Actionstep is accelerating its product roadmap with the upcoming launch of Trace, a next-generation time capture module designed to help law firms record more accurate billable work with less effort.
The Denver-based company, which provides cloud-based law firm management software to nearly 5,000 firms globally, says Trace tackles one of the most persistent challenges in legal operations: manual, incomplete, and delayed time capture that leads directly to lost revenue.
For decades, lawyers and law firm professionals have relied on timesheets and memory to reconstruct their day—an approach that is inefficient, error-prone, and increasingly out of step with modern practice. Trace reimagines time capture by using AI-driven, passive activity tracking to capture work as it happens across tools legal teams already use, including Outlook, Word, PDFs, and common web applications.
Powered by next-generation AI, Trace automatically detects activity, understands the legal work performed, maps it to the correct client and matter, and generates draft, bill-ready time entries for review and approval. Lawyers remain in control, while the system removes much of the administrative burden associated with tracking time.
“For modern law firms, time capture should no longer depend on painful end-of-day guesswork or end-of-week catch-up,” said Triona Buckley, Chief Product Officer at Actionstep. “With Trace, time capture happens seamlessly in the background, helping firms maximize revenue realization while dramatically reducing timekeeper administration.”
To accelerate development of Trace, Actionstep recently acquired an early-stage passive time capture startup called Traced and brought its founder, Aiden Bub, into Actionstep’s in-house time capture team. The move strengthens the company’s ability to deliver workflow-embedded, intelligence-driven AI purpose-built for law firm operations.
“Time and billing is one of the most strategic pillars of practice management,” Buckley said. “We’ve been closely watching the market for truly innovative, AI-powered approaches to time capture that deliver real value for midmarket firms. Traced stood out for its product maturity and focus. We loved the name, but modified it to Trace—because modern time capture happens in the present tense, not in retrospect.”
Trace builds on Actionstep’s expanding AI-enhanced product portfolio and follows its 2023 acquisition of Toronto-based legal accounting platform Soluno from payments company AffiniPay—a deal that strengthened Actionstep’s presence in the Canadian midmarket.
According to the company, Trace ensures work is captured accurately, coded correctly, and presented using firm-approved language and billing preferences, supporting faster billing cycles and more flexible rate models.
“It’s a win for law firm management, a win for timekeepers, and a meaningful leap forward for firms already relying on our core time capture tools,” Buckley said.
The launch of Trace follows a series of recent Actionstep product releases, including Acumen, its advanced business intelligence module, and Capture, its data collection tool—signaling a broader push to help midsize law firms modernize operations and build long-term competitive advantage.