Where there's an Orion 4 there must be an Orion 5 somewhere on the horizon. Case in point, practice and financial management software Orion 5 launched a little over a week ago at the ABA Tech Show in Chicago, bringing with it a new set of features designed to chase efficiency—like the ability to order an Uber, for instance.

On the legal front, there's also updates for tracking and reporting an attorney's assignment history and the ability to red flag certain unwanted words or phrases within the billing software so that they can be corrected or replaced.

One of the most important new features? No more paper cuts.

“We need to be prepared to offer our clients an electronic pre-bill process because the printing process has been the same process for nearly 25, 30-years. So we knew that it was time in terms of thinking beyond paper,” said Kevin Harris, project manager at Orion Law Management Systems.

The pre-bill feature, which had its coming out party in January during Legalweek, allows users to annotate, track write-downs or finalize invoices using a desktop computer or tablet.

Orion 5 also continues the trend seen in other law firm management tools of providing a more nuanced look at how various projects consume a lawyer's time and energy.

This version of Orion attaches an effective date—either the originating date of the client in question or when an attorney officially becomes attached to a case—to the person who originated the task, the attorney responsible for executing it and the project manager. Those dates, along with the greater assignment history at large, are also included in any revenue-related reports that are generated.

“And using this as a tool to be able to see over a span of time how, maybe from compensation perspective, who are the people—not just involved in the case—but who would be compensated from the work being done ,” Harris said.

Also included in the Orion 5 package is the ability to copy, paste and import names into a matter intake form and search for potential conflicts among the parties involved in a case or among potential clients.

The next batch of updates will have to wait for Orion 5.2. But according to Harris, a big-ticket goal is to one day develop a thin client (a lightweight computer with no hard drive) version of the software that runs on Windows and has a “rich client interface.”

“We're not really new to the territory because of our mobile platform. It's really just piggybacking on the development that we've done for mobile,” Harris said.

Still, Orion would like a thin client rendition of the product to go deeper and be more in-tune with the desktop version than the mobile app, which was always intended for attorneys on the move. This version would be geared towards accounting and back-end personnel as well as lawyers.