Stop Typing, Start Practicing: 5 NextChapter Features to Automate Your Data Entry
Discover 5 NextChapter features that eliminate manual typing and save legal teams hours on case prep: including CSV pay advice imports, credit report integration, MyChapter client portal, common creditors, and master case templates
  • Data Entry Automation
  • Law Firm Productivity
NextChapter Team
Published on Sep 11, 2026

Manual data entry is the silent productivity killer of legal practice. Between hand-keying six months of pay stubs, manually transferring credit reports line by line, and taking detailed intake notes over the phone (only to re-type them all over again into your case management system), your legal team is spending hours acting as typists rather than legal professionals. Worse, manual entry invites costly human error, leading to misnotices, forced amendments, and delayed filings. To help you reclaim your schedule, NextChapter provides powerful, built-in automation features designed to streamline data entry. Here are 5 features inside your account that will eliminate repetitive typing and speed up case prep, plus a few bonus ones!

1. One-Click Credit Report Integration

Hand-typing creditor names, account balances, and addresses from paper credit reports is not just slow; it is a minefield for typos and transposed numbers.

  • The Time-Saver: Activate NextChapter’s Credit Report Integration with Xactus from your Account Settings > Credit Report Integration. With a single click inside the case file, you can pull a tri-merge report (TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian) that automatically populates into Secured, Unsecured Priority, and Unsecured Nonpriority claims, as well as Schedules D and F.

  • The Value: Automatically import an entire schedule’s worth of debt data in seconds, completely eliminating manual typing and human error.

2. Client Self-Intake with MyChapter Portal

Phone intake calls double your workload: first you take notes during the call, then you turn around and re-type those details into the bankruptcy forms.

  • The Time-Saver: Invite your clients to the MyChapter Client Portal. Clients securely enter their own personal profile, addresses, asset details, and debt history directly into an easy-to-use online questionnaire. Once submitted, you can review their answers and import all the data straight into NextChapter with one click.

  • The Value: Eliminate intake transcription altogether while letting clients fill out their information on their own time.

3. Recurring Common & Default Creditors

Finding yourself typing the exact same regional banks, local utility companies, or common collection agencies for multiple clients? Stop re-inventing the wheel.

  • The Time-Saver: Navigate to Account Settings > Common & Default Creditors. Add your firm's most frequently used creditors, courts, and companies here just once. When working on future cases, typing the first few letters of a creditor's name will auto-fill their full name and address details automatically.

  • The Value: A "one-and-done" setup that reduces recurring creditor entry down to just a couple of keystrokes.

New Features

 

4. Import Pay Advice Data

Calculating the lookback period and Schedule I income should not take hours of spreadsheet math. If your client has variable income or multiple pay stubs, manual entry becomes a bottleneck fast.

  • The Time-Saver: Use the Import Pay Advice Data tool. Instead of typing each pay stub individually, simply download NextChapter’s CSV template, plug in your client’s pay advice numbers (or use AI tools to extract the data into the template), and upload the file back into the system. Keep your eye out for AI for Income coming to NextChapter in the near future!

  • The Value: Convert six months of pay stubs into a single, instant file upload, saving your firm hours of repetitive hand-keying per case.

5. Create Case Templates

If your firm frequently handles standardized local district filings, repeat debtors, or specific Chapter setups, you should not have to build the case framework from scratch every single time.

  • The Time-Saver: Set up a Case Template in your Account Settings. Pre-configure your firm's default preferences, such as default attorney fee disclosures, standard expense line items, local checklists, and exemption sets. When starting a new case, select your master template to apply those pre-set defaults instantly.

  • The Value: Eliminate repetitive configuration steps so you can focus only on the debtor details that are actually unique to the new case.

Bonus Productivity Upgrades!

 

Direct SOFA Review Editing

In addition to these core features, you no longer have to navigate away to "revisit" individual sections when checking the Statement of Financial Affairs. You can now directly edit lines or add items (such as gifts or transfers) through quick pop-outs directly inside the SOFA Review screen.

Income Manual Entry Overrides

If you ever need a calculation to reflect specific custom figures on Schedule I or the Means Test without changing your underlying pay advice data, you can now toggle on Manual Entry to manually input your own totals directly.

Ready to Work Smarter?

You do not need a complex setup to start saving time today. Log into your NextChapter account to start utilizing these built-in tools right away, or reach out to our support team at support@nextchapterbk.com to learn more about setting up integrations for your practice!