Welcome to the ProfilesFx Online Help System! The Client Profiles Financial System (ProfilesFx) Help System was designed to provide assistance in navigating the many features of our software. Providing "best practice" guidance and helping you maximize the benefits our programs have to offer your firm. ProfilesFx online documentation is updated with each commercial release and automatically downloaded with any upgrade. Access our most current product documentation online at: http://clientprofiles.com/documentation This manual is published on-line for all registered ProfilesFx clients in both HTML and.pdf formats.
About the ProfilesFx documentation The ProfilesFx documentation includes detailed instructions to help you navigate the Time & Billing, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, General Ledger, and System areas of the software. It provides step by step directions to the billing process as well as essential information to help you work through typical accounting procedures This help system contains: Program features and functions System Set-up and Configuration Info 'How to' examples Best Practices Guides Technical information regarding integration and reporting. Locate information quickly The most recent version of this help product will be made available online and accessible from your Help menu. Use the Contents tab to view all major sections in the online help and drill down to specific headings within each section, the Index tab to view topics in alphabetical order, the Search tab to enter a keyword to view all the sections that relate to the keyword, and a glossary of terms. Access a PDF version of the Crystal Reports documentation online at http://support.clientprofiles.com/documentation. The PDF version contains a subset of the topics found in the online help, along with additional knowledge base topics. Standards used throughout this documentation include: Items referenced with Italics are buttons, fields, grids, or data elements on a system dialog or screen. Comments or best practice suggestions are highlighted in a gray block.
System Overview ProfilesFx is a suite of over 50 programs organized into 5 modules or subject areas. They are: Time & Billing Client Profiles' time and billing software module provides all of the tools necessary to quickly and accurately record and bill client time and expenses. The flexibility of the system ensures clients can be billed in a format that provides quicker cash recovery. A multitude of billing arrangements, task based billing, electronic billing, and automated expense recovery provide you with the tools to bill your clients in a timely, accurate, and efficient manner. Accounts Receivable
Central to the health of any firm is the proper management of its accounts receivable. The Accounts Receivable module includes the programs you need to facilitate fast payment from your clients and the ability to monitor aged or open receivables. Accounts Payable Keep on top of your cash requirements and ensure that client expenses get billed with our integrated accounts payable module. Tracking vendors, establishing check books, checking account reconciliation, and producing 1099's are also key components to the accounts payable area. General Ledger The General Ledger module within Client Profiles acts as the central repository for all firm financial data. The GL provides the mechanism for monitoring overall firm performance. A vast array of customizable reports and inquiries is provided to assist the firm in evaluating profitability and performance. A complete general ledger reconciliation program is included in the general ledger module. Trust and Escrow accounting is also an integral element handled within the General Ledger module. System The System modules provides configuration tools to customize this product to better fit the needs of your firm. In this area you can define codes, set system wide defaults, institute security methods, register new custom reports, and run a conflict of interest check.
System Overview ProfilesFx is a suite of over 50 programs organized into 5 modules or subject areas. They are: Time & Billing Client Profiles' time and billing software module provides all of the tools necessary to quickly and accurately record and bill client time and expenses. The flexibility of the system ensures clients can be billed in a format that provides quicker cash recovery. A multitude of billing arrangements, task based billing, electronic billing, and automated expense recovery provide you with the tools to bill your clients in a timely, accurate, and efficient manner. Accounts Receivable
Central to the health of any firm is the proper management of its accounts receivable. The Accounts Receivable module includes the programs you need to facilitate fast payment from your clients and the ability to monitor aged or open receivables. Accounts Payable Keep on top of your cash requirements and ensure that client expenses get billed with our integrated accounts payable module. Tracking vendors, establishing check books, checking account reconciliation, and producing 1099's are also key components to the accounts payable area. General Ledger The General Ledger module within Client Profiles acts as the central repository for all firm financial data. The GL provides the mechanism for monitoring overall firm performance. A vast array of customizable reports and inquiries is provided to assist the firm in evaluating profitability and performance. A complete general ledger reconciliation program is included in the general ledger module. Trust and Escrow accounting is also an integral element handled within the General Ledger module. System The System modules provides configuration tools to customize this product to better fit the needs of your firm. In this area you can define codes, set system wide defaults, institute security methods, register new custom reports, and run a conflict of interest check.
Time and Billing Overview The Time & Billing modules provide the means to track fees and expenses, edit time and expense cards, manage clients, matters, employees and generate bills. These series of programs comprise the necessary tools to effectively track and bill time & costs in a flexible yet professional format meeting the needs of the firms clients. Time & Billing includes:time Entry, Expense Recovery, Proof & Final Billing Options, Real-time Bill Editing Features, Automatic Bill Reversals, Task Based Billing and Electronic Billing. Time Entry Introduction Entering time and expense cards is critical to the profitability of your firm. We offer several ways to capture time and expense cards from your attorneys with our integrated and standalone programs. Choose from one or more of the options below that will best suit your firm. Attorney Time Entry via Case Management Offers time and expense card entry while working a matter from within our Case Management program. Provides seamless integration with the time and billing system. Time Entry via Time & Billing Typically provided to the firm timekeepers via CPLite. Captures time and expense records while utilizing all the features of the Time & Billing system. Staff Time Entry via Time & Billing Also called Simple Time Entry, requires minimum information to quickly and efficiently create time cards in a ledger style environment. Automated Expense Recovery Obtain client related expenses directly from the firm copy or fax machines. Post transactions directly to the Time and Billing system. Copyright 2008 Client Profiles Financial Management Software.
Attorney Time & Expense Entry You will be prompted to create a new time session or use an existing unposted session. To input a batch of time cards, press the Create New button and provide a description for your session, ex; "KMS June Time". This descriptive name provides a reference should you need to come back at a later time to add additional time and expense cards to a session. modifications. Open a previously a session with unposted time for further additions or
To continue editing an active session that you have created, choose from the list. Show All Employee Time Session: To open an active session that was created by someone other than yourself. Session Status: Error - applies only to time entries that have been entered on an inactive matter, invalid client, or for an inactive employee. When these types of entries have been made a session is produced with this status as means to provide tracking or correction. These types of sessions cannot be posted. Template - used for recurring transactions. Provides the ability to produce transactions from predefined copies. Active - not posted, not queued, not being edited, not being worked on at the moment, able to be edited, queued or posted. Queued- ready to be posted, no longer available for editing. Posted - posted to Time and Billing and unavailable for change in time entry. Once posted, time entries are edited in the Write up/write Down or Supervisor Edit programs. Edit - currently opened and being worked on. Not available for posting.
Open a new time session to begin the input of time and expense. ID: The Employee number or code of the staff member for whom you are entering time. The default is you own employee ID. Change as necessary. This will become the default for each time card you create. It can be changed per time card so it is not critical to set it precisely, nor is there a requirement to create a session per timekeeper. More than one timekeeper can have time cards in a given session. Management Period: the management period in which these time and expenses occurred. This will default on each time card and cannot be changed. Session Name: We suggest a meaningful name for easy identification in the future. Typical naming conventions include timekeeper initials and reference to a period of time or client. Frequency: If you create unique time and expense cards each time your produce a session, choose One Time. If you produce recurring time and expense cards, choose the template option. This allows you to save your transactions and reuse them at a later date.
Session Name: reflects the name provided when the session was created. Entry Type: choose time or expense. The dialog screen will adjust the required data elements accordingly. Speed Codes: used as means to establish a template for recurring time & expense cards or frequently accessed matters. While completing a time entry, choose a code from the list. Its contents will populate fields with values that were saved when the code was created. Transaction: shows the current transaction number in this session. As time & expense cards are added, the transaction number is incremented. These numbers can provide you a reference for future editing or retrieval. Mgt Period: Reflects the period entered when the session was created.
Client: the client number or code that is to be billed for this time or expense Matter: the client matter number or code this time or expense will reference. Date: Date the service or expense occurred. To produce an accurate time card, utilize the timer. First choose the client and matter. Toggle on the timer while working. Turn it off when you complete your work. The time spent on this task will be shown as Elapsed time in hours, minutes, and seconds. Both the Actual and Billing hours will increment and round accordingly. It is possible to have more than one time card open with the timer running. Employee: person responsible for service or expense. Default is derived from Timekeeper ID provided when the session was created. Task Code: only applicable if a task code group is assigned to the matter. When assigned, task codes can dictate the billing hours & rate, or units as a means to provide uniformity in billing your client. In these circumstances you must provide a task code and can do so by using the search button to choose from an existing list. See also Task Codes. Activity Code: a further definition of a task code. Applicable only when task codes have been assigned to a matter. Not mandatory. Use the search button to choose from a list of predefined codes. See also Activity Codes. Type of Work: a mandatory field used to categorize time cards. The default value that appears on the screen is reflective of the value established on the matter. Type of Expense: a mandatory field used to categorize expense cards. Provides the ability to summarize expenses on a client invoice. Only applicable when entering a time card. Description of Work: a narrative summary of the work provided or an explanation of an expense. See Standard Narrative for time saving tips while entering your description. Actual Hours and Rate: the hours that were incurred and the rate that was applied to this clients time card.
Billing Hours and Rate: the hours we are going to bill our client and the rate at which those hours are billed. Can be different from the actual if writing down the amount we are going to reflect on the client invoice. Round By: the number of minutes used to determine when to round up to the nearest tenth of an hour. In the diagram above, this set to 6(min) or the equivalent of.1 (one tenth) of an hour. Alternatively, when set to 15(min) or one quarter of an hour, hours are round up by.25. Time is never rounded down. (Examples,.15 hours rounds to.2 when this field is set to 6,.3 hours rounds to.5 when this field is set to 15) Use Rounding: determines whether the rounding feature is used as described in the Round By feature above. Place a check in this box to round up hours. Leave empty if rounding is not desired. This capability can be turned on or off for each time card as it is entered. Overtime Hours: used as a means to flag a time card as being worked with overtime. No special processing is done. A report can be produced to show time cards designated with the overtime flag. Billing Details Navigation tools: Create a new time or expense card. Save record - used for the importing and exporting of remote time and expense sessions. Time and expense records are saved automatically. Delete the time card you are currently viewing. View time and expense reports with the Print Wizard. Additional WIP reports are available from Executive Inquiry. First, last, next, and previous record navigation buttons used to view records in the current session. The Next with Active Timer button is useful when you have a large number of cards in your session and you want to navigate only to those cards that have the active timer running.
Create a new time card and replicate the data from the time card you are currently viewing. Provides the ability to include a tax category, additional billing instructions, suspending the invoicing of this service to a future date, or marking a time card as non billable. Billable: Mark time card as billable or non-billable Choose a transaction, within the current session, for editing. Post the time and expense cards in the current session making them available for billing. Queue the current session. Makes only the description of work available for editing and all transactions in the session ready for posting. In this state time and expense cards are not available for billing. Reject a queued session. Return it to active status and make it available for editing. Run spell check on the time card you are currently editing. Attach a document to a time or expense card. An example might be authorization of service or justification for an expense. Add Speed Code - used as means to establish a template for recurring time & expense cards. Populate the fields that you want to save then press the speed code button. You are prompted to provide a meaningful name for your new speed
code that will allow for retrieval at a later date. The next time you create a time card press this button and retrieve a previously saved template. The values you saved in the template will populate the appropriate fields in your new time card. Use the Speed Code Maintenance feature, located on the Tools menu, to mark a speed code inactive if you no longer use it.
Staff Time Entry Simple Time Entry, also referred to as Staff Time Entry, provides the capability for rapid entry of time transactions with minimum information requirements. Similar to other time entry programs, you create a session and input time entries. With minimum prerequisites and a simple interface, this feature is attractive to bulk data entry. Sessions created with this feature are available for editing and posting similar in manner to sessions produced by other time entry programs. Creating a session: Click the New Session radio button.
Period: Defaults to your current time and billing management period. Accept or change as necessary. Employee: Defaults to your employee ID. Accept or change by using the search button and choosing from the employee picklist. This value will be defaulted into the transactions you are about to create. Employee ID indicates the person for whom you are entering time. Name: provide a meaningful name for the session that will enable you to easily identify and reference this session at a later date. Creating a template: when you have recurring time transactions enter them into a template session. Transactions can be retrieved, edited, and posted making these type of sessions a time saving mechanism. Press OK to continue.
Client: Click in the client column and enter the appropriate client number or use the down arrow and locate a client using the Picklist dialog. Matter: Click in the client column and enter the appropriate client number or use the down arrow and locate a client using the Picklist dialog. Employee: click in the employee column and enter the appropriate employee number or use the down arrow and locate an employee using the Picklist dialog. Task Code: click in the task code column and enter the appropriate code or use the down arrow and locate a code using the Picklist dialog. Activity Code: click in the activity code column and enter the appropriate code or use the down arrow and locate a code using the Picklist dialog. Date: click in the Date column and enter the appropriate value.
Hours: click in the Hours column and enter the appropriate value. Narrative: click in the green box on the grid and begin typing the narrative of your time entry or press the solid silver block in the "#" column to use the narrative dialog box. Standard Narrative Code(s): click the solid box located under the client number field. Locate the appropriate narrative from the Picklist dialog. See Feature Capabilities below to continue processing your session. Editing a session: The default dialog is set to retrieve an existing active session that you have created. The procedure will allow you to make changes, additions, or deletions to transactions. It also provides the capability to queue or delete a session.
If you are searching for a session created by another timekeeper, check the Show All Employee Time Session box. Review Session Status to determine the editing options that will be made available when you locate your specific session. Select a session and press the OK button to continue.
Use the feature capabilities listed below to update this session. Feature capabilities: Add a new time transaction. Delete an individual time transaction - highlight a transaction in the list and press the delete icon. It will be removed from the session and eliminated from the gird. Duplicate an existing time transaction - highlight the transaction you wish to duplicate then press this icon or the Duplicate Record button.
Spell Check - runs Spell Check on the narratives for each transaction in the grid. Queue the session making it available for posting. Post a session making transactions available for billing. Queue session making it available for posting. Delete Session - delete the session and all of its contents, permanently. Duplicate an existing time transaction - highlight the transaction you wish to duplicate then press this button or the Duplicate Record icon. Speed Codes: used as means to reproduce large blocks of recurring narrative text. While completing a time entry, choose a code from the list. Its contents will populate the narrative block on the grid. Add Speed Code - saves the narrative from a time entry for reuse. Click in the green block on the grid which contains the narrative you want save for future use. Click the speed code button and provide a meaningful name that will allow for retrieval at a later date. Should a session get 'stuck' in edit mode use the Session Manager to return it to an active status for additional processing.
Time Entry with Case Management The Time Keeping with Case Management provides an easy to use, calendar based desktop for entering, viewing and maintaining time entry data. In this section you will find assistance in the following areas: Basic Time Entry Working with the Calendar View Review, Edit, and Posting Time Cards Working with the Time Entries View Basic Time Entry
From the Case Desktop column on left of your screen, select Time Sheet from the list of program icons. The Calendar Desktop will appear similar to that shown above displaying the current month. Should you have time entries for this period, they will appear in the calendar. Time entries are summarized by status: Pending - unposted and unavailable to the accounting department. Still available for editing. WIP - posted an unbilled yet available to the accounting department for billing. Not available for editing with this program. Billed - posted and billed. Invoice has been sent to client. To enter a time card, right click on the day it applies to and select New Item from the pull down menu. The Time Entry Screen appears similar to the one below. You must specify the Client and Matter for each timecard. To do so, click the search button and find the Client, then do the same in finding the matter. Or if you only know the matter, you can search it by name or number, using the Lookup dialog. Choose the matter from the list and notice the Client & Matter numbers appear appropriately.
Client: the client number or code that is to be billed for this time or expense Matter: the client matter number or code this time or expense will reference. If you have opened a matter from the Case Desktop before you start Time Entry, the client and matter will be populated appropriately on your time card. Date: Date the service occurred. Actual vs. Billing: The difference between what you actually worked and what you are going to bill the client is termed "Write Up/Write Down". If you worked 1 hour and want credit for that time, enter it in the Actual column. If only 1/2 of that hour is billable, enter that value in the Billing column. Actual hours and rate will default into billing automatically.
When the Billable field is not selected, the Billing column Rate and Amount are zeroed out. Employee: person responsible for service or expense. Default is derived from current user. If you are entering time for someone other than yourself, click on the button adjacent to the Employee field. Use the lookup dialog to locate the appropriate staff member. Double click your selection which will return you to the Time Entry dialog with the employee code and name you have chosen. Office Code: your office code as defined by the accounting department. Applicable only when tracking time and expense by office. Dept: your department code as defined by the accounting department. Applicable only when tracking time and expense by departments. Task Code: only applicable if a task code group is assigned to the matter. When assigned, task codes can dictate the billing hours & rate, or units as a means to provide uniformity in billing your client. In these circumstances you must provide a task code and can do so by using the search button to choose from an existing list. See also Task Codes. Activity Code: a further definition of a task code. Applicable only when task codes have been assigned to a matter. Not mandatory. Use the search button to choose from a list of predefined codes. See also Activity Codes. Billable: Is the work, as described in this time card billable to the client? If yes, the box should be checked. If not, the box is unchecked. Type of Work: a mandatory field used to categorize time cards. Often defaulted to the majority of service provided by the firm but also derived from the matter you have chosen. Description: a narrative summary of the work provided or an explanation of an expense. See Standard Narrative for time saving tips while entering your description. Enter your description and ensure it for accuracy as this information will appear on the client bill. The field utilizes the spell check feature. Click OK to complete your time card.
OK icon: You card will be saved and you will be returned to the Time Sheet Calendar Copy Icon: You time card will be saved and you will be presented with a new time card. This new time card will maintain all of the information from your previous card. Using this feature helps to speed data entry time when entering multiple time cards for similar work. You may only need to change the Date, Client, or Matter information and therefore quickly completing additional time cards. Add Next icon: Another feature to speed data entry time, this option maintains the Client, Matter, Employee, and Date information but resets the remaining fields to your default or blank. Cancel: Will not create a new time card and return you to the calendar view. If you are entering time for someone other than yourself or want to view time entries for someone else, you must add them to your calendar view. Right click and select Change User or press the Change User icon below the menu bar on the top of the screen. Both will present you with the list of firm staff members. Choose names from the list with a single click, click OK, and their hours will be included in the values shown on the calendar. Working within the Calendar view
The Calendar view includes the following features: Cumulative total of hours and amounts for everyone you have added to your view. Hours are broken out into: Pending - unposted and unavailable to the accounting department. Still available for editing. WIP - posted an unbilled yet available to the accounting department for billing. Not available for editing with this program. Billed - posted and billed. Invoice sent to client. These summary amounts at the bottom of the dialog may change when you choose between Billing and Actual. You can also toggle the check box next to Pending, WIP, or Billed to show only those values you choose to see. Right click on any day in the calendar to add a new time card.
Monthly: The cumulative totals at the bottom of the Calendar view are based on all rows in the Calendar. In the example above, we have two days in July, the entire month of August, and one day in September showing on our screen. By checking the Monthly box, the totals are changed to reflect only the values for the month of August. Working with the Time Entries View The time entries list is highly manipulative. It has the ability to show cards for periods of time, multiple staff members, and can sort or categorize entries by any of the column headers. Double Click on a day in the calendar for which you wish to view time card data. The calendar will switch to the Time Entries screen with a list of all entries on that day for the currently selected Timekeeper(s). To view time entries over a date range from the Calendar Screen, click on the start day in the calendar screen for your date range and shift+double click on the end day. Review, Edit and Post Time Card Entries
To limit the entries shown on this dialog by certain Billing Status, click on the Status label in the Time Entries screen control panel and deselect All Entries. Then select the status that meet your criteria. Selecting or deselecting the Pending, WIP, or Billed status boxes at the bottom right of the Calendar Screen has no effect on the time records to be displayed in the Time Entries Screen. The default is All Records. To edit time cards: Any time card with a status of Pending can be edited. Those with a status of WIP or Billed cannot. Select a Pending time card from the Time Entries list then right click and select the Edit Current Time Card from the pop up menu. The Time Entry dialog will be displayed with previously entered data available for editing. Click OK, to save your changes. To post time cards: Any time card with a status of Pending can be posted. Those with a status of WIP or Billed have already been posted Place a check next to the time card(s) you are ready to post. Right click and select Post Selected Cards from the pop up menu. Those posted time cards have their status changed from Pending to Posted and are made available for billing. Press the Refresh button to confirm the results. Newly posted WIP will be included in the Actual Hours and Actual Amount totals at the bottom of the screen. At present, the Time Entries view defaults to providing you the total number for Actual Hours worked. The Calendar View shows the amount of Billing Hours. Which means the numbers on the Calendar View vs the numbers on the Time Entries view may differ if Write Up or Write Down was done. See Change Grid View Column Settings to add Billing Hours to the Time Entries View To refresh the Calendar view, right click on the calendar and select the Refresh option from the pull down list (not shown), the corresponding changes in time status and related tallies will be displayed in the calendar view.
Change Columns to Display on Time Entries Grid Right click on the data grid while in the Time Entries View and receive the Column Selection prompt as seen below.
Place or remove a check next to the data element you want to include or exclude in the grid. Note, adding Billable Hours is most common. Save settings? right click, select Choose Columns to Display to make column selection screen disapear
Components to the billing process Codes, rates, employees, clients, and matters must all be setup properly to achieve the desired results in your final bills. Each of the programs listed below provide the ability to configure and maintain these integral components of the billing process.
Task Code Maintenance The Task Code Maintenance Dialog provides for input and maintenance of both Task Codes and Activity Codes. Task Codes: Provides a means to facilitate effective communication of the tasks and costs of litigation and any variations from the expected or the norm. The result is a consistent interpretation and true picture of the labor cost of each task provided to the client. All work associated with a task should be included in that category or fall under a given code. All tasks associated with a type of litigation can be incorporated into a group. Bankruptcy proceedings or Real Estate are examples. Codes and groups ultimately can provide each client and law firm with a means to individually understand and compare the cost of litigation. Enhanced reporting efficiency and a foundation for use of alternative billing arrangements are additional benefits; fixed fee being one. For those desiring, a task codes can provide a means to produce a budget for various phases of a case and a method to evaluate a monthly bill to the cumulative and overall budget. The determination to use task codes is made at the client or matter level. When a Task Code Group has been assigned, task codes become mandatory during Time Entry.
To add a new Task Code Group, select the File option from the menu bar and choose New Task Group. The Create New Task Group dialog will appear as shown below. Enter the name of your new task group and press the Create button. With your group added it will now appear in the Group Name list. Task codes can now be added, modified or deleted from a group.
Add a task code Task Code: a numeric, alpha, or alphanumeric code designation a task. Hours: Number of hours to accomplish the related task. If the override box is checked, when this particular task code is used during time entry, the hours entered here will default into the Billable Hours field on the time entry screen. Units: Applies to expense transactions. Number of copies would be an example. Works similarly to Hours during time entry. Rate: A standardized per hour dollar amount utilized when billing for this task. In time entry when this task code is used, this rate value will override the timekeeper rate. Amount: Hours x Rate = Amount. Override: When checked, the values entered in this screen will default into the Billable hour & rate, or units fields during time entry. Description: the narrative describing a code. Can appear on invoices and reports.
