AntChambers

A small core, and what you may switch on around it

The module catalogue

Core is in every installation and is not separately licensed. Everything else is a module the firm enables when it needs it, by licence rather than by deployment. A five-person practice and a hundred-lawyer firm run the same software.

Everything that can be installed

The catalogue.

Each module carries its own permissions — who may look, who may change, who may approve — and the firm decides which of them each designation gets. A supervisor approving a team’s week, a partner reviewing a matter and an associate seeing only their own entries are three different grants of the same module.

  • Core

    core

    Users, designations, permissions, firm branding, settings, audit trail, notifications and file storage. Present in every installation.

  • Clients

    licensed

    Client master with contacts and billing entities, per-client GST treatment and TDS applicability.

    Read more
  • Matters

    licensed

    Matter type, court, case number, opposing party and hearing dates — with configurable status and priority lists.

    Read more
  • Tasks

    licensed

    A task catalogue plus per-matter assignments with assignee, supervisor and due dates.

  • Timesheets

    licensed

    Weekly entry grid with overlap validation, an approval queue, entries that lock once approved, and a reminder job.

    Read more
  • Expenses

    licensed

    Disbursement capture with receipt attachments, a billable flag and an approval queue.

  • Billing

    licensed

    Terms of engagement, bills raised from approved time and expenses, GST, TDS-aware receipts, FY numbering, PDF and DOCX invoices.

    Read more
  • Retainer

    licensed

    Pre-paid wallets per client or matter, a full ledger, replenishment on finalised bills and a low-balance scan.

    Read more
  • Documents

    licensed

    A central document store per client and matter with versioning and permission-aware access.

    Read more
  • Reports

    licensed

    A parameterised report runner with Excel and PDF export and scheduled email delivery. Modules contribute their own reports.

What firms actually license

Three common shapes.

  • A small practice recording time

    Core · Clients · Matters · Tasks · Timesheets

    Get the record straight first. Bills still go out of Word, but the hours behind them are real and approved.

  • A firm billing properly

    + Expenses · Billing · Reports

    Terms of engagement, GST invoices, receipts net of TDS, and the reports partners ask for in the monthly meeting.

  • A full deployment

    + Retainer · Documents

    Money on account with a ledger, and the papers filed against the matter they belong to.

Firms usually start at the first shape and move to the second after a settled month of timekeeping. There is no penalty for arriving in stages, because adding a module is a licence change rather than a project.

Why the boundaries are enforced, not agreed

What keeps modules independent.

Modules that can reach into each other’s data are not modules, they are folders. The independence here is structural and tested: a module may only use another module’s published interface, they react to each other through announcements rather than reaching in, and each module owns its own records outright.

The test that matters is blunt — take a module out altogether and everything else still works. That is what makes "enabled for this firm, disabled for that one" safe rather than merely configured.

What is not here yet

Honest about the edge.

A client portal — a read-only area where a firm’s clients see their invoices, statements and shared documents — is designed and on the roadmap, and is not in this release. It is listed here because you will ask, and because a catalogue that quietly omits the thing you were hoping for is worse than one that tells you when to expect it.

If a client portal is decisive for you, say so during the evaluation and we will tell you honestly where it sits.

Questions this raises

Straight answers.

How is a module enabled?

By the licence. It names the modules your installation may run, it is signed so it cannot be altered, and it is checked by the installation itself. Enabling a module later means a new licence — never different software.

What exactly happens to a module we have not licensed?

It is simply not there. No screens, no menu entries, no reports in the list, and nothing running in the background.

Do modules depend on each other?

Some do, and honestly so. Billing needs Clients, Matters, Timesheets and Expenses to have anything to bill. Retainer needs Billing, because a wallet exists to be drawn down. Everything else stands alone.

Can we build our own module?

Not today. Modules are ours, licensed per firm — "modular" here means switched on for your firm, not a public marketplace. The discipline that keeps modules independent would make a plug-in programme possible later, and we have kept that door open rather than promising it.

See it against your own matters

A working demo takes about forty minutes. Bring a real fee note and a real timesheet week — we would rather show you the awkward parts than the polished ones.