We're pleased to announce the latest release of Access Legal Case Management, Version 2.17.2

This update includes various enhancements and bug fixes detailed below.

This document outlines all you need to know about this version of the software. It summarises the changes included in this release: bug fixes across ALCM, and the HMRC Inheritance Tax form template updates delivered through this release's user stories.

Release 2.17.2 brings ALCM's Inheritance Tax form templates in line with HMRC's reissued IHT400, IHT403, IHT404, IHT405, IHT410, IHT412, and IHT418 forms, so submissions continue to be accepted without manual correction. It also includes a set of reliability fixes spanning fee earner defaulting on time records and correspondence, company and class creation errors, Prison Law letter handling, billing request time entry changes, Opportunities client search filters, the email editor, and IHT403 Additional Information spreadsheet generation.

The most wide-reaching fix addresses fee earner defaulting: ALCM was, in some cases, defaulting the "for user" field on time records, emails, and letters to the wrong person rather than the correct fee earner. This is now aligned with how OneOffice handles the same field, across every entry point.

Company and class creation issues affecting a small number of users with longer initials or longer address entries have also been resolved, alongside a billing request issue where unselecting or writing off a time entry via right-click wasn't actually being saved.

For Prison Law matters, an incorrect calculation error shown when editing Letter Out entries has been fixed, and changing a letter's class (for example PC-1 to PC-2) via the Case tab now correctly updates the associated fee.

Other fixes in this release cover time recording rates on Money and Asset cases when dragging in emails with attachments, client search filters in Opportunities, a cursor issue in the email editor when typing after a link, and the IHT403 Additional Information spreadsheet, which previously failed to generate once a case had enough gifts to require it.

Summary: When recording time, sending emails, or editing letters, ALCM sometimes defaulted the "for user" field to the wrong person, most often to a specific system user who isn't even a fee earner, instead of the correct fee earner. This meant time and correspondence could end up attributed to the wrong person, and if left unnoticed, could affect billing accuracy.

Fix: The "for user" selection across time recording, email, and letter editing now follows the same logic as OneOffice, correctly defaulting to and remembering the right fee earner or other authorised user in every scenario, including when switching between ALCM and OneOffice.

Summary: A user whose initials were four characters long, rather than the standard three, was unable to add a Class Type to a Legal Aid matter, receiving a server error every time, while colleagues with three-character initials had no problem.

Fix: Class creation now correctly handles usernames of any supported length, so users are no longer blocked from setting up classes based on the length of their initials.

Summary: Creating a company client record failed with an error whenever the "Address 2" line of the registered address was longer than 32 characters, even though other address fields on the same form allowed up to 100 characters.

Fix: The database field has been expanded so it can store the same length of address that the form accepts, removing the error.

Summary: Following on from the fix above, further testing found that the Address 2 field still didn't stop a user typing an extremely long address (200+ characters), which could still result in an error on save rather than a clear warning.

Fix: The Address 2 field now properly validates and constrains entries to the maximum supported length as you type, so saving no longer fails.

Summary: When preparing a bill and using the right-click options to unselect a time entry or mark it as write-off, the change appeared to work on screen but wasn't actually saved once the user clicked OK. This meant staff could believe they'd removed or written off time from a bill when, in fact, it hadn't been updated.

Fix: Unselecting or writing off a time entry via right-click now saves correctly, so the billing request accurately reflects the changes made.

Summary: Editing a previously recorded Letter Out on a Prison Law matter and clicking Submit showed an "Error in amount calculation" message, on both PC-1 and PC-2 class matters. It didn't stop the letter being saved, but it was a confusing message to see every time.

Fix: The calculation check has been corrected so editing a Prison Law Letter Out no longer triggers this error message.

Summary: When editing a letter via the Case tab and changing its class, for example from PC-1 to PC-2, the fee shown didn't update to reflect the new class, even though PC-1 and PC-2 letters are charged at different rates.

Fix: Changing a letter's class through the Case tab now correctly recalculates and updates the fee to match the newly selected class.

Summary: On Money and Asset (MA) cases, dragging and dropping an email with attachments into the case didn't apply the correct charging rates for the resulting time records, affecting both the incoming email and any attached letters.

Fix: Time records created by dragging an email with attachments into an MA case now correctly apply the relevant court rate for the email and the fee earner's rate for any attached letters.

Summary: When searching for a client within the Opportunities area, using the column filters, for example filtering the address column for a specific value, returned no results, even when the data being searched for was clearly present.

Fix: Column filters in the Opportunities client search now correctly find and return matching results.

Summary: After adding a link into the body of an email and pressing Enter a couple of times to start a new paragraph, typing a new word would unexpectedly jump back to sit right after the link instead of staying on the new line.

Fix: The editor now keeps typed text on the correct line after a link, so paragraphs after a link behave as expected.

Summary: When a case had enough gifts recorded to require the supplementary Additional Information spreadsheet for the IHT403 form, generating that spreadsheet in ALCM failed with an error, even though the same case worked fine when run through OneOffice.

Fix: The IHT403 Additional Information spreadsheet now generates correctly in ALCM once the gift threshold is reached, without needing to fall back to OneOffice.

HMRC reissued a set of Inheritance Tax forms with restructured field layouts, renumbered fields, and in some cases new questions. This release updates ALCM's form templates so that IHT400, IHT403, IHT404, IHT405, IHT410, IHT412, and IHT418 generate using the current HMRC layouts, keeping submissions valid and avoiding rejected paperwork.

Existing data on older cases maps automatically to the new field structure with nothing lost, duplicated, or displayed against the wrong field. Cases already completed and submitted on a previous version of a form retain that version rather than being automatically upgraded, so historic cases are unaffected.

Updated to the reissued HMRC field structure, including renumbered fields, consolidated date fields, and expanded data grids, so IHT400 continues to generate a compliant, correctly laid out form.

Updated to include the new "percentage of relief claimed" column on the gifts table, reflecting the new cap on 100% Agricultural and Business Relief, along with the restructured Earlier Transfers table (box 19).

Updated to the reissued HMRC field structure so IHT404 continues to generate correctly.

Updated to the reissued HMRC field structure so IHT405 continues to generate correctly.

Updated to the reissued HMRC field structure, including consolidating the Date of Death entry from eight single-character fields into three multi-character fields.

Updated to the reissued HMRC field structure so IHT412 continues to generate correctly.

Updated to the reissued HMRC field structure so IHT418 continues to generate correctly.