Delete a task code - highlight a code in the list and press this button. Edit a task code - double click in the Code column on the task Code List dialog and be presented with the Task Code Entry dialog as seen in the Add a task code section. See also: Using a task code during time entry Assigning a task code group to a client Activity Codes: Further defines the Task Code. For example, the Task Code could be Return Clients Call. The Activity Code could be Printed new statement. The activity code states what was done within the task. Linked to and associated with Task code.
Type of Expense Code Maintenance Type of Expense codes are used for consistent processing of client expenses, both within the Time Entry program and in conjunction with General Ledger and Accounts Payable. These codes are defined and maintained to meet the specific requirements of your firm. This program will allow you to input, edit or delete Type of Expense codes. It is important to note that expense codes must be carefully coordinated with your firm's General Ledger and Accounts Payable records. Once these codes have been used, we recommend that you do not change or delete them. If creating your Type Of Expense code list for the first time, we recommend you use codes in a way that allows the distinction between hard and soft costs. By definition, hard costs are out of pocket expenses such as travel expenses and filing fees which normally flow from the Accounts Payable module. Soft costs are other recoverable expenses such as photocopies, faxes, printing, or long distance phone calls. We recommend a numeric range such as; soft costs 01-99 and hard costs above 100. OR all soft cost codes start with S and hard costs start with H. With this kind of methodology, when bills are created the AR Ledger will be able to distinguish which costs on the bill are hard vs. soft. Elements used in the definition of an expense code are: Code: Expense Codes are alphanumeric codes, up to 8 characters in length.
Description: A meaningful and accurate description of the type of expense this code is to be assigned to. This description will transferred to the 'Description of Work' in the Time Entry program when entering client matter expenses. Ultimately, it can be used on the client invoice. Markup Percent: If you continually markup certain expenses, enter a percentage amount in this field. For example, if you mark up all photocopy charges by 50%, then under enter 50 in the Markup Percent field. The same is true if continually mark down certain expenses. To mark down expenses, input a negative in front of the percentage, i.e. -50 will mark down all expenses by 50%. The amount expenses are marked up or marked down is maintained on the expense transaction for proper reporting. Active: Determines the accessibility of a TOE code. When checked, code is active and can be used as an indicator on expense transactions. Unchecked the code becomes inactive and is no longer available in the Time Entry program. The functions available to you from this dialog are as follows: Add a new TOE code. Enter a code then provide a description. The markup percentage field is optional. Save changes you have made to the description, markup percentage, or the active status indicator. Delete a TOE code. This feature has been disabled. To make a TOE code no longer available, mark it as Inactive. Opens the PickList dialog screen to allow you to choose from existing TOE codes for editing. The Duplicate Button saves all information, except the expense code, in the current dialog screen allowing you to "clone" or duplicate information when adding new records. Navigation buttons allow you to scroll forward, back, first, and last through your TOE codes.
Rates - Introduction Billing rates for your firm can be defined in very broad terms, very specific terms, or typically, somewhere in between. To develop your rate table, use the diagram below as a general guide. To define a rate in broad terms, take advantage of the concept of grouping employees in a class. Staff members included in a class can have one rate realized for all clients, matters, and work codes. Notice, in the diagram, that employee class will encompass employee so there is not need to define an individual rates for those who are members of a class. To be more specific in your rate qualification, assume each of your attorney's have a rate onto themselves across all matters. In this instance you must enter a rate record for each attorney using their employee or timekeeper code. There is no need to include employee class since we are being more narrow in our definition. The
requirement to specify clients & matters in this instance goes away since an individual employee rate will encompass each of these more narrow definitions. Suppose your attorney rates are defined but you have a particular matter for one of the firm partners that commands a specific rate. This attorney will require a second entry in your rate table; the first being the general rate, a second for a specific matter. For this second, more specific rate record, you will include employee code, the client number, and matter number. Finally, you may have a case where a type of work or task code will dictate a rate on a particular matter regardless of the timekeeper. Here you will need, client number, matter, and the proper code while excluding employee class and employee code. So you can see how you your rate structure can include both broadly defined rates as well as very specific ones with countless possibilities in between.
Rates Your rate table is initially setup when your firm begins using CP Financial. However, rates change over time so it will be necessary for you to keep them up to date. To retrieve, add, or modify a rate, click the search button located next to the Rate Table: dialog near the top left of your screen. Double click on the table in the Pick List screen then press the Refresh button and your rates will appear similar to those above. Notice that rates are either active or retired. Active rates will not have a retired date which indicates they are still applicable. On the other hand, retired rates will show both the activation date and a retired date providing you with the period of time in which this rate was used.
To modify a rate, click on it in the list. Use the Rate Modification dialog box to make your change. Notice that you can change the Activation Date, Retire Date or the Rate amount. To retire a date, or make it no longer applicable to whomever it has been applied, enter today's date. With a rate retired you should enter a new rate that becomes active the same day. Otherwise you run the risk of not having a relevant rate for someone who may have a transaction during this time lapse. Tab out of the dialog box and your modification will be reflected in the list. To add a new rate click icon. The Add New Rate Record dialog screen will appear as shown below.
Use the search buttons to complete this screen. Refer to the Rate Introduction for details on how to define a rate. Enter the Rate Amount and Activate Date. You can make your new rate become active in the future with the proper date. If this rate is to supercede an existing one, be sure to retire the old one on the same day the new one becomes active. Press the Add Rate button to finish the process. Your new rate will now appear in the list. Notice that the filter will limit the list to reflect the parameters by which you just defined your new rate. Press the Clear Filters button, then the Refresh button to review all your rates in this table. To query this table, apply the relevant filters and press the Refresh button. If you attempt to add a rate that will overlap another currently active rate you will be prompted to make the decision to retire the active rate and continue adding a new one. While you are allowed, and encouraged, to have many rates, you must be unique in their qualification both in criteria and the period of time in which they are to be used. To delete a rate, highlight it in the list and press the Delete Record button. To add a new rate table, choose the Record option from the menu bar. Click Add New Rate Table and receive the prompt Create New Rate Table dialog box. Provide a name and description, then click the OK button.
To make your new rate table active, make it your default Fee Rate Table in your Time and Billing Preferences.
Expense Rates Establishing expense codes and corresponding rates at which to charge clients aides the firm in providing concise and consistent bills. Within this module you have the ability to establish firm wide and/or client specific charges for costs incurred by the firm. Before attempting to assign rates to expense codes, you must first establish these codes with the Type of Expense Maintenance program. With that done, you can proceed to assigning rates to these charges. Establishing an expense rate consists of a header which provides the link to a TOE code, either firm wide or by client and/or matter. Rate details provide the specific amounts to be charged. The separation of these two areas allows for the provision to charge a firm wide rate and/or specific client rate for a single expenditure. Step I is to add a new rate header. Step II is to add quantity and/or monetary details. Add new rate
Type of Expense: choose from the list which was established by the Type of Expense Maintenance program. Office: choose from the list of offices established for your firm. Provides the capability to define office specific rates. Department:choose from the list of departments established for your firm. Provides the capability to define department specific rates. Client: if the rates you are going to establish will be specific to a client, provide their client number. If firm wide and not client specific, leave blank. Matter: if the rates you are going to establish will be specific to a client matter, provide their client and matter number. If firm wide and not matter specific, leave blank. Project: n/a SubProject: n/a Multiple Blended Rate: an indicator that, for this type of expense, rates will change based on quantity. For example, you may have a mileage charge when traveling distance from 1-100 miles. Miles traveled over 100 and above may take on a different rate. Expense Rate Table: reflects the table in which the type of expense code resides. Table ID: the internal CP identifier assigned to the Expense Table listed directly above. Header ID:the internal CP identifier assigned to the Header you are adding.
Complete the screen and press when done. Edit Header Presents the Expense Header Setup dialog to allow for modifications to the initial setup. Type of Expense: choose from the list which was established by the Type of Expense Maintenance program. Office: choose from the list of offices established for your firm. Provides the capability to define office specific rates. Department:choose from the list of departments established for your firm. Provides the capability to define department specific rates. Client: if the rates you are going to establish will be specific to a client, provide their client number. If firm wide and not client specific, leave blank. Matter: if the rates you are going to establish will be specific to a client matter, provide their client and matter number. If firm wide and not matter specific, leave blank. Project: n/a SubProject: n/a
Multiple Blended Rate: an indicator that, for this type of expense, rates will change based on quantity. For example, you may have a mileage charge when traveling distance from 1-100 miles. Miles traveled over 100 and above may take on a different rate. Expense Rate Table: reflects the table in which the type of expense code resides. Table ID: the internal CP identifier assigned to the Expense Table listed directly above. Header ID:the internal CP identifier assigned to the Header you are adding. Once changes have been made, press the button. Edit Details With the establishment of an expense rate header, you now must assign t Quantity From: when using a blended rate, this is the starting quantity at which to apply a fixed amount or per unit charge. Leave blank when using a single, non blended rate.
Quantity To: when using a blended rate, this is the quantity at which to terminate a fixed amount or per unit charge. Leave blank when using a single, non blended rate. FixedAmount: a single monetary value to charge when units are within the quantity range. PerUnitAmount: a monetary value to charge for a single unit. To add a rate or line to the grid, press the Create New Rate Record. To remove a rate record, highlight it in the grid and press the Delete Rate Record button. In the sample above, a mileage rate of $0.50 per mile is charged for miles 1-99. After mileage exceeds 99 miles, a rate of $0.55 is incurred. Delete rate Use the Edit Details feature to delete rates. Then use this feature to delete the rate header and remove from the available list. The requirement to bill firm expenses at client specified amounts is often dictated by large corporate clients. To support this requisite you must: Establish your firm Type of Expense codes. Use the Expense Rates program to assign rates. Apply rates globalyl or assign to specific client/matter.
Bill Groups The Bill Group feature allows you to create lists of non-consecutive client/matter numbers to be used on a recurring basis for the creation of invoices. This ability becomes a time saving feature by allowing you to avoid a lengthy client/matter selection process when establishing an invoice run. Its usefulness lies in the capacity to create a list of clients and matters that do fit into a consistent numerical range. It also provides a facility to create a group of clients that are regularly billed for an attorney. Once established, bill groups can be used by the PreBill/Invoice selection screen. The Billing Group Dialog: Billing Group Name - user supplied name of a bill group.
Grid Items - This grid lists the Clients/Matters associated with a particular bill group. Note in the sample screen that client/matter numbers do not need to be in a consecutive numbering range. Once a billing group has been created, it can be used during the billing process to produce an invoice run for any and all of the clients/matters in the group. Display Fields - When you click a client or matter in the grid, these fields are updated with names given to each on the KeyField Entry dialog. Create a new bill group. Select the File option from the dialog menu. Click New Group Add a client/matter to a group. An empty row will open in the grid. Click in the Client box, press the arrow and choose a client from the Pick List dialog. Click in the matter box, press the arrow and choose a matter from the Pick List dialog. Delete a group. Select the File option from the dialog menu. Click Delete Group. Delete a client/matter from a group. Highlight the appropriate record in the grid and press the delete button.
Employee Maintenance Anyone who actively interacts with the CP Financial software must have an employee record defined within the system. Additionally, employees must be included in a security group which will determine the features that are made available to them. The Employee Entry Main Screen allows new employee records to be created and modified. Additional data input screens include: Employee Background, Employee Payroll Information, and Miscellaneous Employee Information. See Also: See "Employee Main Dialog" on page 55 See "Creating Employee Information" on page 56 See " Employee Background" on page 57 See "Employee Payroll Information" on page 59
See "Miscellaneous Employee" on page 61 See "Information Toolbar Functions" on page 62 Employee Main Dialog 1. "Employee I.D." - The firm's code for an employee. This code can be either an alpha or a numeric code and needs to be as long as the specified length in the DBSETUP program. The advantage of using pure numeric codes are: a.) They integrate more smoothly into third-party systems such as cost collection systems. b.) If they are pure numeric, the system has the ability to automatically assign the next available employee code. 2. "Login I.D." - This field specifies the login code assigned by the firm for that employee. Additionally, in the Security model, administrators have the ability to assign a password to the employee's login. By default, their password will be blank until specified otherwise. NOTE: If the login is the same as the user's local workstation login, the user will not be forced to relogin to PD Partner applications. He/she will not see the security screen. 3. Name and Social Security Number - These fields specify the Prefix, First Name, Middle Initial, Last Name, Suffix (if applicable), and Social Security Number of the current employee. Fields such as "Initials" and "Full Name" are populated automatically upon completion of the other Employee Name fields. 4. Class, Office, and Department Codes - These records can be entered by clicking the lookup buttons and selecting the appropriate information from the displayed picklists for the current employee. NOTE: The Employee Class, Office, and Department codes are all created in the Code Table program. These are firm-definable codes, and there may be as many codes as desired. 5. "Active" Flag - The "Active" checkbox, when selected, indicates that the employee is currently active or employed in the company. If the
current displayed record refers to a person who is no longer employed with the company, the "Active" checkbox should be deactivated and the final date of employment should be entered into the "Date Terminated" field (7). 6. "Print Missing Time" Flag - The "Print Missing Time" flag, when selected, includes this record into the Crystal report called "Missing Time." 7. "Date Hired" and "Date Terminated" fields - These fields indicate the hiring and termination date of the employee, respectively. The "Date Terminated" field will be filled in when an employee is no longer active at the firm. Creating Employee Information Employee information can be created by using the following procedure: 1. Select the New Record button from the toolbar at the top of the Employee Entry Main Dialog Screen. 2. Enter the First Name, Middle Initial, and Last Name for the employee. The Employee ID Number will be assigned automatically based on the sequential order of previously entered records in the database.
3. The "Prefix" field can be entered by clicking the pull-down menu button and selecting the appropriate choice from the displayed list. Fields such as "Initials" and "Full Name" are populated automatically upon completion of the other Employee Name data. 4. "Employee Class", "Office", and "Department" records can be entered by clicking their respective look-up buttons and selecting the appropriate information from the displayed pick-lists. 5. The "Print Missing Time" checkbox, when selected, includes this record into the Crystal report called "Missing Time". 6. The "Active" checkbox, when selected, indicates that the employee is currently active or employed in the company. If the current displayed record refers to a person who is no longer employed with the company, the "Active" checkbox should be de-activated and the final date of employment should be entered into the "Terminated" date field. 7. Select the SAVE button to commit the new record to the PD Partner database. Note that the Employee Entry program electronically stamps the initials of the person who created the record, as well as the date and time the record was created, in the "Created By" status bar at the bottom of the Employee Entry Main Dialog Screen. Employee Background Employee background information is accessed by clicking the Employee Background button from the toolbar. This screen displays the background information specific to any employee. This information includes the employee's home address information, academic credentials, date of birth, and personal internet address. Any remarks or specific notes pertinent to this employee can also be entered.
1. Enter or edit the information in the "Home Address" and "Personal" fields by typing in the associated text boxes. There is no need to enter the slashes "/". 2. Type into the "Notes" field any further descriptive text. The field will automatically scroll as you enter information. 3. Select OK to save your entry. Clicking on the REPORTS button will display and print a list of Crystal Reports that pertain to this program. Use the scroll bar to the right of the display to find the report you wish then double click on your choice. The Internet address should be entered as the Internet provider prescribes. This field may be case sensitive.
NOTE: This information is to be used for internal purposes only. Employee Payroll Information The Employee Payroll Information Screen is accessed by clicking the Employee Payroll button from the main screen. This screen displays the payroll information specific to any employee. This data includes the employee's tax status, pay period details, rate of pay, and date of last salary increase. This information may be helpful for outputting overall employee info and Time & Billing hours to your payroll supplier via an extraction program. 1. "Payroll State" - The state in which the employee works. 2. "Tax Table" - Used in connection with the professional services tax module, also included in PD Partner. This is for firms who work in
states where they are required to charge sales tax for the services they provide. 3. Tax Information - These fields are used for tax purposes and are designed to work in connection with standard payroll packages. 4. Pay Periods and Amount - These fields specify the number of paychecks the employee receives and the amount for each paycheck. 5. "Hourly Pay Rate" - How much the employee is paid an hour. This is the before-benefits rate. 6. "Hourly Job Cost Rate" - A rate assigned to this employee that includes both their hourly payroll rate and any loaded cost rates (i.e. benefits and taxes). The purpose of this field is to give firms the ability to analyze work performed based on the cost of that work performed versus the collected value. 7. "Default Billing Rate" - The default rate for billable hours. 8. Overtime Rates - These rates specify the overtime rates for this employee. 9. "Last Raise Date" - Last date at which the employee received a raise. 10. "Target Bill Ratio" - Target bill rate. Enter "Payroll State", "Tax Table", and "Marital Status" by clicking on the pull-down menu buttons adjacent to those fields and selecting the appropriate choice from the
displayed pick-lists. Populate the remaining fields by simply typing the numerical values, including decimal point, into the respective text boxes. Click OK to save your entry. Click on the REPORTS button to display and print a list of Crystal Reports that pertain to this program. Use the scroll bar to the right of the display to find the report you wish, and then double click on your choice. NOTE: This information is to be used for internal purposes only. Miscellaneous Employee Miscellaneous Employee Information is designed to let you enter other information about your employees that does not appear on any of the existing screens. The Miscellaneous Employee Information Screen is accessed by clicking the Miscellaneous Employee button on the toolbar. 1. Enter all pertinent data in the Miscellaneous Employee Information Screen, including "Employee Related Dates" and "Employee Miscellaneous" fields by clicking the mouse cursor in the desired text box and typing the desired information. To select a value in a Boolean field, simply click the checkbox in that field to indicate a "true" value. Click DONE to save the information.
NOTE: This information is to be used for internal purposes only Information Toolbar Functions The main toolbar for the PD Partner for this program looks like this: A - New Record: This key creates a new line in the grid for entering a new client/matter number into the list under construction. B - Delete: Deletes a line in the grid from the list. C - Printer: Invokes the PD Partner Print Wizard. D - Question Mark: Invokes the online hypertext help. E - Camera: Invokes Ask Priscilla tutorials F - Training Wizard Button: invokes the Training Wizard menu. The Employee Entry Toolbar looks like this:
A - VCR Buttons - Use these buttons to navigate through the employee records. The buttons allow the user to visit the first, previous, next, and last records respectively. B - Background Information - Use this button to access the Employee Background Information screen. C - Payroll Information - Use this button to access the Employee Payroll Information screen. D - Miscellaneous Information - Use this button to access the Miscellaneous Employee Information screen. E - View All Employees - This button displays a list of all employees, both active and inactive. F - Set Employee Status - This button allows the user to easily set an employee's status as either active or inactive. G - Conflict of Interest - This button activates the Conflict of Interest program within PD Partner.
Using Employee Delete this text and replace it with your own content.
Client Matter Maintenance The Client Matter Maintenance program, aka KeyFields, is used for the input and upkeep of the firm's master billing files. With this feature you are able to keep current client, matter, and sub matter information. Accurate maintenance and usage of this data is critical to the proper functioning of your software. Traditional time and cost collection systems are based on a two-tier methodology -- the client would be the highest tier of the structure, with the matter serving as the second tier. Generally, this is a one-to-many relationship, where for any given client, many matters may exist. Our programs utilize an expanded four-tier structure for those firms who may have more rigorous time reporting requirements. Examples of various reporting structures include: Client / Project / Matter / Sub matter Client / Matter / Case / Phase Client / Matter The sophistication of this software provides tracking at any and all levels to meet the requirements of your clients. By breaking down time collection to more than the traditional two levels (Client/Matter) you can expand reporting, or utilize multiple billing methods.
Key elements on this screen include: Client: a unique code designation for a client. Often the client number will be automatically generated for you in a sequential manner. This can be overridden however, it must remain unique. Client numbers can be changed with the Edit Code feature. Client records cannot be deleted for historical reasons but can be marked as closed or inactive to remove them from reports and lists within the software. Matter: a unique code designation for a matter. Often the matter number will be automatically generated for you in a sequential fashion. This can be overridden however, it must remain unique within a client. Two clients can each have matter 0001 but a single client cannot have two matters designated 0001. Office: a code designation for an office location. Department: a code designation for a department within the firm. Reference To: A method to group together clients and matters for billing purposes. Provide a label in this field and the same one for subsequent members of the group. The reference master will dictate the address used on the bill. See also Using Reference Billing.
Address(s): critical to accurate mailing of invoices. Typically the billing address is designated for use on a bill, however the primary be the preferred when dealing with multiple entities. Type of Work Code: predefined codes to suit the differing practice types within a firm. Task Code Group: The intention of a Task Code Group is to minimize multiple interpretation and options for coding time. It is recognized that not all litigation work will fit neatly in a particular category. Work can overlap tasks, categories may be imprecise, or time may be expended on the truly unusual. Users should categorize the work to its primary purpose. Definitions are provided for guidance. Where uncertainty envelops substantial or repeating work, it is best for client and counsel to agree in advance on the category to be used. Narrative of Invoice: Used as the narrative on a fixed fee bill. Firm Information: Phone, fax, and web site that is referenced on a bill. The web site field can also be used to capture an email address. Add a new client or matter. Before you create a new client or matter, ensure it does not already exist in your database. There is no delete function for clients and matter so you do not want to create duplicates. Even though the program will assist in preventing this from happening, it is best to check before you start. Also if your business is either legal or consulting, you should run a thorough Conflict of Interest background check on any new client to see if you are doing work for a competitor or their adversary. Use of this program assumes and is predicated on other basic tables and defaults already setup and defined in your Time and Billing Preferences. Adding a Client:
i.)select the 'Client' radio button. ii.) We suggest you choose default values assigned from 'System Defaults'. These defaults have been predetermined and will ensure the proper setup of a new client. Using this option can dictate the next sequential client number for you, removing the guess work of what number to assign. For additional information on system defaults, refer to Time and Billing Preferences. iii.) Choose between Company or Individual. For company, the information you enter into the field next to 'Client' will used as the Company Name. For an individual, additional fields will appear providing a place to enter first, middle, last, salutation, suffix, and title information. iv.) Press the Create button to proceed. With your client record successfully established, you will be returned to the KeyField entry dialog where you continue the setup process. Adding a Matter:
i.)select the 'Matter' radio button. ii.) We suggest you choose default values assigned from 'Parent'. These defaults have been predetermined by you during the client setup. It will save you time by setting options at the matter level similar to those at the client level. Options can always be changed to reflect the different preferences between client and matter levels. Choosing 'System Defaults' will set values based on your Time and Billing Preferences. iii.) Choose the client for which this matter pertains. iv.) Press the Create button to proceed. With your matter record successfully established, you will be returned to the KeyField entry dialog where you continue the setup process. Billing Information The billing information screen provides important setup details that are necessary for producing accurate prebills and invoices for your client.
