Document generator creates focus on notary business

Mr. Schneider, FSP Notare AG is a young company that emerged from a merger of two well-established notary’s offices, correct?

Florian Schneider: Exactly. In October 2017, the notary’s office Hänggli + Schneider AG, founded in 1961, merged with the notary’s office Klöti, which had been in existence since 1973, to form FSP Notare AG. This allows us to exploit valuable synergies. At the same time, we increased the number of employees to 14.

Is the introduction of ALAN related to this merger?

Florian Schneider: The fact is that ALAN Software AG contacted us at exactly the right moment to present the law firm software. The program is not yet so well known in Aargau. But in view of the fact that we had to reconcile two notary philosophies and two software worlds, a third-party product was just right. Especially as we were immediately convinced that ALAN had the necessary flexibility to be adapted to our needs. In particular with regard to the additionally used document generator, we were able to contribute our practical knowledge for further development.

Narrate.

Florian Schneider: Many notary’s offices use existing documents for a document, such as a purchase agreement, and overwrite them. But it is much less error-prone if you have a template for it. The data is available in the ALAN database. The text generator retrieves these and automatically inserts the correct data in the right place: Here the price, there the buyer, here the seller, of course always grammatically correct. This can be done with just a few clicks and the program generates a ready-to-use text that is then also available for subsequent documents. There is no – again error-prone – repetitive work, you can focus on the essentials and work efficiently.

Was that already in a form that served you?

Florian Schneider: Not quite. We helped to develop it further with our precise ideas and experience. ALAN Software AG probably also had to make these adjustments. But the team was always open to our ideas and worked in an extremely solution-oriented manner.

So the introduction went smoothly?

The challenge here was that the data had to be migrated from two different notary programs and we also had joint clients, so there was a risk of duplication. After ALAN was installed at the beginning of April 2018, we first migrated the data from one program and then only migrated the data from the second program at the beginning of July. In the meantime, our people had to work with two software programs in parallel. We then gradually created the templates for the document generator. We have now been working with one software and one generator since February 2020.

So it’s been a long road for you?

Florian Schneider: The main thing that took time was to set up the document templates according to our ideas. But this very big work is extremely worthwhile, I can only advise every notary colleague to take this time. After that you work super efficiently!

Do the “normal” modules from ALAN “GEBU”, “FIBU” and “KRED” also work?

Florian Schneider: Absolutely, yes. It is very convenient to have service recording and accounting in one system. One can read in e-banking orders or, for example, record work started over the turn of the year, to name just two examples. This all works very comfortably.

Then you are satisfied with ALAN?

Florian Schneider: More than that! We are really taken seriously and work together to find solutions. ALAN Software AG is very customer-oriented.

Thank you very much for the interview!