If you’re a court reporting firm owner or office manager, aside from making sure the schedule is covered and that clients pay their bills, there is one thing with the potential to drive you nuttier than anything else when it comes to running your business: quality control. Every transcript that goes out with your firm’s name on it is an ad for how much care and effort you take to put out a top-quality transcript. Every word of the testimony can be correct, but if the spelling of names is inconsistent from one page to the next, if the index references incorrect page numbers, or if pages or lines break improperly and make the document hard to read – how might the client react? How would you react if it was a product you had ordered?

Did you know that there are features built into the Case CATalyst software that can ensure you don’t have to worry about these issues? For example, proper usage of <Sticky Space> and <Orphan Control – n Lines> format symbols will ensure accurate page and line breaks. Using Build Index with an index template created with the firm’s preferences can ensure that any index – simple or complex – can be built in seconds and always be 100% accurate. With the dynamic page numbering feature, even if you have to make additional edits after the index is built, the page numbers are automatically adjusted without having to rebuild the index. Layouts and custom EZ Speaker dictionary entries can ensure that headers that reflect information within the transcript appear on the correct page. Using a field instead of typing in text for a repeated name enables consistent spelling of every occurrence.

Of course, to make sure that these features are helping with quality control, reporters must know how to use them! So if you’re a court reporting firm owner or office manager, ask your reporters whether they know how to use these features. If they don’t, it will be worthwhile to invest in training to reduce the time that is spent proofreading for and/or correcting these issues before the transcript is submitted! Visit http://www.stenograph.com/cat-training-agent-list and scroll down to the grid listing for all of the available training agents. Contact the agent nearest you, an agent providing remote services, or me, Cindi Lynch, at clynch@stenograph.com for a suggestion as to the best person for your office’s needs. Stenograph stands ready to help you meet your quality control goals!

Cindi Lynch is the Training Program Manager at Stenograph. She can be reached at clynch@stenograph.com.