Rate and Bill Cycle Information: o o o Status: determines if client is active, inactive, or closed. An active client or matter can have time and expenses posted toward them. An inactive or closed client/matter cannot. An Inactive matter can still be billed and have cash receipts posted to it. A closed matter must be free of WIP and AR before it can be closed. For historical and auditing purposes, clients and matters are not deleted. They are simply marked as inactive or closed. Fee Rate Table: Indicates which rate table to use for time cards applicable to this client/matter. Press the search button to choose from a list of rate tables you have defined. See Rate Table for additional information on defining rates. Expense Rate Table:Indicates which expense rate table to use for expense cards applicable to this client/matter. Press the search button to choose from a list of expense rate tables you have defined. See Expense Rate Table for additional information. Current Status: o o Billable Flag: indicates if client or matter is billable. Must be checked in order to produce an invoice. If not checked, when hours are entered in time entry, the amount will be zero. Late Charge: indicates application of interest charges.
o o o Taxable: qualifies the client/matter as taxable Expenses Billable: check if expense cards are billable; telephone calls, copies, faxes, etc. Bill At This Level: determines if client is billed at the client or matter level. *Required by the billing process to produce bills the proper format. If you are billing at the client level (showing all matters on one bill) then check this box on the client record and uncheck at each matter level. If you are billing at the matter level, uncheck at the client record and check at each matter record. Other Billing Information: o o o o o o o Bill Arrangement: indicates how the client or matter will be billed. Examples are monthly, quarterly, annually, courtesy discount, flat fee, fee only, etc. Billing arrangements can be defined to suit the firm or the client. Fixed Amount: works in conjunction with the fixed or flat fee billing arrangement. This is the value of the amount to be billed. Bill Cycle: monthly, quarterly, annually, on demand, fixed fee, etc. Bill cycle codes assist in the selection criteria when drafting prebills and creating invoices (found on the Codes tab on the Pre-Bill/Invoice Selection dialog). A typical billing might produce bills for clients marked as having a 'monthly' bill cycle. In which case, those marked otherwise would be excluded from the run. Fee Type: firm defined values that can be used to label a matter and used for reporting purposes (ex, How many matters do we have that are contingency?). To define Fee Types, see Look Up Codes. Bill Over Amnt: Discount Percent: when you provide a courtesy discount, this is the amount of the discount that will be applied during the billing process. Billing Instructions: typically appearing on the Prebill to alert timekeepers and billing staff to special billing instructions on a client or matter. Statement Generation: o o o o Control Report: Elec Bill Form: required if you need to generate an electronic bill for a matter. Choose the Ledes format or the appropriate custom format that will define the file being transmitted to the client. See Electronic Billing for additional information. Invoice Style: determines the bill format to be used for a client or matter. Choose from the list of predefined formats. *This information is mandatory to produce a bill. Statement Style: determines the statement format to be used for a client or matter. Choose from the list of predefined formats. Statements can be run via the Collections program or often times, as a report run from the Executive Inquiry module.
o Prebill Style:determines the pre bill format to be used for a client or matter. Choose from the list of predefined formats. *This information is mandatory to produce a prebill. Bill Dates: o Start Date: date the matter was opened. o Closed Date: date the matter was closed. o Ready to Bill: Origin: Interest Rate: Bill Routing This option is not available in the legal addition of the software. Additional Employee Information Each matter must have attorney roles defined. These roles dictate the computations and results on many of the AR reports but do not affect how fee credits or professional compensation is computed. Employee: the attorney you are choosing to designate a role on the matter. Type: Responsible: the overseer of a client matter. Only one can be assigned.
Originator: person bringing client to the firm. More than one attorney can receive credit for origination. Total percentages must = 100% among those assigned this role on a matter. Billing: person responsible for reviewing client prebill. Only one can be assigned. Alternate: an alternate billing attorney or designation specific to your firm. By default, anyone having done billable or non-billable work on the matter is considered a Working Attorney. Date From - To: are not considered. Percentage: a proportion designation used by reports to show how compensation, by attorney role, should be given on a matter. Changing percentages will change report results so if you run a report from the previous year, percentage will be what they are currently set to. Not what they were previously. Miscellaneous Information While there are a great number of data elements within the framework of our database, often times there items that need to be tracked which are unique to your firm. An insurance claim number, court case number, or adjuster name are some examples. Use of Miscellaneous fields is a way for you to customize information related to a client or matter. There are three types of fields available to you: Text Fields Date Fields Yes/No or Checkbox fields. The setup of Miscellaneous fields must be done by your database administrator with the KeyField Label program. Once defined they will be made available to you through a dialog screen similar to the one below.
Fields that are dates will appear in the KeyField Related Dates grid. Enter values in a MM/DD/YYYY format. KeyField Status Values will appear in the grid on the lower left of you dialog screen. Click in the Value box to indicate 'Yes'. Unchecked is equivalent to 'No' The large grid in the center can store up to 99 characters in the 'Value' column. Miscellaneous data fields are stored for a client, a matter, or both. Project Information Used by architectural and construction firms to describe a project site. This option is not available in the legal addition of the software. Contract Information
This option is not available in the legal addition of the software. Marketing Information Utilizes Standard Industry Classification (SIC) codes and Miscellaneous fields to indicate the nature of business of client or matter. Default Multipliers Depending on your industry you may or may not use this feature. It is a growing trend, especially within government, to generate bills for customers based on a 'cost plus' multiplier. This option is not available in the legal addition of the software. Contacts Used to add additional contacts for a client or matter. Press the Add button to be presented with a new row in the grid. Click in each field and enter appropriate information. Contacts with email address's can be utilized for mass mailings by the Email feature. Click on a contact and press the Delete button to remove them. Address Information Replaced by the 4 tabs on the KeyField Entry screen to capture the Billing, Primary, Alternate, and Other address's related to a client or matter.
Show notes A note pad to track important dates, keep notes, or whatever you deem relevant information for a client or matter. Show Trust Sub Codes Provides a method to maintain one bank account for multiple trust accounts. Requires the capability of your bank to provide sub account numbers. Code: Enter the sub account code provided by your bank. Check Book: Choose the checkbook this sub account falls under. Description: Provide a description for future reference.
Conflict of Interest Launches the Conflict of Interest program module to provide the addition, deletion, or modification of parties related to a case. Edit Code Provides a means to change a client or matter number. Change should only be made when you are the only person accessing the database. The number you change to must be unique. You cannot reuse a client number and matter numbers must be unique within a client. You can reuse matter numbers across clients. Meaning two clients can have matter 0001. But one client cannot have two matters labeled 0001. When you use the edit codes feature while viewing a client, the client number is available for change (key_field_1). When you use the edit codes feature while viewing a matter, the matter number is available for change (key_field_2) Enter the new number and press the OK button. Transfer Matter Transfers all time & expense entries, payments, trust, etc., from one client to another. You must transfer to a unique matter number on the receiving client. The process will not allow duplicate matter numbers for a client nor will it merge matters.
Choose the client. Use the lookup button to ensure an accurate client number. The new matter number must be unique to the client you have chosen. You cannot transfer matter 0002 if the receiving client already has a matter 0002. Assign accordingly and press OK to complete the process. Email Provides the capability to generate an email to contacts that have an email address. Useful as a mass mail distribution feature. Send to parties related to a matter, contacts in a satellite office, or staff in a specific department. Enter selection criteria. Contact(s) from the current client/matter are selected by default but a range capability is available to include a larger or more focused recipient list. KeyField Level: determines where to retrieve email address from. Client or matter record(s). KeyField: include contacts from Active, Inactive, or closed clients or matters. Mass Mailing - use BCC instead of To: will place email address's in the bcc address line to keep recipients anonymous. Select recipients by placing an "X" in the Select column.
Press the Send Email button to launch your email client. The "TO" or "BCC" address lines will be populated with the address's you have selected. Documents Designed to link important documents and files to a client or matter for viewing by firm staff. Attach the retainer agreement to a matter for easy retrieval. Attached by: Employee code of staff person initiating the attachment of a document to the client or matter. Use the search button to pick from the employee list. Date: Date attachment made. Type: Type of document being attached. Use search button to pick from list of available options. Get File: Searches your computer or network to a locate file. Remove Local Copy: Removes file from original location and places in designated folder identified in your Time and Billing Preferences. Description: Describe the document you have attached to this client or matter for future reference. Mass Edit Used as a means to update a large number of clients and/or matters with a similar change. An example would be to affect an address change to numerous matters for a client. A second example would be to change an invoice style for a given type of work.
To use this feature, first select the client and/or matters you want to update. The selection dialog, as shown below, provides numerous selection criteria to help you locate records for revision. Enter your criteria and press the Fetch Record button. Clients and matters meeting your criteria will be listed in an update dialog similar to the one below.
In the dialog above, the address will be updated for each matter based on the information contained on the client record. Note the client record is checked as the Master, and the matters are simply selected. The Master record is the one that contains information we want to copy to other records. Note, the Client record is easily identified because it does not contain a value in the Matter column. When simply updating an invoice style, a Master record is not necessary. Make your record selection, select all, then indicate the invoice style to use in the bottom grid. Press the UPDATE button to affect your changes. Close the Mass Edit dialog and validate your changes on the KeyField Entry dialog Prepaid Legal This is a billing arrangement which is used to accumulate billed hours, by task code. When the number of billed hours exceeds the designated threshold, a client bill is produced. There are several steps to implementing this arrangement.
I) Create a task group and corresponding codes. These tasks are typically predetermined by the clients "Prepaid Legal Plan". II) Assign this task group to the matter and designated PrePaid Legal as the Billing Arrangement. III) Press the PrePaid Legal button the choose the Add button to add the individual task codes to matter. Enter the number of hours and the amount those hours represent for each code. As client accumulates time, Billed Hours and Billed Amounts are updated by the billing process. When the time spent on a task exceeds what is allotted for a given task, the client will get billed for the value of those additional hours. No bill is generated when hours are below the threshold. In the example above, the client received a bill for $150 when they exceeded the 1.5 hours designated for task RE. Company or Individual Toggle client or matter from company to individual or vice versa. Allows you to enter full name, salutation, and title of individual or company name. A company vs. individual can be made to appear differemtly in the addressing of an invoice.
Guidelines to opening a matter in Case Management When operating in an environment with both CP Case Management and ProfilesFx there are mandatory pieces of information required by the financial program to allow you to begin entering time on a matter. Assuming you are entering a new matter in Case Management with the billing information integrated to Finance, be sure to have the following fields populated correctly: Make sure Matter Number is assigned and is unique Make sure the Department is set up in the General Info screen Make sure the Law Type is set up in the General Info screen Make sure the Billable box is checked in the General Info screen If your firm has more than one office, then make sure you have indicated the proper Office Code. Link to billing. On the Parties dialog, make sure there is a Legal Entity associated to the case and the Client and Billing Client boxes checked.
Make sure the Legal Entity you assign as the Billing Client has an associated Client Number. Using the company or individual indicator will assist the financial billing program to format names correctly on your invoice. Having incorrect information in any of the above mentioned fields can keep a matter from moving into the financial database and result in the inability to enter time or expenses toward a matter.
Using Clients and Matters Question: What is the difference between an inactive and closed matter? Answer: If you make a matter inactive, it means that you can no longer enter time against it. However, there may be outstanding AR that you want to continue to collect. When you close a matter, it means you have verified there is no outstanding AR and this matter has been completed. You will not be allowed to close a matter if it has an outstanding AR balance. Question: I am trying to close a matter but the system will not let me. I have verified there is not an outstanding balance due. What am I missing? Answer: There may be some unbilled time or expense entries that need to be removed. Use the Supervisor Edit program and do a lookup on the transaction number. Enter the client/matter numbers and press the Search button. If anything shows in the grid then it needs to be transferred to another client/matter or deleted in order for you to close this matter.
Setting up a Bill Arrangement Costs Only Courtesy Discount Fixed Fee Contingency Bill Arrangements stored procedures are run on invoices not on prebills.
Using Reference Billing Question: Is it possible to issue a series of invoices (different matter numbers, all for the same client) under one invoice number, without having to set up a new bill format? Answer: Yes. It requires the following steps to initiate: 1) Go to the client matter and enter a reference number. A reference number is determined by you, the firm, then placed on other matters to link them together for billing purposes. Set the reference master flag on the matter whose address you want to use for billing. 2) On the other matter(s) you want to tie to the same invoice, enter the reference number you provided on the reference master matter. 3) Enter time and expense transactions on these matters. 4) When you create prebills or invoices, change from KeyField Info to Reference and enter your reference number in the From and To fields.
5) The end result will be one invoice with multiple matters addressed to the client using the reference master address. 6) Payments and fee credits applied to this invoice will be shown at the matter level.
Using Miscellaneous Fields While there are a great number of data elements within the framework of our database, often times there items that need to be tracked which are unique to your firm. An insurance claim number, court case number, or adjuster name are some examples. Use of Miscellaneous fields is a way for you to customize information related to a client or matter. There are three types of fields available to you: Text Fields Date Fields Yes/No or Checkbox fields. To add a Miscellaneous field to your database, follow the steps outlined below: 1) From the Database Setup Dialog, press the Definable Labels button. 2) From the Field Labels dialog choose the KeyFields button.
3) To add a text field, press the Add button located under the KF Miscellaneous Fields grid.
A new row will open on the grid. The Field Name is automatically assigned and not subject to change. Enter the Field Label as you want it to appear on the Miscellaneous Key Field Information dialog. There is no limit to the number of text fields you can add you your database. To add a custom date field, enter a meaningful label in the box next to one of the 5 date fields in the KF Related Fields portion of the above dialog. To add an option field, which will appear as a check box on the Miscellaneous Key Field Information dialog, enter a meaningful label in the box next to one of the 5 date fields in the KF Option Fields portion of the above dialog. When you have completed your, press Done. You Miscellaneous Key Field Information dialog will reflect your additions and allow for capturing of your firm specific data elements. Note the correlation to the KeyFields Field Label Set up screen shown above and the Miscellaneous Key Field Information dialog shown below.
Session Manager The session manager is a program of convenience that provides a means to manipulate unposted time and expense sessions generated by firm timekeepers. Used as feature of the billing process, it's function is to make transactions available for invoicing, reject queued sessions, or delete a session and provide the efficiency of performing these tasks from one place. The Session Manager dialog: Session ID: sessions are assigned a number when they are created. They are also referred to by a name provided by the staff member who has created it. Auto Select: used to mark ALL records in the grid as selected or unselected. Session Status: provides a filter to choose session(s) whose present status is: Error - applies only to time entries that have been entered on an inactive matter, invalid client, or for an inactive employee. When these types of entries
have been made a session is produced with this status as means to provide tracking or correction. These types of sessions cannot be posted. Template - used for recurring transactions. Provides the ability to produce transactions from predefined copies. Active - not posted, not queued, not being edited, not being worked on at the moment, able to be edited, queued or posted. Queued- ready to be posted, no longer available for editing. Posted - posted to AR or GL and unavailable for change without reversing the invoice the session generated. Edit - currently opened and being worked on. Not available for posting. Created Date Filter: provides a date range to filter your selection of sessions for processing. Used when the transactions in your session are finalized, approved, and ready to post to AR or GL. Review details and statistics of a session or alter the status of a session to 'Active'. Session ID: a computer generated reference number. Session Type:
Time/Expense Expense GL-Regular GL-Recurring GL-Distribution GL Session Status: see Session Status above Change the status of a session from Edit to Active. Typically done only when you can confirm that a session may be 'stuck' in edit status. Do not try to change the status before first insuring it is not currently opened by someone at the firm. editing. Reject a queued session and return it to active status for further Delete a Session and all of its contents, permanently.
Standard Narrative Maintenance Standard narrative codes provide shortcuts and consistency during the data entry of time and expense cards. These codes are applied to the Description or Work field in the Time Entry module and can be utilized to speed up the data collection process. A right-click of the mouse anywhere in the Description of Work field will present a list of available macros along with their descriptive text. Clicking a code in the list will transfer the narrative text from the list to the Time Entry dialog. The following is a description of how to create and maintain a list of standard narrative shortcuts that can be utilized by the firm's staff. Narrative Code - A numeric or alpha code, up to 8 characters, that, when entered, will retrieve its corresponding Narrative into the Description of Work field on the Time Entry dialog. Description - Provides a meaningful description to the text contained in the Narrative field on this same dialog screen. This information is presented in the Pick
List when performing a look up of standard narratives during Time and Expense Entry. Narrative - The text that will be inserted into the Description of Work field on the Time Entry dialog. This narrative may be as long as 4,000 characters, and can be used by either the standard time entry system or the simple time entry system. Standard Narrative codes work in conjunction with a special predetermined character defined in the DBSetup Time & Billing Preferences. Create a new standard narrative. Enter up to an 8 character alphanumeric shortcut code. When you click OK, you will be presented with the Standard Narrative Entry dialog screen. Provide a meaningful description to be used by staff members when searching or selecting standard narrative text. Enter the narrative text that will be transferred to the Time and Expense card to complete the process Delete a standard narrative. Locate the code you wish to delete with the Standard Narrative Entry dialog screen, press the Delete button, and confirm your selection. Update a standard narrative. The Narrative Code cannot be changed once it has been established. The description and narrative can be updated simply by typing your changes in the appropriate dialog box and tabbing out of the field. To change a Narrative Code, you must delete it, then add a new one. Apply a standard narrative.
There are two ways to apply a standard narrative code to the Description of Work field from the Time and Expense Entry module. 1) Right click in the Description of Work field and choose from the list of descriptions. 2)Enter the special activation character, the narrative code, a space, then press tab and the narrative text will replace code. Best practice use of narrative codes is to write your complete description of work, incorporating several codes, then tab out of the field. All codes will be expanded at once.
It is important to note that the activation character, in this example the "<", is firm specific. Please check with your software administrator to reveal this character. ii) Navigation buttons allow you to scroll forward, back, first, and last through your codes.
Billing Overview The billing process is a three step procedure. To produce accurate invoices you must:1) Create prebills, 2) Edit prebills, 3) Print and Commit Invoices. Until you have gone through a few billing cycles, the process can seem confusing. In most firms, the billing process begins when attorneys have posted their time & expenses for a billing cycle. Related firm costs must also be captured and posted if they are to be included in the billing process. Unbilled time and cost, also referred to as WIP, will become Accounts Receivable as result of your bill run.
Step one is to produce pre or draft bills and circulate them to the billing attorneys. Draft bills are simply a report that shows all unbilled time and cost for a matter in a format similar to an invoice. The second step in the billing process is to circulate prebills to your attorneys or timekeepers for review. When they return from examination it is very likely you will have to make some modifications. Editing grammar, spell checking, amending rates, or adjusting hours are the norm. These kinds of changes are made with our WriteUp/WriteDown program or the Supervisor Edit module. Upon culmination of the editing process, you are ready to proceed to step 3, producing final invoices. These accurate bills are now ready for printing and mailing to your clients. With invoices printed, approved, and mailed they can be committed to accounts receivable while awaiting payment from the client. If the firm is operating on an accrual basis, committing invoices will also post them to the General Ledger. Any prebills or transactions not billed during this billing cycle will be set aside, or suspensed, until you are ready to bill them. Should you find an invoice to be in error after you have committed it to Accounts Receivable, you have the option to reverse the invoice. This procedure will remove WIP from accounts receivable and again make these transactions available to the billing process's in the form of WIP. Proceed to: 1) Create Prebills 2) Edit Prebills 3) Print and Commit Invoices
Drafting Prebills Drafting an invoice will gather WIP based on your selection criteria. It also retrieves unpaid account balances to date. If your bill format shows payment information, this information and an accurate balance due are reflected on the current bill. It is important to note, that a prebill or invoice is generated from unbilled WIP. You must produce a reminder statement in a separate process should you want to mail your client for outstanding open balances. Step 1: Draft prebills. From the Billing Screen, press the Draft Bills button. You will be prompted to create a new billing run or use an existing. If you are editing prebills choose existing and proceed to step 2. To create a new run, the default, enter a run name. We suggest a meaningful name for easy identification in the future.
If you have a previous prebill run and are creating another one that will overlap the same time period, you can include those transactions on this prebill for editing by checking "Yes" to this question. Only transactions that have not been invoiced are eligible. Press the Next button. You will be prompted by the selection screen to choose the transactions you want to bill and therefore include in this run. The choices are many. You can be very specific and produce a set of prebills for a single client and matter, a single attorney, or be more broad and include all time & expense transactions produced firm wide by all attorneys for a given period of time.
A bill group is a pre-defined selection of clients and matters that generally need to be run as a single group of invoices. If you elect to use a bill group, all other selection criteria becomes disabled because, by definition, your selection criteria has already been made. Similar to the bill group option, if the Reference Number option is selected, all other selection criteria do not apply. Reference numbers are entered on the client matter screen. To bill with this option, one of the clients or matters in the reference group needs to be marked as the "Reference Master." The address of the "Master" is the one that will be used on the bill. All of your clients and matters for reference-based billing should be set with Bill At This Level checked. Each will get an individual invoice record in Accounts Receivable but they will all have the same invoice number. If your firm does regular billings and some reference-based billings, you will need to distinguish between the two by using some sort of code to be sure they re billed correctly; i.e. bill cycle code. To bill your client a flat fee that represents a portion of the WIP currently on hand use the Partial Bill option. Using this feature eliminates the need to calculate which transactions are included on the bill based on their value(s).
Specify Fees - will bill Fees as a fixed amount and bill Costs as is. Specify Costs - will only bill Costs as a fixed amount and bill Fees as is. Specify Fees and Specify Costs - will bill Fees and Costs as amount specified above. Specify Total - will bill Fees and Costs combined at a fixed fee. The Date Worked To value will be referenced as the Bill Through date on you prebill and invoice. Pressing the Employees tab allows you to make your selection by employee and or employee type. In this instance suppose you want to produce a set of bills specifically for a partner or for a group of billing attorneys. The Codes tab also allows you to narrow your selection criteria. Here you can choose transactions that may be contingency based or include specific Type of Work or Task Codes. Notice a Run # has been assigned at the top portion of this screen. With your selection criteria complete, press the Select button to continue.
The Selection List screen will appear once the creation process is complete. This provides the opportunity to proof your selection criteria has produced the desired results.
The list shows a summary of each bill by client and matter showing fees, expenses, and the total amount of each bill. At this point nothing has been created. Notice each bill is pre-selected with a "X" and ready to be created. If a bill appears in the list that you are not ready to produce, remove the "X". Single click on each entry to verify the client and matter seen in the top portion of the screen. Further proof of your prebills can be done by double clicking on an entry in the above list. The matter selection dialog box singles out your selected prebill and provides a summary. The "X" can be removed should you not want to print this draft bill. For additional details, double click on this summary record to view the transactions that are to be included on this particular prebill. Here you are given the opportunity to adjust your draft bill down to specific transactions. Otherwise, press the Back button to return to the Selection List screen to continue. When a pre-bill is run at the client level,
double click on the pre-bill to see the matters. Then double click on a matter to see the individual transactions When you are satisfied the prebills you are viewing are the ones you want to produce, navigate back to the Selection List screen and press the Create button. If, what you are viewing is not what you expected, press Cancel and initiate your selection criteria again. By pressing the Create button you are asked to confirm the management period these bills will included in. The default is the current one however you can alter as necessary. The Invoice Date is also there for you to set. This is the date that will appear on your bills.
