Taxise Asia streamlines collaboration across borders with iManage

Growing law firm Taxise Asia needed a secure document repository to retain its company knowledge and empower its lawyers to safely and effectively collaborate with colleagues and external consultants. Since transitioning to iManage Work 10 in the Cloud with the help of its Singapore partner, Servtouch, the firm has taken control of its data and employees are able to find new and historical documents quickly, which enables them to complete client work faster.

Taxise Asia, also known as WTS Taxise, is a member of WTS Global, a network of specialist tax firms. Founded in 2019, the Singapore-based firm specializes in international tax and trade law working with clients to develop and implement their global tax and trade strategies.

The business challenge

Easier, more scalable document management

The lawyers at Taxise Asia work across borders on multi-jurisdictional cases with clients and external partners all over the world. The parties all collaborate through emails and video calls and the firm is ultimately responsible for providing a final document for the client.

The firm’s initial approach to document management was manual, using Microsoft Office 365 to share files and collaborate. As the firm grew and staffing changes occurred, they found they needed a better way to keep documents organized and ensure that they retained the firm’s knowledge.

“We work with third parties to give clients comprehensive tax solutions. What we had was not designed for co-authoring, so the process wasn’t as seamless as we’d have liked,” recalls Eugene Lim, Founding Principal, Taxise Asia. “Emails with large attachments also slowed things down and stretched local storage capacities.”

Without a dedicated search capability, finding the right document could be time-consuming, as well —  especially for older files. Sometimes the lawyer who worked on the case originally was still with the firm and could recall the details, but the process was not ideal. Taxise Asia wanted a more sustainable approach to ensure they could scale efficiently and build long-term relationships with clients.

The solution

Centralized, cloud-based document management

Taxise Asia wanted a cloud-based solution from a technology vendor who could partner with the firm as it grows and evolves. When they evaluated the solutions on the market, they considered using their practice management system, Tesseract, as an all-in-one platform.

“Tesseract didn’t meet our document management requirements,” said Lim, noting that there were other concerns, as well. “The iManage team demonstrated that iManage Work 10 in the Cloud was the right choice. It had all the features we were looking for and was highly recommended by members of our team who have used it before.”

Taxise Asia worked with Servtouch to create a project and implementation plan, which included running staff training sessions and developing a methodology and framework for organizing folders. The firm also created protocols for saving and collaborating on documents. They rolled out iManage Work 10 in the Cloud seamlessly and integrated the platform with Microsoft Office to simplify saving emails.

iManage Work 10 in the Cloud is the firm’s user-friendly central data repository for all emails and documents. All new documents and emails are saved directly into iManage while the firm’s archive is being migrated into the new system.

“iManage Work 10 makes collaborating on one document seamless and efficient. Changes are tracked and we can guarantee version control,” Lim explained. “It’s much easier to work with third-party consultants and clients, and we’re planning to create shared workspaces with iManage Drive to make the process even smoother.”