing

Matter
MT-1010
Client
Ken Mahoney
What
File and serve briefs of evidence
Due
2026-10-02
Days
15
Lawyer
Helen Braddock

limitation

Matter
MT-1002
Client
Fletcher Sheetmetal Ltd
What
Six years from the first dishonoured invoic...
Due
2026-10-08
Days
21
Lawyer
Tane Rewiti

deadline

Matter
MT-1006
Client
Estate of Gordon Farrell
What
Distribution statement to beneficiaries
Due
2026-10-17
Days
30
Lawyer
Priya Sharma

hearing

Matter
MT-1010
Client
Ken Mahoney
What
Trial, three days, Wellington High Court
Due
2026-10-27
Days
40
Lawyer
Helen Braddock

A limitation row is the one that ends careers.

Ask it anything

Questions Actionstep cannot answer

Every one of these is a real question the demo answers today. Yours will be different, and that is the point.

chat_bubble Which limitation dates fall in the next ninety days, and which of those matters has had no activity in a month?
chat_bubble Which undertakings are open right now, who gave each one, in what wording, and which are past their date?
chat_bubble Which open matters have blown past the estimate the client was given, before the bill goes out?
chat_bubble What would one name on the other side of a new retainer hit, across every client, party and matter the firm has ever recorded?
chat_bubble What is the firm's lock-up by client, and which two clients hold most of it?
chat_bubble What is each fee earner's real recovery rate and effective hourly rate after write-offs, not the charge-out rate on the letterhead?
chat_bubble Which open matters carry unbilled work more than ninety days old, and what is it worth at face value?
chat_bubble Which matters would a standards committee find incomplete today: no engagement letter, no conflict check, no CDD?
chat_bubble Which drafted invoices never went out, and how long have they sat?
chat_bubble If a lawyer left tomorrow, which matters, key dates and open undertakings move with them?

Switching

How to switch from Actionstep

Moving off Actionstep is mostly one import command and a short period running both systems side by side, plus one deliberate hand pass to enter key dates and undertakings, because those are too important to import wrongly.

  1. 1

    Export your records from Actionstep

    While your subscription is still live, go to Reports, then Matter Reports, then Export, and run the Data Export Report. Export contacts, matters and time entries to CSV. Do this before you cancel anything: at least one user has reported no grace period on data access once a subscription ends, so get the export done first.

  2. 2

    Run the import, dry run first

    From the Matters for Claude Code folder, import your spreadsheet files named as clients, matters and time. Do a test run first to see what will happen before anything is written. When it looks right, run it again for real to load it.

  3. 3

    Check what the import flags

    Every imported client arrives with no CDD date, and every imported matter with an empty client care file. That is deliberate: the system will not call a file complete because Actionstep never said otherwise. Check compliance to see exactly what to backfill. Key dates and undertakings are entered by hand in one pass, on purpose, not imported.

  4. 4

    Run both systems side by side

    Keep Actionstep running while you use Matters for a short stretch. Check your matters, attention items and key dates against what you already know about your open files. This is where you catch a missed matter or a wrong date before you rely on the new system alone.

  5. 5

    Switch off Actionstep

    Once the numbers match and your team is working from Matters day to day, cancel the Actionstep subscription. Your data now sits in your own records, so nothing you need again depends on an account staying open.

construction

Where the real effort goes

The import command does the mechanical work. The real work is deciding what your own matter types, fields and rules should look like once they are yours to change, and how much history is worth bringing across versus leaving behind. Key dates and undertakings always get entered by hand, on purpose. Enterprise DNA does this whole move for you when they install and run it.

Not ready for a call?

Get your Actionstep switch plan by email

We will send you the step-by-step plan for moving your business off Actionstep, what the move really involves, and how we would do it for you.

One email with your plan. No spam, and you can unsubscribe any time.

Two ways to run it

Run it yourself, or have it run for you

Open source

Run it yourself

Free

  1. 1 Clone the repo
  2. 2 npm run demo, then open the folder in Claude Code
  3. 3 Type /attention
  4. 4 Point it at your own database when the firm needs it
Get it on GitHub

Omni by Enterprise DNA

Have Enterprise DNA install it

One setup fee, then a monthly retainer

  • check We migrate your Actionstep data and walk the key date and undertaking pass with you
  • check We connect it to your email, documents and accounting
  • check We write the commands for your firm's own matter types and rituals
  • check It runs inside Omni, our managed Command Center, with the rest of your business
Book a discovery call

Questions

Instead of Actionstep, answered

Is it really free? expand_more

Yes. MIT licence. Run it anywhere, change anything, no account with us. Enterprise DNA sells installation and running, not the software.

What about our trust account? expand_more

It stays exactly where it is. This system deliberately has no trust accounting: trust money belongs in a dedicated audited system under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act, and this records the practice around it, matters, conflicts, time, fees, dates and undertakings.

Do I need to know databases? expand_more

No. Claude Code writes the queries. Anyone who can describe what they want, in the words a lawyer already uses, can run it.

What happens to our Actionstep history? expand_more

Actionstep's Data Export Report exports contacts, matters and time entries to CSV, and one command imports them here, matched and re-runnable. Key dates and undertakings are entered by hand in one deliberate pass, because they are too important to import wrongly. Export while your subscription is live.

Is the compliance checking legal advice? expand_more

No. It is a rule book with sources, rr 3.4 and 3.5, the conflict rules, r 10.3, the AML/CFT Act, the Limitation Act, that the system checks your own records against. You read the sources, you change the rules to match your practice, and your own judgement stays in charge.

Stop renting screens over your own matters

30 minutes with Sam. We look at what you pay Actionstep for, what your firm actually uses, and what the installed version would look like for you. If it is a fit, we install it. If it is not, take the free version and run it yourself.

Book a discovery call Get the free version

Matters for Claude Code is free and open source, published by Enterprise DNA.

Done paying for Actionstep?

Get your version built