Press Continue to finalize this process and prepare to print these bills for circulation to your attorneys. Proceed to Printing Prebills.
WriteUp WriteDown Introduction WriteUp/WriteDown (WU/WD) is the editing tool the accounting department will use to make the corrections requested by billing professionals on pre-bills or pre-bill control reports for the eventual billing of clients. This feature provides you with the ability to produce an accurate invoice or one that meets a predetermined amount. WriteUp/WriteDown can be run either from Time & Billing menu or from within the Billing program. An advantage to running the WriteUp/WriteDown program through the Billing program is the capability to load transactions from the pre-bill directly into the WU/WD editor. This eliminates the preliminary selection criteria screen which prompts for ranges of transactions for editing. Steps to perform Writeup WriteDown: 1) Selection Criteria 2) Editing See also Supervisor Edit Introduction
WriteUp WriteDown Introduction WriteUp/WriteDown (WU/WD) is the editing tool the accounting department will use to make the corrections requested by billing professionals on pre-bills or pre-bill control reports for the eventual billing of clients. This feature provides you with the ability to produce an accurate invoice or one that meets a predetermined amount. WriteUp/WriteDown can be run either from Time & Billing menu or from within the Billing program. An advantage to running the WriteUp/WriteDown program through the Billing program is the capability to load transactions from the pre-bill directly into the WU/WD editor. This eliminates the preliminary selection criteria screen which prompts for ranges of transactions for editing. Steps to perform Writeup WriteDown: 1) Selection Criteria 2) Editing See also Supervisor Edit Introduction
Transaction Transfer This software feature provides the capability to move WIP from one matter to another as part of the billing process. Suppose you have entered all your time and expense this month on one client's matter but it needs to be split 50-50 among two matters. Or one of your timekeepers wrongly entered time against a matter. Transaction Transfer was implemented to handle these types of scenarios. Before proceeding it is worth noting that you cannot transfer transactions once they have been billed. If your final bill contains incorrect transactions you will have to reverse the invoice, putting transactions back into a WIP state, then make the necessary adjustments. To transfer transactions take the following steps: Complete the filter selection screen to retrieve the transactions to be transferred. Select the client for whom you will be transferring time, expense, or both from. Use any of the ranges to be precise in your choice of transactions. Press the Select
Transactions button to retrieve and view the records that meet your selection criteria. Review the list and place a check next to the records you want to transfer. Should the list not give you the expected results, press the Back button to return to the selection screen. The Clear Filters button will remove your selection criteria and allow you to begin again. Press the Transfer button to continue.
The Destination dialog has several options worth noting. First, select a client and matter by clicking on the appropriate column. An arrow will appear. Press the arrow to make your selection from an appropriate list. Next, determine how to make the transfer. There are many possibilities so we will outline a few. 1) Do you simply want to move 100% of the transactions from one matter to another? Then choose client, matter, insure the Percentage button is on and press the Transfer button. 2) Do you want to split the transactions 50-50 across two matters? Press the New Dest button to create a second row in the grid. Choose client and matter then set the % column to 50 for each matter. 3)Do you want to transfer a certain dollar amount of transactions? Change the Transfer by indicator to Amount causing the % column to change to $ Amount. Enter the appropriate dollar amount and again press the Transfer button. If you choose to re-rate transactions during the transfer process, the program will look to the rate table for new rates that may apply and adjust them accordingly. If you have more than one task code group defined and a transaction will be moved to a matter that will cause a change in task code group, you can elect translate the original task code to the new group by choosing the "Always use New Task/Activity Code". Or you can override any task code by supplying in the appropriate column in the chosen transaction(s). For historical reference, you are asked to provide a reason for the transfer. Press OK. Your transfer is complete!
Your transaction(s) acquire a new number after they have been transferred. The old transaction number is no longer valid.
Retro Active Rate Change The retroactive rate program has the capability to change the hourly rate on time transactions that have not been billed or still considered WIP. Transactions can be changed one at a time or in large numbers. Billable and or actual rates can be set to meet your billing requirements. The Retro Active Rate Change program can be accessed in two ways; via the Billing Process or from the Time & Billing menu. Use the selection screen, as seen above, to locate a single or multiple transactions for update. Enter client and matter numbers or ranges or be more precise and enter transactions numbers that are found on your prebills. Press the Select Transactions button to view the results of your selection criteria. To review or update your current rate table before you continue with the re-rate process, press the Rate Table button.
You are presented with two options. One, use your current rate table to update the rates on the transactions you choose in this list. This would be used if you have new rates for an attorney or matter, you have updated your rate table, and you want to apply these rates to time entries that were produced prior to the establishment of these rates. Option two allows you to enter a rate of your own and apply it to the transactions you choose from the list. Click the Select box to select entries or use the Select All Records button to mark all records in the list. To update only the Billable Rate, select No to Update Actual Rate option. To update both the Billable Rate and Actual Rate, select Yes. Notice the sum total of both the actual and billings values on the transactions you have selected. After the re-rate process has completed, new values will be shown here.
Press the Yes button to proceed. You will receive a confirmation when the process is complete. You are returnr
Supervisor Edit Introduction The Supervisor Edit program provides administrative users the ability to access and changed posted (but not billed) time & expense transactions. This module will provide a means to change billing and or actual values on a given transaction. Additionally, the narrative of a transaction can also be changed with this feature. This program should not be used for WriteUp/WriteDown purposes. Its function is to allow for the changing of billing values on transaction only. Both the Write Up Write Down and Supervisor Edit can only be used before transactions are invoiced. Once final bills have been created, transactions are locked and can no longer be changed. If your firm functions in a full accrual basis, the changes you make in supervisor edit should and do end up as GL adjustments automatically (A WIP Adjustment). Use the Supervisor Time & Expense Editor to modify transactions before they appear on a final bill.
Printing Prebills Return to the Billing screen to print you prebills. If you are continuing the draft bill process then you are placed here after you have finalized the selection of your transactions. If you need to reprint a prebill then press the Draft Bills button. Select the Existing option and locate your prebill run in the list (see below). You will notice this is where your description of a prebill run and run ID make it possible to easily identify a draft bill batch. Double click your prebill run or select it and press the Next button.
Press the Process Bills button to continue generating a set of printed draft bills.
Here you are given the opportunity to specify which bills to print. Note that 'all' are selected. Removing the "X" will eliminate those you don't want to print. The Remove Invoice button allows you to permanently remove a specific bill from your run. Should you choose this option, mark the bill to be removed with an "X" and deselect those you want to keep. Press the Process Invoices button to send your bills to the printer.
Here you are prompted for a printer. You are also given many collating options for your printed output. Choose the one that best suits your firm. The Send To Printer button will do just that. The Pre-View To Screen button will allow you the opportunity to view your prebill run before sending it to the printer. It also gives you the chance to export this output to a.pdf file for historic reference or emailing. Use Override Invoice to specify an invoice style other than the current default. With your prebills now printed, circulate them to your timekeepers. When they return, proceed to Editing Prebills. Actions such as the transfer of transactions from one matter to another during your billing preparations, will not change the original content of a prebill. Therefore, if you convert a prebill to an invoice and find you are missing transactions, the reason is your prebill only maintains its original contents.
Printing Invoices Step three of the billing process involves printing and committing invoices. Before you start, decide if you are going to create a new invoice run or convert a prebill run to invoices. The Existing option is used when retrieving a run in preparation for the commit phase. When producing a new invoice run, provide it a meaningful name and select uncommitted runs. If you are converting a prebill run to invoices, choose the Convert Prebill to Invoice radio button, locate and select your prebill batch in the grid appearing on the dialog screen.
Actions such as the transfer of transactions from one matter to another during your billing preparations, will not change the original content of a prebill. Therefore, if you convert a prebill to an invoice and find you are missing transactions, the reason is your prebill only maintains its original contents. Press the Next button. If you have chosen to convert pre bills to invoices, you will bypass step 2 in this procedure and be taken to step 3. If you are creating a new invoice run you will be prompted by the selection screen to choose the transactions you want to bill and therefore include in this run. The choices are many. You can be very specific and produce a set of invoices for a single client and matter, a single attorney, or be more broad and include all time & expense transactions produced firm wide by all attorneys for a given period of time. Notice a Run # has been assigned at the top portion of this screen. With your selection criteria complete, press the Select button to continue.
The Selection List screen will appear once the creation process is complete. This provides the opportunity to proof your selection criteria has produced the desired results. Place an 'X' next to the invoice(s) you want to produce. Remove the 'X" if are client matters in this list you are not ready to bill. By pressing the Create button you are asked to confirm the management period these bills will included in. The default is the current one however you can alter as necessary. The Invoice Date is also there for you to set. This is the date that will appear on your bills. This is also the management period and date these monies will credited to Accounts Receivable.
Press Continue to finalize this process and prepare to print these bills from the Billing Screen. Press the unmarked button located along each invoice and under the Print column to print invoices one at a time. Or press the Process Bill to print the entire batch.
Here you are given the opportunity to specify which bills to print. Note that 'all' are selected. Removing the "X" will eliminate those you don't want to print. The Remove Invoice button allows you to permanently remove a specific bill from your run. Should you choose this option, mark the bill to be removed with an "X" and deselect those you want to keep. Press the Process Invoice button. The Print Options Dialog will appear as seen below.
Here you are prompted for a printer. You are also given many collating options for your printed output. Choose the one that best suits your firm. The Send To Printer button will do just that. The Pre-View To Screen button will allow you the opportunity to view your prebill run before sending it to the printer. It also gives you the chance to export this output to a.pdf file for historic reference or emailing. The No Print/View button is used when committing invoice to Accounts Receivable. Use Override Invoice to specify an invoice style other than the current default. Please insure that editing programs such as Supervisor edit, WU/WD, or transaction transfer have been closed before Processing Invoices. Possible corruption of invoices may occur otherwise.
Committing Invoices Committing invoices to Accounts Receivable is the final phase of your billing process. We suggest you commit invoices after they have been reviewed, printed, and mailed. Committing unproofed invoices can result in reversing those that might be in error, resulting in a time consuming process when working with a large batch of invoices. From the Billing Process dialog, press the Invoice button. Retrieve your existing invoice run by choosing the Existing option. All uncommitted invoice runs will appear in the grid. Select your run from the list and press the Next button.
The invoices in your run will appear in the History Log grid on the Billing Process dialog screen. Note the stop light next to the Commit To button is red. When this light is red, invoices are in an uncommitted state. Press the Commit To button and turn the stop light from red to green. Now press the Process Bills button and you will be prompted by the Process Bills dialog as shown below.
Select invoices to commit by toggling the "X" in the process column. Those marked with an "X" will be committed when you press the Process Invoice button. Clicking on each invoice in the grid will update the client and matter displayed in the top portion of the form. To remove an invoice from this run, press the Remove Invoice button.
The Printer options Dialog provides several options to print invoices. You are also given many collating options for your printed output. Choose the one that best suits your firm. The Send To Printer button will do just that. The Pre-View To Screen button will allow you the opportunity to view your invoice run before sending it to the printer. It also gives you the chance to export this output to a.pdf file for historic reference or emailing. The No Print/View button is used when commit invoice to Accounts Receivable without printing. If you are committing invoices as the final step in your billing process and have already printed them, choose this option. Use Override Invoice to specify an invoice style other than the current default. You are done with the billing process and will be returned to the Billing Process dialog screen.
Executive Inquiry Executive Inquiry is the Reporting Window into the ProfilesFX system, and provides information fast enough to make it practical to use by all staff members regardless of job function. Designed as the central launching point for all types of financial reports, with a few clicks a user can locate, run, and interact with "Drill Down" style on-screen reports. Executive Inquiry comes loaded with all the ProfilesFX standard listings and management reports. Each produced and presented by the Crystal Professional Report Writer. ProfilesFX has cloaked the report writer so non -technical users need only point and click to use any output. You can even export report results to Word Processing, publish it as a web document, send it to a spreadsheet, or save it as a file. All employees should have access to the Executive Inquiry feature in order to produce reports or answer inquires needed to perform their job functions. Reports can be constructed with extensive filtering capabilities to produce concise and accurate outputs. A robust security module ensures users only have access to the reports management deemed appropriate to their roles. To run reports from Executive Inquiry:
1.) Select the Executive Inquiry program from the Time & Billing Menu. Notice the program has two main grids. The grid to the left represents Report Categories while the grid to the right displays all reports in a given category. Categories help group reports together by subject matter. Click a category and notice the list of reports will update accordingly. Sort the report list by clicking on the ID or Report Description column heading. It is important to note the list of reports you are presented with are the ones you have been given access to. 2.) To run a report double click on the desired report or single click and press the click the Run Reports button.
3.) The Print Wizard Parameter dialog, as shown above, will provide you with the capability to filter data in a way that allows you to produce an accurate and concise report. Enter a single parameter such as employee code or use the range feature to capture a larger data set. Only those parameters that appear white are active and are valid as selection criteria for the report you have chosen. Parameters that are inactive, or "gray" are not valid and are not consulted for the report you have chosen. Enter your report selection criteria and press the Next button. If you run a report and get no results, then you have not entered your selection criteria properly. Use the search button located next to an 'active' field if you are unsure of a value.
My Favorite Reports is a new feature that allows you to create and save a list of reports for frequent use. Select a report from Executive Inquiry and press the Run Reports button. Click the Add to My Reports button to add this report to your favorites list. To access My Favorite Reports, click the My Favorite Reports icon located near the menu bar at the top of all program modules. A list of reports that you have chosen as favorites will appear. Press the View Report button to preview your favorite report. Use the Delete button to remove a selection from your favorite list. Press OK to return to your previous dialog.
4.) Reports are assigned to one of 8 groups in an effort to make it easier to find the one you need. These groups provide logical separations in the information they provide. Selection parameters for a report will varying. The Print Wizard screen will make available those fields that are relevant in selecting information to produce a useful report. Selection parameters are typically codes or numbers, like client number or employee number. Be sure to utilize the lookup buttons located next to each field to insure you use the correct values. A summary of each report group and their selection screens are seen below. Using FROM and TO: The Print Wizard provides two columns in an effort to allow for a range of values to be utilized in your report selection criteria. Using the range feature when choosing more that one employee for a WIP report. Or use the range feature to produce an Open AR Statement for one client; put the client number in both the From and To column. Leaving both the From and To empty is the equivalent of selection "All'. Report Categories: i.) Time and Billing Master Dialog Client, Matter and employee demographic reports.
Depending on the report, you will be given client, matter, employee, employee class, or employee type to use in your selection criteria. ii.) Time and Billing Detail Dialog Time and Expense reports, Work in Process (WIP) Depending on the report, you will be given client, matter, employee, employee class, or employee type to use in your selection criteria. Since these reports query the time and expense records, you are presented with a second selection criteria screen prompting for values stored on WIP records.
iii.) AR Detail Dialog- AR Invoices, Payments, Aged AR After navigating the Print Wizard selection criteria screen you will be presented with additional selection criteria related to invoices and payments.
iv.) GL Detail Dialog GL Transactions, detailed account analysis. After navigating the Print Wizard selection criteria screen you will be presented with additional selection criteria related to general ledger accounts and transaction types.
v.) GL Financial Dialog Financial statements, Income Statement, Balance Sheet, cash flow. After navigating the Print Wizard selection criteria screen you will be presented with additional selection criteria related to the general ledger chart and management periods. vi.) AP Master Dialog Vendor listings.
After navigating the Print Wizard selection criteria screen you will be presented with additional selection criteria related to vendor numbers and management periods. vii.) AP Detail Dialog AP vouchers and checks. After navigating the Print Wizard selection criteria screen you will be presented with additional selection criteria related to voucher and check information.
viii.) System Information various system level reports pertaining to security and setup. 5.) On occasion a report may require additional selection criteria in order to formulate a more concise report. In these instances you will be presented with one or more prompts to finalize the report parameter process. Enter an appropriate value and press the OK button. 6.) Your report results are display with the Crystal Report interface similar to the dialog seen below. Navigation aides and features include: Forward and back navigation. Also an indicator of the current page and number of pages in your report. Send the report you are currently viewing to the printer. Printer setup providing paper size selection and printing orientation (landscape vs. portrait) Refresh the data in your report with the current selection criteria. Export the contents of your report to Word, Excel,.PDF, email or some other format. Magnification percentage. Increase or decrease to view report in larger or smaller font. Search report for occurrences of a text value.
Expense Recovery Automated expense recovery provides complete flexibility in integrating 3rd party cost collection systems regardless of expense type or provider. To make this work, three processes need to be put in place. i. Clients, matters, and employees need to be exported from ProfilesFx and imported into your cost collection machinery. ii. iii. Your cost recovery equipment needs to export its expense cards and make them available to ProfilesFx for import. Definition files need to be created. These files interpret the incoming expense record data and queue this information to a session for review and posting. Step 1: Posting Period: the management period to assign to the session you are about to create with this import process.
Session Name: a meaningful name provided for reference when retrieving these expense records with the Time Entry program. Typically refers to the type of expense records you are importing (Copies, Print, Fax, Phone,etc.) Override Date: place an X in the box and change the date from today's date to a the date you want to appear on your imported expense cards. Step 2: Definition File: the name location of the definition file that corresponds to the expense records you are importing. Often there is one definition file for each type of expense record. For example, if you are importing copies, you may have a definition file specifically designed for this type of transaction. Other times you may have one definition file which handles several types of transactions. Ask your support rep if you are not sure. Data File: the name and location of the file which holds the expense transactions we want to import. Rename Date File when completed: for historical and backup purposes you will want to rename the file being imported. Errors can occur or the need may arise to import these transactions again. Renaming the file will keep this set of transactions separate from new ones being generated. Step 3: not applicable Step 4: Press the Start File Conversion button. The number of transactions you are importing will determine how long this process runs. When it is complete you will get a message similar to the one shown below. The result of this process is a session that can be viewed and posted with the Time Entry program. Choose, Open Existing and find the session as named in Step 1.
When there are expense records in error, those that will not import, they are placed in a separate file. This file name and location will be indicated at the bottom of the confirmation message when the process is complete (see above). Open this file with an editing program, fix the problems, and import again.
Electronic Billing The steps required to produce an electronic invoice are as follows: I. Assign Electronic Bill Format format to matter with Client Matter Maintenance program II. Generate and commit an invoice for matter via the billing program. III. Run the E-billing program which will produce a file in a format acceptable to your client. IV. Locate the file generated by the E-billing program V. Send or upload to your client. Step I: Assign an electronic bill format to the matter. Elec Bill Form: Choose from the list of available output formats. Step II: Generate and commit an invoice for matter via the billing program.
See Committing Invoices for details on how to commit an invoice. Step III: Produce an invoice in electronic format. Run the E-Billing program from your desktop.
You must retrieve the invoice(s) generated in Step II and process them into the electronic format chosen in Step I. To do so, use the selection criteria on the EBill Processing Center dialog as a means to locate(fetch) invoices for processing: Search Type: by individual invoice or all invoices that were produced in a run. Only those matters with an electronic bill form will be included in the resultant list. Client: the client number Matter: the matter number Invoice From-To: the invoice date, or range of invoice dates. When searching for one specific invoice, enter its invoice date in both the From and To fields. To retrieve all invoices for the month of November, enter 11/1/2009 to 11/30/2009. Invoice No From-To: works similar to the invoice date. When searching for one specific invoice, enter its invoice number in both the From and To fields. To retrieve a range of invoices, enter a starting and ending number. These search criteria can work together or independently. With your search criteria complete, press the Fetch menu option. The grid on the dialog screen will list the invoice(s) that have met your criteria. Select those in the list that you are ready to process and send to the client.
Output Location: all output is in the form of a text file. These files are placed in a folder on your server called "e-billing share". You have several options to additionally organize your output. User - creates a folder in the "e-billing share" with your login id. The electronic invoices you process will be placed in this folder (e-billing share\users\jdoe\my_invoice.txt) Client - creates a folder for each client receiving an electronic bill. The invoices you process will be placed in this folder (e-billing share\clients\9168\my_invoice.txt) Firm - creates a folder called firm and places all invoices in this folder (e-billing share\firm\my_invoice.txt) *Output text files are named: client#_matter#_invoice#.txt where client# is the firm designated client number, matter# as designated by your firm, invoice# as assigned by the billing program. Recreate: checking this option will include invoices that have already been processed into an electronic format. This feature provides for generating a new text file for submission. PROCESS: with your invoice(s) selected and your output options set, choose the Process option from the menu. A text file will be produced for each invoice you have selected. Step IV: Find the E-Bill you generated. Choose the Open EBill Share option from the menu. Earlier versions of the program may not include this option. If that is the case, a short cut to the EBill Share should have been setup on your desktop. The share, which is a shared folder, may show a structure similar to the one shown below:
The invoice(s) you have processed will be located in the folder based on the selection you made for Output Location. If you chose client or users you will have additional folders under these two main folders. Step V: Send your E-Bill to the client The procedure to transmit or upload a file to your client or a third party is established between you and your client. Typically you will navigate to a web site and upload the file that resides in the "e-billing share" folder on your server.
Accounts Receivable Overview The Accounts Receivable program provides the means to process client payments, cash receipts, allows for manual creation of invoices, enables the reversal of invoices, provides a method to calculate interest on overdue payments, and creates working attorney professional compensation from client payments. This program the provides the ability to process the input of cash receipts such as: Payments Deposits, Retainers, Credits Non-A/R cash Transfers Refunds Reversals Adjustments This module is complimented by a large array of reports designed to ensure the firm gains greater control over the process of tracking and collecting outstanding receivables.
Cash Processing The Cash Processing program is designed to provide for the accounting of cash and payments received by the firm. Monies for client trust or escrow funds are processed in the Trust Escrow program. The terminology used in this module is as follows: Payments - monies received and applied toward an invoice. Retainer or Deposit - a client advance to be held and utilized by the billing process. Credit - overpayment by client. Non Client Cash - monies received that are not related to a client. A vendor rebate would be an example. Adjustment - a write off or write down of an invoice after it has been billed. Monies can be applied at either the client level or the matter level.
Date: the date to be stamped on the transaction you are about to process. Mgt Period: the management period to be stamped on the transaction you are about to process. Be sure to set the date and management period appropriately as it will be stamped on the transactions you are about to make. Payment or cash receipt from a client to pay off an invoice.
Locate the invoice(s) to be paid either by searching client and matter or invoice number. Mark the invoice(s) to be paid with an 'X' and press OK. Note the total value of the invoice(s) you have chosen is displayed at the bottom of the dialog screen.
