There are enough time and billing programs to warrant their own column--but they're all pretty similar. BillQuick stands out for many users as easier to use than some other top sellers. And it's attracting attention by offering discounts to customers who switch from the competition.

Like most other off-the-shelf packages, BillQuick allows users to keep time on their desktops; has loads of reports and billing formats, many of which can be customized; and is hefty enough to handle thousands of clients and their related matters.

While many time and billing programs are still a little too rigid, BillQuick is notable for its flexibility. And John Tomaselli, who has admiralty practices in New York and Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., finds the company's prompt and conscientious customer service its major selling point.

Tomaselli bought BillQuick about two months ago after a drawn-out, unpleasant experience with the tech support of a competing software outfit.

When Tomaselli bought a new Think Pad with the latest and greatest of the new Pentiums inside, Timeslips wouldn't work. Tomaselli called Timeslips tech support, but the technicians seemed not only unable to solve the problem but unwilling even to try.

"Fixing it wasn't a concern to them, " Tomaselli says. "They told me other people were calling with the same problem, but that they couldn't recreate the problem in order to fix it because they didn't have any new Pentiums. They could have ordered one and had it there the next day. . . . I was a die-hard Timeslips user until then, " Tomaselli says. Tomaselli then tried out BillQuick and liked it.

Though BillQuick is more flexible than Timeslips, there are trade-offs. Tomaselli found Timeslips to be more intuitive, but he notes that after two months with BillQuick, he's quite comfortable with it.

And though BillQuick, unlike Timeslips, allows users to modify or customize almost anything, doing so is not hazard-free. Tomaselli ran into a snag while trying to modify one of BillQuick's many invoice templates. He called tech support. When the problem couldn't be solved over the phone, the head of tech support had Tomaselli e-mail the invoice to him. After fixing the problem, tech support e-mailed it back to Tomaselli and asked his permission to include the template as he'd modified it in the next BillQuick version.

A few other BillQuick features also deserve a brief mention. BillQuick is password protected at the user level. Data can be changed even after printing--a problem with many packages. Previously printed data will appear on the screen in blue type. And perhaps most important to efficiency-minded lawyers, users may keep an unlimited number of timers on screen at any time.

Tomaselli tried out the multiple stopwatches last week. "It's a great little thing, " he says. A user can have a timer up for each active case he's working on and "as you change and shift and make phone calls, you can just zip back and forth between them, "

CAVEATS: As noted above, BillQuick is less intuitive than Timeslips. Be prepared to spend some time getting to know the program. And users who haven't upgraded their systems in the last couple of years are left in the cold: This program requires a minimum of Windows 95.