Enter the client's check number and amount of the payment received. Press OK to continue.
The Invoice Payment Dialog provides a summary of how the payment will be applied. Press OK to continue. Method: see Method as described below. Percentages: used when you have multiple payer's on an invoice(s). Allocates payment proportionately toward sum total of invoice balance(s). Filter: returns you to the Select Invoices dialog without applying payment. When your payment is committed you can adjust the professional compensation that was automatically applied. See Using Professional Compensation for additional details. The Cash Receipts dialog will return providing confirmation of payment. Worth noting are the Transaction(Payment) # and the Seq#. Both can be helpful should you need to reverse all or a portion of this payment.
Deposit or client advance to be used toward fees, expenses, and disbursements. Locate your client and matter. If there are open invoices, they will appear on the grid giving you the opportunity to apply a deposit toward open AR. Open invoices may appear after you have entered the client number. If you are applying a deposit toward one of these invoices, then continue. If your intent is to enter a deposit for eventual use on a matter, be sure to enter the matter number before you continue. Otherwise the deposit will be credited at the client level and will not be used on a matter level bill.
Place an 'X' in the include column if you are applying toward an invoice. Otherwise, press OK. Enter the client check number and amount. Press OK to continue.
Press OK and your deposit will be reflected in the main cash receipts dialog. Check#: the number of the client check. Reason: brief description for historical purposes. Place Item on Hold: when checked, monies are frozen and cannot be applied until removed from hold. Use Monies For: Fees, expenses, or both Retainer or client advance to be used toward fees, expenses, and disbursements. Locate your client and matter. If there are open invoices, they will appear on the grid giving you the opportunity to apply a retainer toward open AR.
Open invoices may appear after you have entered the client number. If you are applying a retainer toward one of these invoices, then continue. If your intent is to enter a retainer for eventual use on a matter, be sure to enter the matter number before you continue. Otherwise the retainer will be credited at the client level and will not be used on a matter level bill. Place an 'X' in the include column if you are applying toward an invoice. Otherwise, press OK. Enter the client check number and amount. Press OK to continue.
Press OK and your deposit will be reflected in the main cash receipts dialog. Check#: the number of the client check. Reason: brief description for historical purposes. Place Item on Hold: when checked, monies are frozen and cannot be applied until removed from hold. Use Monies For: Fees, expenses, or both Credit from an invoice for overpayment or refund. Locate your client and matter. If there are open invoices, they will appear on the grid giving you the opportunity to apply a credit toward open AR.
Place an 'X' in the include column if you are applying toward an invoice. Otherwise, press OK. Enter the client check number and amount. Press OK to continue.
Press OK and your credit will be reflected in the main cash receipts dialog. Check#: the number of the client check. Reason: brief description for historical purposes. Place Item on Hold: when checked, monies are frozen and cannot be applied until removed from hold. Use Monies For: Fees, expenses, or both Process monies received that are not related to a client.
Check#: the number of the vendor check. Amount: amount of monies received. Reason: brief description for historical purposes. Place Item on Hold: when checked, monies are frozen and cannot be applied until removed from hold. Use Monies For: Fees, expenses, or both. GL Accounts: provide the appropriate GL accounts to debit and credit with this money. For example, receiving a rebate from the phone company would be a debit to phone expense and credit to the operating account. Adjustment, write off, or write down of an invoice after it has been billed. Reduces an established accounts receivable for a client or matter. Retrieve the invoice you are going to adjust.
Enter the adjustment amount in the Adjustment column. Amounts entered in this column are assumed to be negative. If you are writing off the entire invoice, enter the appropriate amounts in each column. The new invoice total is reflected on the bottom of the dialog. If you are writing off a portion of the invoice, enter the amount in appropriate row. For example, should you be writing off the interest on an invoice, enter the amount in the Interest row. Reason: a narrative for describing the adjustment. For future release. For future release.
Reversal of a client payment, credit, deposit, retainer, or previous adjustment. Reversing a client payment may be the result of a 'bounced' check or application of money to the wrong client. Locate the payment you want to reverse by client and matter or payment and sequence number. Press the Search button to retrieve the desired payment. Confirm the reversal amount and press OK to continue.
The Cash Receipts dialog will list the results of this reversal. If you reverse a client credit, it is removed from the system and must be reentered before it can be applied. When reversing retainer or credit, reverse the usage first then the retainer or credit. (RETUSED, CREDUSED). When reversing an adjustment, the invoice balance is reinstated by the amount of the adjustment. There is not a reversal option for a Non Client cash entry. To remove this type of entry, make a second Non Client cash entry for the same accounts, same day, and a negative amount. Apply deposit, credit, or retainer toward an existing invoice. Locate the client whose deposit, credit, or retainer you are going to apply toward and invoice.
Highlight the row showing the money you are applying and press OK.
Mark one or more invoices with an 'X' to apply the deposit, credit, or retainer and press OK.
Apply all or part of the deposit, credit, or retainer. Adjust the amount as necessary and press OK.
Click the Payment line then adjust the amounts applied to each of the invoice columns, if necessary. Notice in this example, the retainer applied has a value greater than the invoice leaving a remaining positive balance. Press OK to continue. See also Method and Percentages to review the application of money toward an invoice. If you have not applied the full amount of the retainer, deposit, or credit toward an invoice, you have two choices on how to treat the remaining balance: i) leave it on the original transaction and show only the remaining balance ii) create a credit for the client/matter whose invoice was just paid and remove the retainer or deposit.
Transfer unapplied cash from one client matter to another. Or from the client level to the matter level. But not from one client to another. Locate the client or matter from which you are going to transfer funds. Use the Entry Type and Amount Available columns to select the appropriate monies on the grid. Click OK. Locate the matter for which funds will be transferred To.
The Transfer Amount will default to the balance of the retainer or deposit. Adjust accordingly without exceeding the amount available. Press the Transfer button to complete the transaction. You cannot reverse a transfer. If you transfer a wrong amount, transfer the overage back to the matter it came from. Place deposit, credit, or retainer on hold. Or remove from hold to allow monies to be used by the billing process or applied toward an invoice. Locate the client or matter whose deposit, credit, or retainer you are going to place on hold, remove from hold, or change the way it can be used by the firm. Pick or enter client and matter then press the Search button.
Click in the Hold column on the appropriate row to indicate money will be placed on hold. To take money off hold, click in the Hold column to remove the 'X'. To change the way money can be used by the firm, click the silver button between the UseFor and Payment No. column. Choose Fees, Costs, or Both. Click OK to complete your update. Refund a credit, deposit, or retainer. Remove balances from client AR. Locate the client or matter whose deposit, credit, or retainer you are going to refund. Use the Entry Type and Amount Available columns to select the appropriate monies on the grid. Click OK.
Provide a brief narrative explaining the Reason for Refund. The Refund Amount will default to the balance of the retainer or deposit. Adjust accordingly without exceeding the amount available. Click the Refund button. The Cash Receipts program will produce journal entries to credit cash and debit a client unapplied cash account.
After completing a refund the client 'On Account Cash' is reduced and money is typically placed in a 'Client Refund' account. You must write a check to credit your operating account and remove the money from the 'Client Refund' account. Method: the priority in which the firm wants its receivables paid. Typically hard costs first, then fees, soft costs, and lastly, interest. Select Method: when set to automatic, these payment priorities will occur without intervention. When set to manual, the method dialog will appear and prompt for dollar amounts to be supplied per invoice column. This provides you with complete control of how to apply a payment toward an invoice(s). However, it does slow your process as the system is designed to do this for you based on your current method settings. Invoice Sort Options: determines which invoices will be paid first with the monies you have received. Typically, oldest invoices get paid first.
Payoff Priority: indicates an entire invoice will be paid before applying a remaining balance to another invoice or to pay off columns in order of priority. For example, fees on multiple invoices would be paid first, with remaining monies applied to hard cost, soft cost, and interest. Percentages: used when you have multiple payer's on an invoice(s). Allocates payment proportionately toward sum total of invoice balance(s). When working in the Cash Processing module if you enter only the client number when searching for invoices and continue with the payment, the credit will be created for the client. If, however, you enter the client and matter number when searching for invoices and continue with the payment, the credit will be created for the client/matter.
Using Cash Processing Question: How do I reverse a non-client payment? Answer: A non-client entry cannot be reversed. You must enter a secondary non client payment and use a negative amount to offset your original entry. Question: I entered a payment for the wrong client. What do I do? Answer: Reverse the erroneous payment, then add a payment to the proper client. Set the Date on the cash processing screen appropriately if you want to show the payment and the reversal on the same day or in the same management period. make a deposit, enter payments, wrong amount. Need to reverse and reenter:select client/matter, press search, choose transaction, select OK. Now reenter new transaction Have the user enter the payment number and seq no when reversing this payment. There is a bug in the system where is will not let you reverse any payment if there is a refund rather than not letting you refund the payment that has been refunded.
Using Retainer Question: How do I allocate only a portion of a clients retainer toward the billing process? Answer: Best explained with an example. Assume you have $35k in retainer and must keep a minimum retainer balance of $30k. Place the $35k on hold. Transfer $5k from client matter to same client matter, effectively establishing two retainers for one matter. Take the $5k off hold and it becomes available for billing while the $30k remains on hold. Should the $5k only be used toward fees, establish the correct payment method. If trust money is really retainer that will be applied to fees, consider setting up a separate account and allowing the billing process draw from this account and reflect this draw on the bill. You still must make a transfer on monies from this second account into your operating account and show it with a journal entry. Question: I want to reverse a retainer but a portion of it is already used. What do I do? Answer: Reverse the usage, 'RETUSED', then reverse the 'RETAINER'. Question: I know my client has a retainer balance yet the billing program will not apply it to an invoice. Answer: Typically one of two things has occured: I) The retainer has been applied at the client level and you are billing at the matter level. Use the Transfer option to move it to the matter you are billing and generate your invoice again. II) The retainer has been placed on hold, therefore prohibiting the billing program from applying it to an invoice. Use the Hold option to remove it from hold and generate your invoice again.
Fee Credits - Introduction to Professional Compensation Fee credits, also referred to as professional compensation, are recorded for the working attorney to allow the firm to track billed and collected monies for any period of time. Attorney's who have worked on a matter are proportionally credited with professional compensation. The amount is based on the total value of an invoice as a produced by the Billing or Manual Invoice programs. The Fee Credit module provides the capability to override the allocation of credit (money)given to an attorney when payment is made on an invoice. Additionally, both the Time & Billing and Cash Receipts programs accumulate expenses to allow for cost recovery as payments are made to the firm. These accumulated expense records can also be modified by the Fee Credit program. To add or adjust fee credit entries, you must first locate a payment. Use the Client and Matter search buttons, or enter the invoice number a payment was applied to. Press the Payment No search button to locate the payment and place it on the grid for editing.
If you created a manual invoice and did not assign professional compensation, there will be no fee credit record to edit. You will have to add fee and cost records here. From here you may change a timekeepers(tk) credit amount, add fee record, add cost record or delete a record. To change the credit amount for a fee credit record, click in the credit amount field and edit the amount. The program will not allow you to allocate more credit than the total payment. Therefore, you must change your credit amount for the existing timekeeper prior to adding a fee or cost record. Prompts you with the employee pick list then adds a fee record to the grid. Click in the Credit Amount column and enter an appropriate amount. Should you have a situation where one attorney received 100% of a fee credit and you need to split the amount between two attorneys: i. Click in the Credit Amount column and reduce the payment by 50%. ii. iii. Click Add Fee Record. Choose the second attorney. A new record will appear in the grid. Give this attorney the 50% we took from the first attorney. Prompts you with the firms type of expenses (TOE) pick list then adds a cost record to the grid. Click in the Credit Amount column and enter an appropriate amount. Highlight a record in the grid and press to permanently delete it. Utilities: credit Generate missing billing and collection required to apply working attorney When an invoice is committed, Billing records are created to show working attorney credits. When a payment is recorded, collection records are automatically generated
to proportionally distribute credit among working attorneys who have spent time on the corresponding invoice. If, for some reason, these records do not get produced, this feature provides the ability to create them. This can happen when you create a manual invoice and do not create Professional Compensation as part of the process. Generate Missing Billing and Collection: This option creates any missing records based on the invoice amount, payments received, and attorney hours worked on the invoice. Enter an invoice date range or be more specific and enter an invoice number in the from and to search block. Recreate: Perhaps you have made adjustments to Fee Credits via the main dialog. If your adjustments are in error and you want this feature to reproduce these credit records back to their original calculated values, choose this option. Any and all fee credit records for this invoice will be deleted and replaced by the original distributions. Generate Missing Collection Records:
This option creates any missing records based on the payments received and attorney hours worked on an invoice. Enter a payment date range or be more specific and enter a payment number in the from and to search block. Recreate: Any and all fee credit records based on payments received will be deleted and replaced by the original distributions. Billing and Collection records are used to produce accurate attorney compensation reports that include fees billed vs. fees collected.
Manual Bills Producing a manual invoice provides the capability of updating Accounts Receivable without working through the standard billing process. This program can be utilized to: i) Produce beginning Accounts Receivable balances for clients. ii) Used as part of a data conversion process to set Accounts Receivable balances for clients to balances from a previous accounting program. iii)produce an on demand invoice when there are not time or expense cards to be billed. Use of this program will increase your client accounts receivable balance without the normal invoice detail(s) produced by the Time & Billing program. Since there are no details to a Manual Invoice, it cannot be printed. However you will have an invoice number in which to apply client payments to. This program will not produce a printed invoice. Manual Invoices cannot be reversed, they can only be adjusted to zero via the Cash Processing module.
Invoice Date: the date you want to appear on the invoice and the date it gets recorded in GL. Invoice Number: automatically assigned. AR Management Period: defaults to the current AR management period. Adjust accordingly. Client: the firms designated client number. Must be assigned. Matter: the firms designated matter number. Notes: narrative or description you want to appear on the invoice. Office: assign accordingly or if applicable. Not mandatory. Dept: assign accordingly or if applicable. Not mandatory. Invoice Columns: Fees: value of fees. Enter in the Amount column. Hard Costs: value of hard costs if applicable. Enter in the Amount column. Soft Costs: value of soft costs if applicable. Enter in the Amount column. Interest: value of interest if applicable. Enter in the Amount column.
Invoice Total: cumulative total of amounts entered in Invoice Columns. Associate attorneys with the invoice for the purpose of creating professional compensation. Press the Add Record button to add a row to the Billing Credits grid. Click in the Type, Employee, TOE, and Credit Amount columns to enter the appropriate information. If you are giving compensation for this invoice to more than one employee, click the Add Record button and repeat the input process. As you make compensation entries, the Fee and Expense variance(s) are computed. Each must equal zero in order to complete this transaction. In other words, the total of fees and costs being assigned must equal those of the bill.
Click Done. When you have completed entry of invoice amount(s) and Professional Compensation, press this button. Commits your completed invoice to AR.
On Account Billing The OAB dialog provides two features: I) The generation of a client invoice without regard to current WIP balances or transactions. This process creates an Accounts Receivable Invoice and establishes an offsetting negative WIP item so that the firm s inventory is not artificially inflated. As WIP is produced, the firm can begin to reconcile or apply it to the OAB invoice and substantiate the bill. An automatic Write-up / Write-down process is available to make the application of WIP to the OAB bill an easy task. As WIP is applied, the negative WIP transactions are reduced and finally eliminated. II) Produce a request for retainer letter. This feature will create, print, and track requests so that when monies are received, it can be traced back to this retainer letter. This operation does not effect WIP balances nor will it produce AR. Producing a request for retainer. enter fees, costs, narrative, press create, prompts are you sure, preview crystal report Confirms data entry and prepares invoice or request for retainer.
Reconcile
Reverse Invoice This feature provides the ability to reverse a committed invoice. Enter your invoice number or use the search button and the invoice lookup dialog to help you find the correct one. Details of the invoice are displayed to insure you have selected the proper bill. Reuse the search button should this not be the desired invoice. You cannot reverse a manual invoice. Instead, adjust it to zero and provide the client with a statement of account if necessary.
Press Proceed to reverse the invoice and return the transactions it included back to WIP. A dialog box similar to the one above will ask you to continue. Should this not be the proper invoice, press No and start over. If payments have been applied to this invoice, an error message will appear alerting you that this invoice may not be reversed. To continue, you must first go to the Cash Processing module and reverse the associated payments. With that done, you may now reverse your invoice.
Collections The collections module is designed to assist you in tracking your collection efforts by providing a history of actions taken, follow up activities, generation of statements, and calculation of late charges. Activities such as phone calls, emails, issuance of statements, or legal actions can be tracked with details and dates. Collection actions can be scheduled and assigned to firm staff members. When an activity is complete, it can be closed and considered final or trigger additional activities to commence. The main collection dialog will show you the collection efforts made to your clients, either by an individual or all staff. Before you begin using the collection module, be sure to establish FollowUp and Collection Activities codes. Do so with the Lookup Codes program.
Private: show collections being made by a single firm employee. Public: show collections being made by all firm employees. Show Closed Collections: when a collection activity has been completed, it can be closed. This indicator defaults to showing only open activities. Check it to show past efforts that are now closed. Follow Up Date: show collection activities that have a follow up date within a date range. Client/Matter: shows the client and matter for the collection record highlighted on the grid. To begin a collection action, query outstanding invoices to review open accounts receivable. If a collection effort is necessary, create a new collection and begin tracking the activities related to your effort. When activities are complete, close them if no additional follow up is required. Viewing a list of open invoices is the first step in determining how to proceed with your collection efforts. Provide your selection criteria then enter a client and/or matter number. Press the Query Invoices button to continue. The Invoice Browser dialog will display a list of open invoices meeting your search criteria.
The Level Up and Level Down buttons will refresh and summarize the list of open invoices. Invoices summarizes at the Client level shows a total open balance,matter level lists open invoices by matter, and Invoice level show individual invoices and dates they were issued. To initiate a new collection effort, first Query Invoices, then find this button on the Invoice Browser dialog. As collections efforts take place, you will create records indicating the activities that are in place or have transpired.
Contact Person: individual or client that was contacted during this collection action. Activity Type: choose from a list of activities that have been defined by the firm. Follow Up User: firm staff member responsible for follow up activity. Follow Up Action: choose from a list of actions that have been defined by the firm. Follow Up Date: date of next collection action. Notes: description of activity, conversation, or interaction with contact person during this collection effort.
Before you begin using the collection module, be sure to establish FollowUp and Collection Activities codes. Do so with the Lookup Codes program. A collection action will remain 'Open' until you close it and consider it complete or close it and continue collection efforts with additional follow up action(s). record. Commit to the creation or modification of a new or existing collection Mark the current collection record as closed. record. Close the current record and create a follow up collection When updating a collection record, simply enter your changes and press the Cancel button. Your changes are automatically saved. Modify or update an existing collections record by first selecting it in the Collections History grid. Generate account statements showing client open accounts receivable. Enter your selection criteria to produce statements for all or selected clients.
Toggle With invoice age to broaden or narrow the range of clients to receive a statement based on the age of open invoice(s). Enter a Statement Date which will be placed on the printed output. Press the Print Statements to button to produce statements and send to the Selected Printer. Client and/or matters must have a Statement Style assigned to them for this to work properly. See Client Matter Maintenance Billing Information for additional details. Launches the Print Wizard and provides a list or AR related reports. If your statements are produced via a report, it will appear in this list. Collection Activity reports also are shown here. balances. Computes interest charges on open invoices and adds these charges to client AR
Interest can be compounded for a single client & matter or all clients. Enter a client number, matter number or leave blank to affect all clients. Only clients and or matters that have the Late Charge option checked on the Billing information screen will be charged interest. Management Period: the period in which to credit this interest Late Charge Cut-off: The date interest will be charged through. For example, if you are running bills for March during the first week of April. Enter 3/31/2009 as the cut off date.
Accounts Payable Overview The Accounts Payable module is a simple and flexible cash management system that streamlines the bill payment process and monitors the firm s cash position. Payment of recurring bills, client cost advances, and check printing are handled within this program. Firm outlays will update the General Ledger in a manner consistent with chosen accounting methodology. Integration with the Time & Billing programs provides for client expenses to be billed and collected as quickly as possible. This module is complimented by a large array of reports designed to ensure the firm gains greater control over its expenses and outlays.
Vendors Maintaining an accurate accounting of people, companies, or organizations to whom you write checks is good business practice. Whether it be to record contact information, provide a means to report on cash outlays, or the ability to accurately produce IRS 1099 forms, this information is a key component to your accounts payable. A vendor refers to any person or organization to whom you write checks. The level of detail you maintain on a vendor is dependent on the needs of your firm.
Vendor: a firm assigned number or code to uniquely identify a vendor. Account Number: a vendor generated number or code to uniquely identify your firm.
Active: when checked the vendor appears in reports and is made available on lists when creating vouchers, check requests, and other relevant areas of the system. When unchecked, the vendor becomes inactive and will not appear in reports and related search lists. Sort Name: identifies the vendor as it will appear in a Picklist. Helps to facilitate easy searching. (i.e. International Leasing and Financial would have a Sort Name of International Leasing ). Name: Company or vendor name as it will appear on checks. Address, City, State, Zip, Country, Phone, Fax: the mailing address and general contact information for each vendor. Contact: person to direct communication Vendor Type: identifies vendors by business type or other meaningful category for reporting purposes. Vendor types are established in the Look-Up Codes program. Start Date: indicates when the vendor was added to your database. Tax ID Number: supply a government issued Federal ID Number or an Employee ID Number(EIN). For an individual, the Social Security Number must be supplied. Toggle the EIN or SSN radio button accordingly. 1099 Type: required when a vendor is an individual. The law provides various dollar amounts under which no Form 1099 reporting requirement is imposed. For some Form 1099s, for example, no filing is required for payees who receive less than $600 from the payer during the applicable year. Refer to www.irs.gov for additional filing details. All Invoices on 1 check: when processing multiple vouchers for a vendor, allows you to consolidate and sum their values into one total amount and print on one check. A check in this field will produce one check for multiple vouchers. Unchecked, each invoice for the specified vendor will need to be printed separately.
Currency: specifies the default currency for a vendor. This field is to be used in conjunction with the CP Financials Multi-Currency program, to be provided in a future release. Remit to Vendor: name of third party responsible for making payments to this vendor. (e.g. If the vendor to be paid requires a bank draft for payment, please specify the Vendor Code for the bank). Voucher Text: provides space for special notes, comments, or instructions to be included on a check stub. Defaults for Billing System: used when a vendor is associated with only one client, matter, employee, or type of expense. Choose the appropriate relationship(s) for every amount paid to this vendor. Payment Terms: the maximum number of days in which to pay an invoice before it is considered overdue. Discount: percentage reduction of an invoice when paid in a timely manner. Works in conjunction with Discount Days. For instance, if a vendor offers a 5% discount if the invoice is paid within 30 days, the Discount % field would read 5 and the Discount Days field would read 30. Automatically prorate vouchers for discounts: when checked, all amounts paid to the vendor within the discount period will automatically be adjusted for the discount percentage listed. GL Debit Account (Firm) and corresponding Sub Account: the default expense account in GL when a type of expense has been associated with this vendor (not a required field). GL Debit Account (Client) and corresponding Sub Account: the unbilled client disbursement GL account. GL Account for Discounts and corresponding Sub Account: GL account to which the discounts will be posted.
If you have more than one account with a vendor you will need to create a vendor record for each. When creating vouchers and looking up vendors, the account number will be shown so you will know which one to choose.
AP Navigator
AP Navigator provides a means to process your every day payables and produce checks from your operating account(s). Additionally, the program will process checks requests and provide for the creation of templates useful for recurring payables. Locate vouchers by supplying selection criteria. Enter the selection criteria to locate a voucher or vouchers. Similar to other selection criteria dialogs, filters present ranges providing for general or very specific searches. To choose vouchers for a week, enter a From and To date
or simply toggle the Quick Select option to Everything due this week. To locate a voucher for a specific invoice, enter the invoice number in the From and To columns. With your selection criteria supplied, press the Select button. Process check requests Check requests are turned into vouchers. Vouchers are paid with a check from one of your operating accounts. If you have been notified by the Check Requestor program of a pending request, locate it in the grid by entering a date range and setting the request status to Not Handled. Press the Get Requests button to retrieve request meeting your selection criteria. Double click on the check request you are ready to process and it will be imported to the voucher dialog for additional processing. Check requests coming from Case Management will be processed here. At present, increase your date range by one day to help locate a request recent request. In other words, when searching for a request made 2/20/2009 set your date range: From:2/20/2009 To:2/21/2009 Change the Request Status accordingly when searching for historical requests. Presently, doing check requests via Case Management does include the capability of email notification. Using a completed "To Do" package and assigning someone to be notified can be considered as a method to achieve this capability in the current version of Case Management.
Voucher Status Selection: Entered - ready for posting, editing or deleting. Posted - committed to AP and allows for check print. If a client expense associated with the voucher, then expense card(s) are posted to Time & Billing. If on modified or accrual basis, then a GL session is created and awaits posting. Selected - Ready for payment but without a check being printed to date. This status can be established when you say 'no' when prompted "Did the check printed OK?". Template - a voucher used for recurring expenditures. Paid - resulting from printing of check. Ready for posting to GL. Add a new voucher The creation of a voucher is necessary to print a system generated check, to produce a client expense card, or GL entries for a check you may have already written.
Voucher Type: Voucher - used to produce a system generated check. Manual Check - used when the check has already been written or you plan to write it. You will be prompted to enter the check number and checkbook from which this check has, or is being written. A check will not be produced from the system. Credit Memo - N/A. To create a credit, enter a voucher with a negative value. Template - used to create a voucher for recurring expenses. Invoice Amount: value of the vendor invoice being paid. Invoice Date: date of the vendor invoice. Transaction Date: date assigned to transactions when creating expense cards in Time & Billing. Due Date: date payment is due to vendor. Description: text that can appear on a check.
Add GL or Client Details to the Voucher Create a new session from a voucher template. Produce vouchers from a pre-established template. Choose from the template sessions Picklist similar to the one shown below. After selecting your template session, set the date and management period to be used by your new voucher.
Press OK. Your new voucher will appear in the main grid where it can be edited, paid, or posted. Process a voucher without creating a check. Used when you have already written a check and have a check number to include on an entered voucher. Enter check number and check book. Did you say no when prompted "Did the check print correctly?" when it really did? At present, you must convert vouchers to manual one at a time. General Ledger transactions are produced from this action. Do not Convert to Manual a group of vouchers. Do this one at a time. Printing checks With your voucher in either Entered, Selected, or Posted, status you are able to print a check. Click a single voucher or place a check next to multiple vouchers to produce a check. A single check will be produced for a vendor unless you have indicated otherwise on the vendor setup dialog.
Checkbook: choose the checkbook from which to write this check(s). Check Date: the date you want to appear on the check you are producing Starting Check Number: defaults to the next check number defined by your checkbook. You may override this number by entering your check number. Overdraft Protection: n/a Management Period: the accounting period in which this check print will be recorded. Select Printer: the printer which hold the check forms Print Order: collation order Send this check information to the printer. You will be asked to align the checks in the printer. Make sure you have placed the blank check(s) in the printer tray. If your check has printed and you answer 'No' to "Did the check print correctly?", your voucher will maintain a Selected status and remain unposted. Otherwise, answer yes and your voucher is marked as paid. Open Total Selected: the cumulative value of the vouchers you have checked Open Total: the cumulative Open Amount of all vouchers in the grid on your screen Pay Amt: the cumulative Pay Amount of all vouchers in the grid on your screen
As you select vouchers for payment, you can click the Recalc(ulate) button and it will show you how much the check is going to be in the Open Total Selected amount block. As you pay vouchers, the Recalc button will update the Open Total and Pay Amt values. How and when vouchers affect your GL: CASH BASIS - when a voucher is posted, an expense card is created. When the check is written, the expense creates a credit to your checking account and an entry in AP for posting. This entry will be a debit to the account you have chosen in the voucher detail and a credit to the account assigned to the checkbook you write from. MODIFIED CASH BASIS - when you post a TB & GL voucher an expense card is created along with a credit transaction to AP checking account. The debit is applied to the account you have chosen in the voucher detail. When you print the check a debit is made to the account listed in your Checkbook setup. Firm charges do not accrue (vouchers that are GL only) until the check is printed.
Using Vouchers: Questions and Answers Question: I am attempting to void and delete a check. I am receiving an error stating the voucher cannot be deleted. Answer: This voucher must have been paid once before and the check voided. This creates an integrity issue when the program attempts to delete it. The resolution is to void the check and create a negative matching voucher. Make sure both vouchers are in the same status, select both and print a zero dollar check to get voucher out of AP Navigator. Make sure at the vendor level, you have the Print on 1 Check option turned on. Question: I have a voucher in AP Navigator which was entered by mistake but it s no longer in the Entered status. How do I remove the voucher? Answer: Once your voucher has left the Entered status, all corresponding time, expense, or General Ledger transactions which needed to be created have been created. In order to back out the voucher properly, you need to enter a matching voucher, with matching voucher details, and negative dollar amounts. Make sure both vouchers are in the same status, select both the positive and negative vouchers, then choose Print Check. This will give you a zero dollar check and remove both vouchers from outstanding AP. Make sure at the vendor level, you have the Print on 1 Check option turned on otherwise, you will print one negative check and one positive check. Question: How do I make a partial payment on a POSTED voucher? Answer: From AP Navigator, select your voucher and press the Select to Pay button. This moves the voucher from a POSTED to a SELECTED status. Click the Selected button in the Voucher Status Selection block on the top portion of the screen. Click in the Pay Amount column on the grid and enter the amount you are going to pay. Now click the Print Checks button. With your check printed, the balance of the voucher is adjusted and its status is returned to POSTED. Question: I wrote a manual check. How do I account for it? Answer: Create a voucher. Choose Manual Check as the voucher type. Enter the voucher details. When you press Done, you are asked for a check book, check
number, and check date. Provide this information and press OK. The voucher will be marked as Paid and the appropriate GL entries will be created. Question: I started to create voucher and decided I did not want it. The Cancel button is not available. How do I get out of the screen without creating the voucher? Answer: Remove the Invoice Date and tab to another field. The Cancel button is now available. Question: My check printed correctly but I clicked 'No' when prompted "Did the check print correctly?". Now I have a check and want to clear the voucher. What do I do? Answer: Use the Convert to Manual process in AP navigator to enter the check number on the voucher and commit it. Question: I created a new check book with the CheckBook program, but when I go to pay a voucher in AP Navigator I don t see my new checkbook on the drop down list. Answer: There are two types of checkbooks, Regular and Trust. AP Navigator will only allow you to see Regular checkbooks. Reopen the Checkbook program and make sure the checkbook was set up as Regular when you created it and that it is marked as Active. Question: Where does the date on the expense card come from? Answer:The expense card date is the transaction date assigned on the voucher detail entry screen. The transaction date will default to the date on the voucher (invoice date) but can be overwritten. Question: How do I use a voucher template? Answer:Instructions on how to use template vouchers in AP. Templates provide the ability to quickly produce vouchers from predefined copies. They become useful when you have recurring monthly payables such as rent or utilities. I) To create a voucher template first create an AP session. a. From the AP Navigator, click the Add Voucher button b. Click the New Session button c. Type in a Session Name and Click OK
II) Next create the template. a. From the AP Navigator, click the Add Voucher button. b. On the main voucher screen, click the drop down for Voucher Type and select Template. c. Click on the look-up for Session and select the session to put the template in. Using our example, that would be the session called "Mid Month Payables". d. Complete the Template like a normal voucher including voucher details.
III) How to use a template to create vouchers. a. In AP Navigator, click the Add Batch button. b. Select the session you created in step I. This is your template(s) reside. c. Specify the Management Period and Date for Vouchers being created. These vouchers will be created with a status of Entered and will appear in AP Navigator grid. Double click to make any adjustments and print your check(s).
Check Requestor The Check Requestor program provides a means for firm staff to request payment to a vendor or other entity. Payable to: When the Non-Vendor is selected, enter the name of the entity or person to pay. When the Vendor option is selected, use the Picklist dialog to choose from established firm vendors. Amount: The dollar value of the check. Description: Provide a meaningful description to the accounting department that describes this payment.
Client Charge: is this to be charged back to the client? If so, select the client and matter from the PickList dialog. When Needed: indicate the urgency of your request. Check Requestor: are you making the request or are you making it on behave of another staff member? Notify this Employee: where applicable, an email notification of your request will be sent to this staff member. Defining check request recipients From the Accounting Controls dialog, press the Check Request Recipients button. Place and 'X' next to each staff member that should receive a check request.
Press OK to save your selections and continue. Delivery Method: indicate how you want to receive the resultant check. Send the request to the accounting department Check Request via Case (This is the Drop-down text)
Reconciliation The intent of this feature is to provide the capability to Void Checks. Retrieve Checks: upon entering the Reconciliation program you must provide selection criteria which in turn will produce a list of checks meeting your specifications. You can use one or a combination of the selection criteria to define a broad or narrow search. The criteria you have to choose from is as follows: Checkbook: One of your AP check books Check #: provide the check number or range of check numbers you wish to work with. Entering the leading zeroes of the check number is not necessary as the will automatically be included. Check Date: the date the check was written.
Status: Uncleared: not yet marked as cleared through your Bank Reconciliation Cleared: marked as cleared through your Bank Reconciliation. Void: previously voided. Deleted: previously deleted. Voiding checks Use the selection criteria at the top of the Check Reconciliation dialog to locate the check you are about to void. Select the check to void by placing an 'X' in the Select column on the grid. Enter the date you want to record this void in your general ledger. Adjust the GL Management Period accordingly. Often times it is beneficial to show the void in the same period the check was printed. Void: void the check and return the voucher to POSTED status so that it can be used re-issue a payment at a later date. Void and Delete: choose this option if you never intend to pay this voucher. The void process will destroy the voucher and produce a correcting negative expense card in time & billing if this expense was previously billed.
Set the void date and management period to that of the check if you want this to be recorded in the same period. Create Unprocessed Checks Provides a means to update your check register and fill the gap you may have between check numbers. This process creates the necessary checks records while immediately voiding them. Check Book: choose from one of your firm check books. Check #: enter single or range Void Mgt Period: the period in which you want to record the voided check or checks you are about to reconcile.
Checkbook Setup A required step for each checking account used by the firm. Both regular and trust checking accounts are established with this feature. The Checkbook Setup Dialog: Add new checkbook. Complete fields as described below.
Checkbook: enter a code designation for the checkbook. To modify settings for a checkbook already established, use the search button and select from the Pick List dialog. Account Name: provide a meaningful name for future reference Account Number: account number as provided by the bank Bank Name: the name of the bank where checking account has been established. Type: designate as regular or trust Cash Account: account number as designated in the general ledger affected by checks and deposits. *Required for all checkbooks. See also General Ledger Main Accounts. Cash Subacct: sub account number as designated in the general ledger affected by checks and deposits. Trust Contra Account: used only for Trust Accounts and will be used as the balancing account for the Cash Account. Account numbers are designated in the general ledger. *Mandatory for the creation of proper GL. Trust Contra Subacct: trust sub account number as designated in the general ledger affected by checks and deposits. Active: to print checks from this account it must be active. Checkbooks cannot be deleted as they maintain historical information and transactions. If you close a checking account, remove the active designation. Next Check Number: the number to be printed on the next check produced. Microcode Information: numeric interpretation of microcode on checks as provided by the bank. Check Style: the location of the Crystal report used to print information on your bank check stock.
If you use the same check stock for a regular and trust account, you must have two check styles in place. One for each account, as the information used by these reports comes from two different places in the database. Number of copies: number of times to print a check for each occurrence you produce one. Collation:works with in conjunction with number of copies. If more than one copy is to be printed, then choosing collated will print checks in numerical order then start over again (1,2,3,1,2,3). Uncollated prints the specified number of checks in numerical order (1,1,2,2,3,3). Notes: a place to make notes about the checkbook for future reference.
1099 This program is updated each year to meet the changing requirements and/or the formats of the IRS form 1099. As a CP client, you will be notified via email in January where to download the program and instructions on its use.
General Ledger Introduction A General Ledger acts as the central repository for all financial transactions created in the sub ledgers. The CPFx software adheres to the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) following strict standards, conventions, and rules in recording and summarizing transactions, and in the preparation of financial statements. Firms can elect to operate in one or more of the following accounting methodologies: Cash basis Modified Cash Accrual basis Most of the transactions compiled in the GL are created automatically in the sub ledger and corresponding controlling account as you produce transactions within the system. However, the Transaction Entry program exists for the purpose of manually creating journal or month-end closing entries. A sophisticated GL Integration program allows the firm to dictate how financial transactions interact with the General Ledger and the accounts they affect. Transactions are batched into a session for automatic posting or can be customized to provide additional accounting control by placing sessions in a queued state, allowing additional review before final posting to the GL. It is from within the GL that evaluation of firm performance can be measured. This is done with tools such as: Income Statements Balance Sheets Trial Balances Cash Flow Statements Detailed Account Analysis Reports A complete set of transaction based reports is included in this product to provide supporting detail to any financial schedule. See GL Main Accounts to begin the setup of your general ledger.
General Ledger Main Accounts Prior to setting up your Main Account Chart you should first review the GL Introduction and determine the accounting method your firm will operate under. Additionally you must determine whether or not the firm will be using sub accounts for cost center based accounting. Setting up your general ledger begins with the entry of your chart of accounts. Your chart should be well thought out and categorized into asset, liability, equity, revenue, and expense. Separation of individual accounts by several numerical places allows for future expansion. Before you begin your account setup, be sure you have already established management periods for the current year. For every General Ledger Main Account created or modified, each will have a beginning, ending, and amount of change balance for current and historical management periods. Use the management period. button to position the grids to the current Double click on any management period in the Period Balances grid to view a dialog window showing account balances for all sub accounts associated with the main account. Amounts shown on the Balances and Budgets grid are for reference only and can only be modified with entries to your General Ledger.
If you have established a budget for this account, its current balance and YTD balance will appear in the bottom grid. Ratio Group: a predefined code that allows you to consolidate accounts for reporting purposes on the balance sheet. Default Currency: the Process Code: Trigger Code: Report Inc Group:a predefined code that allows you to consolidate accounts for reporting purposes on the balance sheet. When used in conjunction with a Ratio Group, provides for additional grouping and consolidation of accounts for reporting purposes on the balance sheet. Create a new account
Chart Methods: established accounting method of your firm. Account Number: a unique number being assigned to this account. Be sure it fits into your numbering scheme based on account type. Account Type: choose from the available list to indicate the category where this account will appear on your chart of accounts. Account Title: a meaningful account description. Cut Copy Paste Launches the Bank Reconciliation program to reconcile the account on display in the current dialog. Attach a document such as a bank statement to an account. Designed to link important documents and files to an account for viewing by firm staff. Attach a scanned bank statement to your operating or trust account for easy retrieval.
Press the Add File button. Attached by: Employee code of staff person initiating the attachment of a document to the account. Use the search button to pick from the employee list. Date: Date attachment made for historical reference. Type: Type of document being attached. Use search button to pick from list of available options. Get File: Searches your computer or network to a locate file. Remove Local Copy: removes the file from its present location and stores it in a folder, established by your software administrator, for future reference Description: Describe the document you have attached to this account for future reference.
Budgets: Each Account can have a month-to-date and year-to-date budget for each management period. These budgets can be entered one at a time or distributed automatically across a fiscal year. At year end, budgets can be zeroed out or automatically rolled over into the next year. Number of Periods Per Year: number of management periods to establish and divide the yearly budget amount amount. Starting Period: budgets are tracked over the course of a year. Provide the year in which to establish your budget. Yearly Amount: the amount of your budget. This amount will get divided evenly over the number of periods per year you have defined.
GL Sub Accounts Delete this text and replace it with your own content.
General Ledger Transaction Entry The General Ledger Transaction Entry module provides the capability to post transactions directly to the general ledger. This useful feature offers a means to make adjustments or correcting entries to transactions made in other sub ledger areas. Sessions are used to hold transactions until they are ready to post. Upon entry to this module you are prompted to create a new session, update an existing one, or create recurring transactions from a template. General Ledger sessions are each assigned a: Session Number: a sequential number generated from the database. Listed on GL reports for future reference. Created On: date and time the session was created. Created By: login ID of the user who generated the session. Name: either the name given to the session by the creator or a name automatically assigned by the program module from which the transactions originated.
Status: the current status of a session. Active: in a state that allows editing. Queue: ready for posting. In a state that allows: i)rejection and a return to an Active state ii) posting to the GL Template: template sessions cannot be posted. They are used to generate recurring transactions. See Creating and using a GL Template below. Creating a new session. Session Name: a meaningful description of the transactions you are about to record. Management Period: the general ledger transactions in your session will be posted to this management period. You will not be able to enter a management period for each transaction. Session Type:
GL Regular - not recurring, a one time entry of a given type, amount and made to a one of the firm accounts. GL Template - used to create recurring GL Transactions such as payroll entries. GL Distribution - automatic distribution of monies from a firm income account for predetermined percentages. For example, distribution of money to working attorneys from the fee income account based on assigned percentages to each recipient. Posting Method: corresponds to accounting method of your firm. Control Amount: originally used as an indicator when your transactions reached the dollar figure entered here. This feature is no longer applicable. You must always perform double sided entries to your GL. The sum of the debits and credits in your transactions should always equal zero. When making correcting entries, be sure they are done in the same period as those that are being corrected. Editing an Existing Session Select a session from the list and double click. The contents or transactions in the session will then be listed on the General Ledger Transaction Maintenance dialog for editing. Note that only session with an Active status or Template status are listed. Queued session can be viewed with the GL Posting program. Posted sessions cannot be edited.
Select a transaction from the list for editing.
Creating a New Transaction
Main Account Number: the firm account you are going to debit or credit with this transaction. Sub Account Number: when applicable, the sub account you are going to debit or credit with this transaction. Employee: track GL by working atty, then must assign, (Cash receipt that needs to be assigned income/expsense) Type: used for reporting purposes, each GL transaction must be assigned an identifying type. Choose from the list. If none of the choices are applicable, use Journal Entries (JE) and include a description. For example, when making a 'Correcting Entry', choose Journal Entries as the type Amount: the dollar amount of the debit or credit. Credit/Debit: relevant to the account this transaction applies to. Reference: does this transaction reference another entry? If so, describe its reference for easier interpretation in your reports. Currency: choose from the list that which applies. Vendor: typically the journal entries you make are not for AP. Automatic entries are made by the AP Navigator program and do reference a vendor. If you edit an AP transaction, the vendor will be indicated Check Book: typically the journal entries you make are not for AP. Automatic entries are made by the AP Navigator program and do reference a check book. If you edit an AP transaction, the check book will be indicated.
Check Number: typically the journal entries you make are not for AP. Automatic entries are made by the AP Navigator program and will reference a check number. If you edit an AP transaction, the check number will be indicated Description: provide a meaningful description for historical reference. Creates a new, empty transaction record ready for editing. Saves your transaction and returns you to the main dialog. Your saved transaction will be listed on the grid. The debit or credit total at the bottom of the grid will be updated appropriately. Produces a copy of the current transaction and assigns it the next line number in your session. Copy a Transaction Highlight a transaction shown on the grid and press this button. A new transaction is generated with the same contents as the one you chose to highlight. The GL Transaction Entry dialog presents you with the transaction for editing and saving. Delete a Transaction Removes a transaction from your session. In the list of transactions shown on the grid, highlight the one you want to delete and press this delete button. Be careful, as there is not a warning or confirmation to delete. It is simply removed. Queue transactions While entering and editing GL transactions, they maintain an Active status. Queuing transactions is an intermediate step or state that freezes them from further modification but does not post them to GL. The concept of queuing transactions allows you a final review of your work before posting to the General Ledger. If you are certain your transactions are correct, you can skip this step and post your transactions immediately. Once queued, your session can be found in the GL Posting program. Here it can be posted to GL or rejected. Rejecting a queued session returns the transactions to an Active state where they can be further edited. Posting transactions
The final step to committing your transactions to the General Ledger. Once posted, they cannot be changed. Correcting entries will be required. Deleting a Session From the menu bar at the top of the dialog, choose the Record option. Select Delete Session. You are prompted with a warning/confirmation before the session is destroyed. Creating and using a GL Template A GL template is useful when you have recurring transactions needing to be posted on a regular basis. This template holds individual transactions that would be similar to those that are done on a frequent basis. To create a template, create a new session but choose GL - Template as the session type. The management period will default to your current GL management period but each time you use this template you can change the management period.
You will be presented with the General Ledger Transaction Maintenance dialog as shown above. Create and save transactions as applicable. When done, close the General Ledger transaction Maintenance dialog window. When you are ready to use your template, select it from the list of existing sessions. It will be identified both by the name you have given it and a status of Template.
Pressing Yes to the dialog above will create a new GL Regular session with the transactions from the template. Update the management period as necessary and the date of the transactions you are about to create. Both of these will be reflected in your general ledger when you post your session. Edit and save each of the transactions to conform to accounts, amounts, employees, etc. that are now applicable. Queue or Post your session when done. Choosing No when you open a template allows you to edit or add to the transactions included in your template.
Trust Escrow Trust Escrow refers to those funds deposited into a neutral third party account to be dispersed at a later date upon fulfillment of certain conditions as established in a written agreement. This requires that your firm's trust and escrow transactions be kept in strict order, independent of your firm's earnings and expenditures. Before you start you must establish a trust checkbook referencing a physical bank account separate from your operating account. See Checkbook Setup. Choose a client and matter to begin trust activity. Reselect client and matter to continue trust activity.
Write a check from the client's trust account. Check Book: choose from the list and provide the check book corresponding to the firm trust account. SubCode: GL Debit Account: predetermined in Check Book Setup. GL Credit Account: predetermined in Check Book Setup. Mgt Period: the management period in which this transaction is to be posted. The values presented in the drop down list are based on the current Accounts Receivable management period. See Month End Year End. Printer: the firm printer containing trust check stock on which to print the check. Date: the date of your transaction. Referenced historically in your GL. Check: firm check number.
Amount: dollar amount of check being written. Pay to: payee or check recipient. Include address if appropriate. 1099 Amount: when applicable, enter the amount to be included on the vendor or payee 1099 produced by your firm. Description: a brief narrative for historical and reporting reference. For example, "Real Estate Closing Fees". Print the check when all information has been supplied. If the check has printed correctly, click Yes to complete the transaction and update the General Ledger. If the check did not print correctly, press the No button Deposit client monies into trust account.
Check Book: choose from the list and provide the check book corresponding to the firm trust account. SubCode: Date: the date of your transaction. Referenced historically in your GL. Check: Client check number. Use 'Cash' if a cash deposit. Amount: dollar amount of deposit Description: a brief narrative for historical and reporting reference. Mgt Period: the management period in which this transaction is to be posted. GL Debit Account: predetermined in Check Book Setup. GL Credit Account: predetermined in Check Book Setup. Transfer trust monies from one client matter to another.
The matter you are transferring trust money from must be currently displayed in the Trust Escrow main dialog. Here you can view trust activity and the current balance. Press the Transfer button. The transfer screen will prompt you for: Matter: the receiving matter Check Book: the check book where the money currently resides. Transfer Date: the date you want this transaction to appear in your GL. Mgt Period: the management period you want this transaction to appear in your GL. Amount: the amount of the original deposit, which cannot exceed the current balance.
The trust transfer feature only allows you to transfer the entire original balance. Should you have written checks against a clients trust account, reducing the original balance, and need to transfer monies, make a negative deposit for the remaining balance, then a positive deposit in a different matter. Be sure to include in the description of both these deposits a narrative explaining the transfer. Voiding a trust check. The trust client or matter must be currently displayed in the Trust Escrow main dialog. Here you can view trust activity and the current balance. Trust transactions maintain a 'type' indicator. A transaction type of 'C' indicates a check. Highlight the row indicating the check you wish to void and press the Void button.
The Void Check Dialog will display details of the check. Review for accuracy and press the Void Check button.
Be sure to set the date and management period to match the way you want to see this transaction in your GL. Upon completion of a void, the Trust Escrow main dialog will change the transaction type to 'V' indicating a void. Recalculate trust balance based on current transactions listed on the current dialog. When you have completed your trust transactions, they will be posted to the GL when you exit the Trust Escrow program.
Trust and the Billing Process: To apply trust money to a bill you must write a check from the trust account and make a payment to the client, applying the trust money to the invoice. If you want the application of trust to show on the client invoice you must produce the check, make a deposit, credit, or retainer in the name of the client, then generate the invoice. If trust money is really retainer that will be applied to fees, consider setting up a separate account and allowing the billing process draw from this account and reflect this draw on the bill. You still must make a transfer on monies from this second account into your operating account and show it with a journal entry. Viewing and Printing Trust Deposits: From Executive Inquiry, run report #196 "Detailed account analysis by journal type" located in the GL Detail Dialog category. Parameters include: Chart: typically "Cash" Main Account: the number of your trust account Management Period: time period in which you are looking for deposits made. GL Transaction Type: Trust Deposit(TD), Trust Check(TC), Trust Void(TV)
GL Posting As work takes place in the system sub ledger, sessions are created and queued for posting to the general ledger. The concept of queuing transactions allows you a final review of your work before posting to the General Ledger. Notice in the sample screen above, there is transactions in the 2009.002 management period waiting to be posted. The grid columns indicate: Type: GL GL regular Date: the date of the transaction(s) ID: session ID used for reference Name: indicates the subledger and staff member that produced the transaction(s) To view the details of a queued session, double click the appropriate line in the grid, then choose Yes to reject it. You will be transferred to the GL Transaction Entry
module where you can review transactions. Upon ending your review, you can Queue the session again or Post it from the transaction editor. rejection. Places an 'X' next to all session on the grid. Marking them for posting or Removes the 'X' from all sessions. Posts to the GL any sessions marked with an 'X' Rejects any sessions marked with an 'X'. A rejected session will be returned to an active status and can be edited with the Transaction Entry program. Deposits, retainers, credits, payments, and non-client cash intake will all show up as a 'Cash Receipts' session within this module. If you run reports and do not see the transactions you have made, it is likely that these items have not yet been posted. Your Profit & Loss is updated after every post.
General Ledger Correcting Entries Correcting entries to your GL are common practice. Whether it is to move a transaction from one period to another, adjust an account balance, or reverse a previous transaction it is important that you know which accounts are affected and the management period in which you need to make the adjustment. Listed below are several samples of correcting entries and the steps necessary to perform them: Transactions were posted to the wrong management period: You will need to reverse the original entries from the incorrect management period, which effectively nullifies them in that period, then reenter them in the correct period. Do this by making entries debiting and crediting the accounts in the opposite manner of the original entry. Be sure to make this reversing entry in the same management period as the original entries. Renter your transactions in the correct period.
Using GL Posting Delete this text and replace it with your own content.
GL Integration When payments are made, checks are written, and invoices are committed, journal entries are automatically produced to update your account balances. The debits and credits that occur need to be predefined to provide proper accounting for your firm. Interaction with your GL chart of accounts and the AP navigator, Cash Processing, and Billing programs is governed by the rules established with this program. It is critical these rules be in place before your begin the processing of monies. Your firm will operate on either a Cash basis, Modified Cash, or Full Accrual basis. The accounting method you choose will be a determining factor in how your GL rules are defined. Transactions that take place on any given day at the firm are labeled by their type. Each transaction type must be assigned the corresponding account(s) to debit and credit.
In the example above, note the Credit, Deposit, and Retainer transaction types. As unapplied cash, each will debit the operating account(1020) and debit a fee income account(4010). When that unapplied cash is used toward an invoice, we must account for fees, and costs. Therefore more than one rule is necessary as indicated by 'YES' in the More Rules column.
As shown above, an offsetting debit and credit is made to the fee income account for the fee portion of an invoice. This, because we have already debited fee income when we took in this cash and don't want credit for it a second time. The firm in our sample is operating on a Modified Cash basis. Therefore, client expenses are accrued at the time they are incurred, an asset. In this instance, when applying cash to an invoice to pay expenses, we debit fee income and credit the unbilled client disbursement account. This moves money from one asset account to another. In order to determine the makeup of an invoice, invoice columns are defined. Column 1 is Fees, column 2 is Hard Costs, column 3 is Soft Costs, and column 4 is Interest when applicable. When applying payment or monies to an invoice, it can be applied to one or all of these columns. Below we see what happens when an invoice is committed by a firm operating on a modified cash basis. The cost portion of the invoice, columns 2 and 3, will be debited to unbilled client disbursements (account 1320) to show an increase, and credited to billed client disbursements (1310) to show a decrease in this asset account.
When payment is received, the fee portion or invoice column 1, will increase our operating account(1020) and reduce our fee income account (4010). The expense portion of the payment is used to increase our operating account(1020) and reduce our unbilled client expense account(1320).
Entering an expense, when operating on a modified cash basis, will increase the unbilled client expense account(1310) and increase individual expense accounts based on the Type of Expense(TOE) code assigned to the expense. For example, a photocopy charge with a TOE code of 001, would credit the client copy charge account, #6151, as shown below. Proper setup of TOE codes must be done prior to establishing these rules. When operating on a modified cash basis, firm charges do not accrue until a check is printed. Firm charges are entered with a voucher type of GL Only. Sample rules for Cash Basis accounting: Shown below is an example of GL Rules for a firm on a Cash basis.
Here account 1100 = operating and 2270 = unapplied funds. Expense are not accrued while on a strict Cash Basis so rules applying to their entry are not necessary. Neither are we offsetting billed and unbilled client disbursements when committing invoices. However,we must still establish rules for applying the fee vs. expense portion of a client payment. Notice the More Rules column = 'YES' for the Transaction Type of Payment.
Here payment for the Fee portion of the bill (invoice column 1) will increase the operating account and the fee income account. Hard costs (invoice column 2) also increase the operating account as well as the client hard cost expense account. Soft costs (invoice column 3) similarly increase the operating account and the client soft cost expense account. Sample Cost Recovery on a Cash Basis Working in conjunction with the Time & Billing module, your general ledger rules can dictate a debit to your cash account and credit to an expense 'holding' account when invoices are created. A month end journal entry is required to move monies from this holding account to the individual soft cost recovery accounts. The end result should be a zero balance in the 'soft cost' account and credit balances to the individual cost recovery accounts such as photo, fax, and telephone. Example:
The rules established with this program will be applied automatically and produce journal entries for your review and posting. See GL Posting for additional details on committing journal entries to your General Ledger. There are many other transaction types that may or may not require definition at your firm. It is highly recommended that your consult with your CP advisor before making changes or additions to your GL Integration rules.
Month End Year End Your General Ledger incorporates the ability to organize and run the time and billing system on a periodic basis. The norm is 12 periods per year but they can be setup to suit the needs of your firm. General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Time and Billing, and Payroll transactions can all be period driven. To that end, moving ahead from one period to the next provides for the creation of beginning, ending, and forward balances. The GL Financial Control dialog shows you the current periods in each system areas. Use the slide bar on the left side of the grid to scroll through historical periods. Use the tab at the top of the grid to move from one accounting area to another. Closes the current period for one accounting area. Manipulate the tabs on top of the grid to move from one area to another.
Do not close a period if there is not a future period to make current. This happens frequently when you close the year and do not have management periods set up for the upcoming year. Reopens the period previous to the current one. Allows for prior period GL posting. Manipulate the tabs on top of the grid to move from one area to another. Typically done to reopen year end when making prior year GL journal entries for depreciation, capital accounts, etc. Be sure to close year end when done to achieve updated ending balances. Closes and changes period status to frozen for AR, AP, and Time & Billing modules. Also makes the next chronological period the current one. Closes the current GL period and rolls balances forward to next chronological period. All GL sessions and batches for the period must be posted for this process to complete successfully. Should you have an unposted batch you will receive a warning message. Return to the GL Transaction Entry module and post all batches for the period you are closing. GL Month end is disabled when your last GL period is current. If you are working on a calendar year, then in period.012 you will do GL Year End and not GL Month End.
Zero the Amount: reduces the budget allocations to zero, effectively letting you reestablish budget allocations. Not applicable if you are do not have budgets established. Do not change the amount: maintain your existing budget allocations. Not applicable if you are do not have budgets established. You must close AR, AP, T&B, and Payroll modules before you can perform GL Month End. Before closing GL for the year you must first close all December periods for AR, AP, T&B, and Payroll. This process will create starting balances for January in your asset and liabilities accounts based upon ending balances in the previous year. It will also set your income and expense accounts to a zero starting balance for the new year. Should you need to reopen the year, use the Open Previous feature.
Year End Processing: Questions and Answers Question: Do I have to make journal entries to retained earnings or does the system do that when I close the GL for the year? Answer: Depending on what you do with retainer earnings, you will have to make journal entries to move them to the Prior YTD earnings or into individual partner accounts.
Bank Reconcilliation From the GL Main Accounts program choose the account, in the BALANCES grid highlight the management period your plan to reconcile, and press the Bank Rec button. (For earlier software versions, this program can be found under the Applications menu option.) You are presented with the dialog box below which prompts you to enter the account balance shown on your monthly bank statement. Enter this Statement Balance amount and press OK. **For software versions prior to v12.03 the cleared date on transactions will be the day you clear an item. You do not have the option to set it. In versions v12.03 and above you can set you cleared date as seen on the dialog above. Best Practice Tip: 1) Before you start this process be sure your checks, deposits, and all necessary Journal Entries, such as payroll or bank charges, have been entered. 2) Run a GL Detailed Account Balance report to confirm you are ready to start. 3) Have your Bank Statement on hand.
Bank Balance:the ending balance for the management period of the account you are reconciling. Statement Balance: the value you entered on the Input dialog which should be the account balance as shown on your statement. Control Balance: the combined value of the Checks, Deposits, and Other entries that are listed on each grid. This amount if derived as Debits minus Credits. As you select items to clear, the control balance is adjusted accordingly. Difference from Statement: the Statement Balance minus the Control Balance. When this amount is zero you have successfully reconciled the account.
Checks: Depending on the account you are reconciling, these are checks you have written to pay vouchers via AP Navigator or Trust Checks you have written via the Trust Escrow program. Deposits: Depending on the account you are reconciling, these are client deposits you have taken into your operating account via Cash Processing or Trust Deposits you have made via the Trust Escrow program. Other: Journal entries that have been made to your account. These could be entries for payroll withdraws, bank charges, wires, adjustments, etc. Select the entries shown on the grid with corresponding entries on your bank statement. These are the items you are going to clear. As you match checks, deposits, and withdraws in the list to your bank statement the cumulative value of items you have marked is updated on the top right portion of the screen. As you select transactions they are credited or debited to the to the amount shown in the Control Balance. When the Difference from Statement value is zero you have successfully matched Checks, Deposits,and Journal Entries to your bank statement. You can now press the Cleared Selected button to update these items to a cleared status. Launches the GL Transaction Entry program to allow you to make an necessary Journal Entries. When you make an adjusting journal entry, you will need to leave the Bank Rec program. Run the program again and the Bank Balance value displayed at the top of the dialog will be updated based on the adjustments you have made. Updates all selected entries to a cleared status. Changes the status of previously cleared items to Un-cleared. If you have mistakenly cleared items in a previous month you will need to return them to an un-cleared status. To do so, enter a check number or range of numbers to locate a cleared entry. Or enter a date range. If you know the specific type of transaction you are looking for, choose it from the GL Type drop down menu. If you are not familiar with entry types, leave the GL Type blank.
Press the Search button to be presented with a list of entries that meet your selection criteria. Select the item(s) in the list you want to un-clear and press the Un-Clear selected button. Press the Re-Fetch Records button on the Bank Reconcilliation dialog after unclearing items to have them presented in the list of items being cleared. When you have 'UN-Cleared' an entry, you will need to press this button to refresh the list(s) on your screen to include these newly un-cleared items. program. Leave the Bank Rec program and return to the GL Main Account
Deposit Details: Double Click on a deposit to see the details that comprise it. You can clear the entire deposit of just the individual transactions.
System Setup Overview ProfilesFx is a software product assisting hundreds of firms with their daily accounting and billing processes. Developed to meet standardized methods, the software is capable of being reasonably customized to meet the specific needs of your firm. This area provides numerous settings, code manipulation, security, and reporting privileges that will influence the manner in which our software interacts with your firms staff.
Database Setup Introduction The DB Setup program establishes the implementation parameters of the Financial Management database and verifies system wide, module wide, and program level defaults. Users will be able to assign field labels to customer definable fields as well as indicate the level in which you manage your clients within our software. Set your Company Name and Address here. This information will be reflected in the heading on your reports. Including the Federal ID here makes it available to include on Bill Styles or 1099 forms. The bottom of the screen contains buttons for additional setup parameters that are critical to the proper function of your software. NOTE: BEFORE MAKING CHANGES TO THESE SETTINGS WE SUGGEST CONTACTING CLIENT PROFILES SUPPORT TO DISCUSS THE POTENTIAL AFFECTS ON YOUR DATABASE AND FUNCTIONALITY OF YOUR SOFTWARE. See also: License Information Copyright 2008 Client Profiles Financial Management Software.
License Information Clicking the License Information button will display the Client Profiles License Information screen. The CP Financial software contains 3 components which require keys under your software license agreement. Each component requires a key and serial number that is provided or can be obtained from Client Profiles by calling 866-720-5005. If you need additional copies of any module, please call to obtain a new key and serial number. NOTE: By definition a CP Core user is usually someone in accounting. A CP Lite user is usually a billing professional, secretary, manager, administrative assistant, or other. Therefore, the number of CP Lite licenses required is determined by the number of persons officially employed by the firm to track or bill time.
Defined Labels
Referred to as Key Fields, level one or KeyField1 is typically the Client Level, KeyField2 generally refers to Matters, KeyField3 can be a Department of Office level. Length: Numeric Auto Number: Zero Fill: Unique Per: Determines how client matter looks up are performed. When set to Key-1 matter lookups are based on the value in KeyField1. When set to System, lookups are done across all KeyField 2 values. In simple terms, when set to Key 1 a matter lookup is done based on the client number. When set to System, the matter lookup is based on all matters regardless of the client number. For firms with unique matter numbers, the System setting is preferable. When matter numbers are not unique, the Key 1 setting is preferable. Highest Key Used: This drop-down box defines how many coding levels used by your firm, and is usually set from the conversion process. Typically most firms use two, Client/Matter. However some firms use all (i.e. Client/Project/Matter/Submatter). Label Name: Use the drop-down to select each levels description. Each label for the Keyfields 1-4 can be set for your firm and will be reflected in screens and reports within the software. Typically these labels are called: Client/Project/Matter/Submatter. Length: You can also set length, "Auto Number" on/off (if numeric), "Zero Fill" option (i.e. 0001 vs 1 as the data is entered). Also you can set whether or not to use a system level number at any of these levels so as not to reuse numbers. This feature is sometimes known as the "Unique" matter method. Office/Department/Type of Work/Type of Expense: Set the length of these fields that will stored in your database. An office code of "PA" would have a length of 2. Defaults can be set for these fields on the T&B Fields and Defaults screen for faster and consistent data entry. Address Label: names can be assigned. Defaults for "Draft Bill" and "Final Bill" styles reside here in case you create a new keyfield without these fields. These levels and data element sizes are preset based on your discussions with CP support personnel during the implementation phase of the program. Use care when
changing these. We recommend discussing any changes with Client Profiles to achieve the desired results. See also: Labels - Keyfields and Labels - Employee Copyright 2008 Client Profiles Financial Management Software.
Time and Billing Preferences Time and Billing preferences can be set to speed data entry and provide consistency in your time entries. The values you choose for defaults here will appear on the Time and Billing data entry screens. These values are defaults only and can be changed during entry time. The Billing Documents defaults allow you to set your pre bill, invoice,and electronic styles and formats.
Rates Application Clicking the RATES button from Database Setup displays the Rates Setup screen similar to the one shown below. Your Financial Management software allows for an almost unlimited number of rates to be maintained. Multiple Rate Tables can be created and assigned by Client/Project/Matter/Submatter. Rate Tables can be shared across many clients. Rate Tables contain Time sensitive records that have a beginning and expiration date. Don't be confused with hourly rates here. This is not the hourly rate table. Rather, this is the overall controller for all rate files as they relate to time entry, and how the time entry program applies hourly rates. See also Rates - Introduction for details on entering rates for firm staff members. Each rate table is subject to the following default hierarchy plan as follows: When billable hourly rates are entered in the rate table, the rate input table will pick the rate for each time entry by the priorities described in the grid. Using the screen shown above as an example: As a timekeeper enters a time record, the program will first search the proper rate file for an hourly rate which contains a "yes" value for keyfield 1, 2, and employee. If unable to find such a record, it checks for priority 2, which looks for a rate record
with a yes to keyfield 1, and employee class. If it fails to find a record defined at this level, it will default to the 3rd and final priority, which is a rate with a "yes" at the client and employee level. Careful analysis should be given to setting up rate tables. There are many options available to help you generate maximum profitability.
Accounting Controls Clicking the ACCOUNTING CONTROLS button from Database Setup displays the Accounting Controls screen. These settings work in conjunction with the General Ledger system to provide finite control over accounting procedures and rules. For the most part, these controls have been determined during the implementation phase of your software. It is not likely these settings need to be changed. We recommend consulting with Client Profiles before making a change here as it could impact the way your software functions in other areas. Length: used to set the main chart of accounts numbers from 1 to 15 digits. Typically 6 or 8 digits will suffice. Number Of Periods Per Year: allows up to 365 periods per year, though most customers are on monthly accounting periods and therefore set this to 12. Multi-Currency: checking this allows the use of international currency as defaults. A checked box designates that the feature is enabled (US customers always use US Dollars).
Force 'T' Lines to Balance with Unbilled Client Advances Receivable Account: enforces balancing with a pre established 'Unbilled Client Disbursement' account when you charge a client for expenses. This option is only applicable if you accrue hard costs and occurs during the input of voucher details. When you check this option you must also include the account number of the Unbilled Client Disbursement account. Unbilled Client Advances Receivable Account: coincides with the Force 'T' Lines to Balance with Unbilled Client Advances Receivable(UCAR) account as described above. You must provide an account number when you elect to force client charges to balance with your UCAR account. Default AP Credit Account: enables a balancing check while entering AP vouchers to ensure the amount being charged to clients equals the amount reserved for that purpose in GL. Override AP Detail Description: when checked the Description field on the voucher detail will be populated with the description given to the Type of Expense Code. Accounting Methods: important and required. ProfilesFx allows the simultaneous use of multiple and separate chart of accounts. Select the number of accounts to be activated. YTD Earnings & Clearing Accounts: these account values are preset and should not be changed after initial implementation. Force Trust to use Vendor from VendorFile program: forces you to choose from your vendor list when writing a trust check. Recognize that turning this on means that when you write a check to a partner, they must be set up as a vendor. IMPORTANT : GL Rules, Chart of Accounts, and Financial reports must all be set up with care as they work in conjunction with one another. There are 'hard' rules within these items. For instance all Chart of accounts must be a subset of the accrual chart (the default). The AR setup of number of invoice column accumulators must be insync. The GL integration rules must be matched as well which is very important, and the setup of management periods must be matched as well. For more information, see the following topics: GL Integration Rules GL Chart of Accounts and Sub accounts and Segmentation Other DBSETUP Screens Management Period Setup AR setup
Saves information on the current screen Sets the values on this screen to system presets. Copyright 2008 Client Profiles Financial Management Software.
Accounts Receivable Fields and Defaults These controls affect 1)Interest calculation 2) Cash Receipts 3) The application or payments to an invoice. Late Charge: Enable on new KeyField: Period: the frequency in which you plan to charge interest. Firm Level Rate: the rate to be charged per period. In the example above, the Firm Level interest rate is 1.5%/month or 18%/year Grace Period: Number of days old an invoice needs to obtain before interest is charged. Late Charge Inv Col: almost always 4. As seen in the example, invoice column 1 = fees, 2=hard cost, 3=soft cost, 4=interest. These columns allow us to show detailed charges on an invoice as well as receive payments against, or adjust off a specific type of charge.
Enable Checkbook Change in Cash Receipts: allows the use of more than one check book for processing cash. Makes the Check Book field in the Cash Processing program enabled. When utilizing this feature, GL integration rules must be established to handle cash receipts by check book rather than defaulting to one account. Copyright 2008 Client Profiles Financial Management Software.
Management Periods Management Periods are a useful means of controlling and tracking transactions within the confines of your accounting system. Typically calendar based, they are a span of time used for accounting purposes. Management periods are utilized in each of the four major accounting areas of your system. Management Period Enabled: turn on or off the functions and controls associated with management period accounting. Number of Management Periods: shows the number of management periods per year as defined by your accounting controls at the time of your database setup.
If you have added new management periods in this session, use this feature to refresh the current list. Lack of a management period can keep you from completing functions such as entering time or posting to the General Ledger. Add new management period Module: the area of the system where this management period is to be utilized. Typically, Time & Billing, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, or General Ledger. Use the search button to pick from the provided list. Year: the year in which this period is being established. Period: the number to be assigned to this period. Typically a sequential number corresponding to a month. From Date: the date the period is to start. To Date: the date the period is to end
Status: leave this area empty if this is a future period. Other valid values are 'Current', or 'Frozen'. The suggested value is to leave this field empty and utilize the Month End Year End process to set the status of your management periods. Show current management periods Displays the 'current' management period of each of the system areas. See Month End Year End for additional information on manipulating management periods. Quick Setup - the preferred method to create management periods. Allows you to setup multiple periods within an accounting area for a given year.
Year: the year in which these periods are being established. Method: determines the number of periods to establish within a given amount of time. Typically, one management period per month. Module: the area of the system where these management periods are to be utilized. Typically, Time & Billing, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, or General Ledger. While you are in this module, create management periods for GL, AR, AP, and TB.
Lookup Codes There are many codes and labels used throughout the various programs that make up CPFx. These codes can be manipulated and customized to meet the demands of your firm. Below is an explanation of the differing codes along with a description of how and where they are applied. Bill Arrangement: these codes are the exception in that they are predefined. Attached to each bill arrangement code is programming logic used by the billing program to generate invoices appropriately. Consult with your CP support rep if you have unique billing arrangements that require special logic. Type of Work: defines the areas of practice for the firm. Corresponds to Law Type when integrated with CP Case Management. Vendor Type: defined by the firm to categorize vendors for reporting purposes.
Fee Types: used solely as a means to label matters. Provides a mechanism to report on matters. For example, How much WIP do we have on contingency cases? Bill Cycle - used by the billing process. Provides for the selection of clients by the frequency in which they are to be billed. Located on the Billing Information screen within Client Matter Maintenance. Collection Activities: used to define events that take place in the collection process. For example, 1st Phone Call, Sent Email, Mailed Statement, etc) FollowUp: used by the Collections program to define additional actions to be taken as a collection effort progresses. Employee Class: used to group employees by their role in the firm. Helpful when defining generic rates for example, for paralegals. Office:used by larger firms with multiple office locations. Employee Type:
Security Introduction Levels of accessibility to programs and reports need to be established in a way that will meet the requirements of your firm and its staff. Our security model starts with a login, a prompt for an id and password, to gain access to programs and reports. In a typical network environment logons and passwords have already been established. This network identifier can be utilized to recognize an employee and initiate the privileges they have been assigned within our software. In this way an additional logon to CPFx can be circumvented. Most firms make use of this capability. Next, Groups are established. A group is given privileges to run the programs and reports that are required of their role at the firm. For example, the accounting department requires an extensive series of programs and reports to carry out their
daily tasks. Paralegals, on the other hand, may only require access to time entry and WIP reports. Therefore, two groups can be established, each provided different features of the software based on the role within the firm. Many programs perform more than one task. For example, the Billing program includes the capability to create prebills, edit prebills, and commit invoices to accounts receivable. Access to any or all of these capabilities, which are provided by a single program, can be assigned to a group. Finally, firm employees who interact with CPFx must be placed in one of the groups you have established. In turn, they gain access to the programs, reports, and features provided to the group they are placed in. An employee can be a member of only one group. Login - network login or additional CP login. Groups - an area of the firm with similar job functions or requirements. Programs & Reports - features and functions within the software necessary to meet the requirements of the many staffing roles and positions within the firm. Program features - functions and capabilities provided within each program. People - firm staff members who will interact with CPFx programs.
Security The security module provides the capability to create groups, provide access to programs and reports, define program feature capability, and assign employees to groups.
This program does not have the ability to establish an employee record. You must create these records before attempting to place individuals in a group. Once in a group, and employee will inherit the privileges of that group. Create a new group. The first step in providing access to programs and reports to firm staff members is to create a group. New User Group: a meaningful label that helps to provide classification to the programs, features, and reports this group will access. Typical names are, Admin, Accounting, Paralegals, Timekeepers. Each synonymous with their role at the firm. CP Core Type Group: all groups should be designated as CP Core. Check this box. Management Period Permissions: Transaction Date Permissions: Copy Permissions: if your new group requires similar capabilities of a previously established group, this feature allows you to reproduce all of those permissions and provide them to your new group. Check the Set Permissions to be the same as an existing group and select the Group Name from the list.
Place employees in a group. By placing an employee in a group, you are providing them with the programs and reports that have been made accessible to the group you place them in. Choose the User Group from the drop down list. Place a check next to the employee(s) to be included in this group. An employee can only be a member of one group. Remove the check if you are eliminating someone from a group. Should you not see an employee in the list, remember, they must have an employee record established before they can be placed in a group. Press Done when finished. Provide a group access to reports. A group needs to have the ability to run reports that assist them in their daily tasks. Here you make the determination of which reports are made available to a group.
Choose the User Group from the drop down list. Then select the Report Category. A list of reports will be visible in the program grid. Place an 'X' next to each report you intend to provide to the selected group. Press Done when finished. Reports are assigned to one of 8 categories in an effort to make it easier to find the one you need. These groups provide logical separations in the information they provide. Establish employee passwords for an additional layer of security. If you want to prompt a user for a password to gain access to programs, have them provide a password here.
This feature is typically not used. The network or windows logon and password is typically sufficient. Placing users in groups and providing privileges to those groups will provide the access or limitations to software features and capabilities. be run. Launches the Print Wizard so that reports related to the Security program can Provide access to, or restrictions from, features within a program. Many of our programs provide multiple features and capabilities. For example, the Billing Process program includes the ability to Draft Prebills, Edit Transactions, Print Invoices, and Commit Invoices to AR. Should you need to divide up these tasks among the security groups you have established, you can limit program features given to a group. For instance, you may want the accounting department to draft prebills, print invoices, and commit them to AR. However, you need your paralegals to have access to the same program but only want to allow them to edit prebills. This scenario is accommodated with Feature Administration.
Choose the UserGroup and click in the Disable column to disable and hide a program feature from the group you have selected. This has the affect of removing icons or toolbar menu options from a program dialog.
Using Programs Question: What is the difference between CPCore, CPLite, and CPFinancial? Answer: CPCore - this program provides full feature capability of the software. Programs are organized into subject areas and are accessible by choosing a group then launching a program by clicking it corresponding icon. This program was designed after the original versions of the FSLI software. CPLite - designed for firm staff who only need to enter time slips, access reports, or run the Conflict Check program. CPFinancial - this program provides full feature capability of the software. Programs are organized into subject areas and are accessible by choosing a group at the bottom of the menu then launching a program from the list presented on the upper portion of the menu bar. This program was designed to be less intrusive to the desktopand provides the same features as CPCore. To provide access to CPLite, use the Security program. Click the System module, then place a check in the Access column next to the PDLite program.
Report Registration Delete this text and replace it with your own content.
Conflict of Interest write up in PD Partner word doc
Process Trigger on GL Main Account Used to consolidate accounts on income statement. Similar to ratio group, process code, trigger, and report inc group
Using Frequently Asked Questions This section provides answers to frequent questions asked of the CP support staff. It also contains explanations of advanced techniques available within our software product. Here you will find helpful information in such areas as: Getting printed output from the system How to establish and put into use data fields that are specific to your firm Voiding and deleting checks Month and year end processing And lots more... Copyright 2008 Client Profiles Financial Management Software.
Using Clients and Matters Question: What is the difference between an inactive and closed matter? Answer: If you make a matter inactive, it means that you can no longer enter time against it. However, there may be outstanding AR that you want to continue to collect. When you close a matter, it means you have verified there is no outstanding AR and this matter has been completed. You will not be allowed to close a matter if it has an outstanding AR balance. Question: I am trying to close a matter but the system will not let me. I have verified there is not an outstanding balance due. What am I missing? Answer: There may be some unbilled time or expense entries that need to be removed. Use the Supervisor Edit program and do a lookup on the transaction number. Enter the client/matter numbers and press the Search button. If anything shows in the grid then it needs to be transferred to another client/matter or deleted in order for you to close this matter.
Using Employee Delete this text and replace it with your own content.
Invoices Question: How do I edit an existing run View an invoice:finance vs. case Convert prebill to invoice Commit invoices to AR Go to the Billing Process dialog and press the Final Bills button. Select your run by choosing from the list of existing runs. With your invoices showing in the History Log grid, press the Commit To button, turning the stop light from red to green. Press the Process Bills button located on the top portion of the screen. Press the Process Invoices button on the ensuing Process Bills screen. Assuming you do not want to reprint your invoices, choose the No Print/View button. Your invoices are now committed and your client AR balances have been updated. Remove invoice from run Writing off or adjusting an Invoice - (when already billed - cash processing, adjust) (when not billed - WUWD) Reprint an invoice: Billing screen, existing run, tools/reprint Please insure that editing programs such as Supervisor edit, WU/WD, or transaction transfer have been closed before Processing Invoices. Possible corruption of invoices may occur otherwise. Question:I need to give a client a credit of $18.50. We over charged them on the previous invoice, which they paid in full. Realizing after the fact we were charging the wrong hourly rate for paralegals. I have made the change for future invoices, but need to give them a credit of $18.50. How do I do this? Answer:In this instance we want to give them a credit but not have it reduce monney in our operating account. You have two options: I) You can create a negative expense entry for the matter with a description of something like Credit for overpayment II) Create a time entry for 1 hour at a rate of $.00. The employee on the time card should be the firm employee which is kind of a dummy record so that you don t give time credit to an attorney. Narrative = Credit for overpayment. Then when you create the invoice, use the Write Up Write down program to change the rate on
this entry to -18.50 (that s negative). That gives them the credit and a reduction in their amount due. #2 is preferred since the negative amount will get calculated into the invoice amount due without having to change the way your invoice works. Question: Why do client payments not appear on the invoice I drafted? Answer: Did you apply payments after you drafted your invoice? If so, you must redraft the invoice for payments or applied trust money to appear. When you draft an invoice or prebill the information it reflects is based on a client account at that moment. Should you make payments, apply trust or retainer after you have drafted a bill you need to redraft the bill to show these changes to the clients AR balance. Simply reprinting an invoice will not show changes to a client account that took place after the prebill or invoice was generated. Question: My WIP report shows transactions but I don't see them when I draft a prebill? Answer: This WIP is already allocated on an invoice. You will need to remove or reverse an invoice to place WIP back into a status where it can be applied to a bill. Question: I created a manual invoice and forgot to assign professional compensation. How can I give credit to working attorneys? Answer: Retrieve the invoice with the Fee Credit program and add fee or cost records appropriately. Or use the Re-Generate Fee Credits utility in the same program located under the View option seen on the menu bar. Question: I created a manual invoice by mistake. How do I get rid of it? Answer: Go to the Accounts Receivable menu and select the Cash Processing program. Use the Adjustment feature to adjust the invoice down to a zero balance.
Month End Processing Delete this text and replace it with your own content.
Printing Printing an Invoice Printing a Prebill Reprinting an Invoice Printing Account Statements Print a Report Automated Report Generation Notify is an automated report scheduling and delivery tool that eliminates the manual processes of distributing firm financial data to attorneys and management. On scheduled intervals, Notify automatically delivers reports to staff members as either embedded HTML or email attachments. Attachment file types include; HTML, text, CSV, Excel Word or PDF. Contact us for a quote to implement Notify at your firm. Copyright 2008 Client Profiles Financial Management Software.
Reversing Question: Can I reverse a manual invoice? Answer: No, a manual invoice can only be adjusted to zero via the Cash Processing program. Question: I reversed a client retainer but the retainer balance has now doubled. What happened? Answer: When reversing Deposits, Credits, or Retainers be sure to reverse any usage(s) first (RETUSED, DEPUSED, CREDUSED). If you reverse the retainer without first reversing its usage, the balance remaining on the original retainer can become corrupt.
Standard Features Standard icons Auto update/save- tab from field record is rewritten Sessions are used for convenience
Using Checks Question: I printed a check but my voucher is not posted and still shows a Selected status. How do I post it without producing a second check? Answer: If you have printed a check and answered 'No' to "Did the check print correctly?", your voucher will maintain a Selected status and remain unposted. Select the voucher to pay and press the Print Checks button. Enter the number on the check you have already printed in the Starting Check Number field on the Print Check Run dialog. Place plain white paper in printer if you do not want to use up another check from your printed check stock. Before you do this, we recommend you review your Checkbook Setup and make note of the Next Check Number. When you enter a value in the Starting Check Number field on the Print Check Run dialog, that value is saved. So if you are printing a check with a number prior to the current Next Number, be sure to set your next check number correctly on future checks. You can also update your checkbook at any time with the proper check number. Question: I have printed a check but see nothing in my General Ledger. Answer: Did you: 1)Process a check request. 2)Press Cancel when promoted for voucher details. This creates a voucher, but without voucher details you have no GL info. 3) Print the check from the voucher. These actions, taken together, will produce a printed check with no details or GL. You will have to make a Journal Entry to enter the expense.
Using Cash Processing Question: How do I reverse a non-client payment? Answer: A non-client entry cannot be reversed. You must enter a secondary non client payment and use a negative amount to offset your original entry. Question: I entered a payment for the wrong client. What do I do? Answer: Reverse the erroneous payment, then add a payment to the proper client. Set the Date on the cash processing screen appropriately if you want to show the payment and the reversal on the same day or in the same management period. make a deposit, enter payments, wrong amount. Need to reverse and reenter:select client/matter, press search, choose transaction, select OK. Now reenter new transaction Have the user enter the payment number and seq no when reversing this payment. There is a bug in the system where is will not let you reverse any payment if there is a refund rather than not letting you refund the payment that has been refunded.
Using GL Posting Delete this text and replace it with your own content.
Using Interest To institute interest charges at your firm, you must first establish a rate and the method in which it is to be compounded. With this in place, you will then perform the calculation of interest each month or before your billing process begins. The following steps are necessary for the accurate computing of interest: 1) Chose the Database Config option from the System Menu. Press the AR Fields & Defaults button. i. Establish the compounding period for interest to accrue. Typically done montly. ii. iii. Provide the interest rate you will charge. This establishes a firm level or default interest rate applied to clients accumulating late charges. This rate can be overridden at the client or matter level if it is necessary to charge a client a more specific interest rate. Supply the number of days before interest will start accruing, i.e., the Grace Period. iv. Match the Late Charge Inv Col to the interest column number in the grid. Please use 4. v. Be sure you have established a General Ledger Integration rule which debits and credits the proper accounts for the Late Charge Invoice Column.
2) Place a check in the Late Charges box on the Billing Information screen if you are going to charge interest to a client or matter. 3) Calculate interest before running your bills so that it will appear on the client invoice. To generate accumulated interest on open AR: i. From the Accounts Receivable menu, choose the Collections option. ii. Press the Calculate Late Charges button.
Interest will be calculated on unpaid invoices through the Late Charge Cut-off date. The next time you run this program it will calculate interest from the previous Cut-off date to the current cut off date. For example, if you are running March bills during the first week of April, you will set your Cut-of date to 3/31/2009. When you run your April bills during the first week of May, set your Cut-off date to 4/30/2009 and interest will be charged for the 30 days of April. Interest is only charged for a full period. If you have set your late charge Period to Month, and try to compute late charges mid-month, no interest will be applied. The software remembers the date you Calculate Interest Charges, and uses that as the starting date the next time run this process. The InterestSinceLastBill data field must be added to your invoice style to reflect interest due.
Using Management Periods Question: Why do I need to use management periods? Answer: Transactions posted to your general ledger are done by management period. You account balances and period activity are maintained and summarized in this way which means your financial statements are derived from management periods. Accounts can appear out of balance if you run a report for a given month but have posted transactions to a different management period.
Using Miscellaneous Fields While there are a great number of data elements within the framework of our database, often times there items that need to be tracked which are unique to your firm. An insurance claim number, court case number, or adjuster name are some examples. Use of Miscellaneous fields is a way for you to customize information related to a client or matter. There are three types of fields available to you: Text Fields Date Fields Yes/No or Checkbox fields. To add a Miscellaneous field to your database, follow the steps outlined below: 1) From the Database Setup Dialog, press the Definable Labels button. 2) From the Field Labels dialog choose the KeyFields button.
3) To add a text field, press the Add button located under the KF Miscellaneous Fields grid.
A new row will open on the grid. The Field Name is automatically assigned and not subject to change. Enter the Field Label as you want it to appear on the Miscellaneous Key Field Information dialog. There is no limit to the number of text fields you can add you your database. To add a custom date field, enter a meaningful label in the box next to one of the 5 date fields in the KF Related Fields portion of the above dialog. To add an option field, which will appear as a check box on the Miscellaneous Key Field Information dialog, enter a meaningful label in the box next to one of the 5 date fields in the KF Option Fields portion of the above dialog. When you have completed your, press Done. You Miscellaneous Key Field Information dialog will reflect your additions and allow for capturing of your firm specific data elements. Note the correlation to the KeyFields Field Label Set up screen shown above and the Miscellaneous Key Field Information dialog shown below.
Using Prebills Question: How do I get rid of old prebill runs? Answer: On the Billing Dialog, press the Remove Unnecessary Prebills icon. Enter the Cut-off Date which is the same AR Cut Off date you entered during the draft prebill process. Press OK and all prebill runs created prior to the Cut-off date you enter will be deleted.
Using Professional Compensation Question: Can I make adjustments to professional compensation after I have applied a payment? Answer: Yes, here's how. Double click on the payment you have applied from the Cash Processing main dialog. On the Invoice Payment dialog, press the Professional Compensation button. Note, this button becomes active only after you have applied a payment. Billing and collection credits are automatically applied pro rata for each working attorney. To adjust applied credits click the appropriate line in the grid and change the credit amount. Or press the Add Record button to split credits among additional timekeepers. This can be done for both Billing and Collection credits. By clicking in the appropriate column(s) you are presented with a drop down list to assist you in completing a record.
Credits may not exceed the amount of the invoice. Press Done to complete your adjustments.
Using Reference Billing Question: Is it possible to issue a series of invoices (different matter numbers, all for the same client) under one invoice number, without having to set up a new bill format? Answer: Yes. It requires the following steps to initiate: 1) Go to the client matter and enter a reference number. A reference number is determined by you, the firm, then placed on other matters to link them together for billing purposes. Set the reference master flag on the matter whose address you want to use for billing. 2) On the other matter(s) you want to tie to the same invoice, enter the reference number you provided on the reference master matter. 3) Enter time and expense transactions on these matters. 4) When you create prebills or invoices, change from KeyField Info to Reference and enter your reference number in the From and To fields.
5) The end result will be one invoice with multiple matters addressed to the client using the reference master address. 6) Payments and fee credits applied to this invoice will be shown at the matter level.
Using Retainer Question: How do I allocate only a portion of a clients retainer toward the billing process? Answer: Best explained with an example. Assume you have $35k in retainer and must keep a minimum retainer balance of $30k. Place the $35k on hold. Transfer $5k from client matter to same client matter, effectively establishing two retainers for one matter. Take the $5k off hold and it becomes available for billing while the $30k remains on hold. Should the $5k only be used toward fees, establish the correct payment method. If trust money is really retainer that will be applied to fees, consider setting up a separate account and allowing the billing process draw from this account and reflect this draw on the bill. You still must make a transfer on monies from this second account into your operating account and show it with a journal entry. Question: I want to reverse a retainer but a portion of it is already used. What do I do? Answer: Reverse the usage, 'RETUSED', then reverse the 'RETAINER'. Question: I know my client has a retainer balance yet the billing program will not apply it to an invoice. Answer: Typically one of two things has occured: I) The retainer has been applied at the client level and you are billing at the matter level. Use the Transfer option to move it to the matter you are billing and generate your invoice again. II) The retainer has been placed on hold, therefore prohibiting the billing program from applying it to an invoice. Use the Hold option to remove it from hold and generate your invoice again.
Using Reports Question: Do I have to have crystal reports loaded on my workstation to run reports? Answer: No. The necessary files are included in your desktop installation. Question: Do I have to have a DSN setup on my workstation to run reports? Answer: No. However, if you plan to create or modify your own custom reports, then yes. Question: After a CP upgrade I can no longer export crystal reports to excel? What happened? Answer: You need to copy relevant crystal.dll files to the CPFinancial folder. They are: crxf_pdf.dll crxf_rtf.dll crxf_wordw.dll crxf_xls.dll
Using Trust Question: I am trying to write a trust check for a prior management period. My GL is open back to 2008.001 but the Trust Module will only allow me to choose the current management period or one in the future. Answer: Starting in version 11.12, the Trust Module defaults to the AR management period, not the GL management period. To write a check to a prior management period you must open the corresponding management period for both the AR and GL. Question: I made a deposit to a client trust account in the wrong amount. How do I correct this? Answer: Provide the client and matter numbers when you enter the Trust Escrow program. Locate the deposit entry on the credit. Click in the Amount field on the grid and adjust the amount. Corresponding GL transaction(s) will be automatically generated.
Using Vouchers: Questions and Answers Question: I am attempting to void and delete a check. I am receiving an error stating the voucher cannot be deleted. Answer: This voucher must have been paid once before and the check voided. This creates an integrity issue when the program attempts to delete it. The resolution is to void the check and create a negative matching voucher. Make sure both vouchers are in the same status, select both and print a zero dollar check to get voucher out of AP Navigator. Make sure at the vendor level, you have the Print on 1 Check option turned on. Question: I have a voucher in AP Navigator which was entered by mistake but it s no longer in the Entered status. How do I remove the voucher? Answer: Once your voucher has left the Entered status, all corresponding time, expense, or General Ledger transactions which needed to be created have been created. In order to back out the voucher properly, you need to enter a matching voucher, with matching voucher details, and negative dollar amounts. Make sure both vouchers are in the same status, select both the positive and negative vouchers, then choose Print Check. This will give you a zero dollar check and remove both vouchers from outstanding AP. Make sure at the vendor level, you have the Print on 1 Check option turned on otherwise, you will print one negative check and one positive check. Question: How do I make a partial payment on a POSTED voucher? Answer: From AP Navigator, select your voucher and press the Select to Pay button. This moves the voucher from a POSTED to a SELECTED status. Click the Selected button in the Voucher Status Selection block on the top portion of the screen. Click in the Pay Amount column on the grid and enter the amount you are going to pay. Now click the Print Checks button. With your check printed, the balance of the voucher is adjusted and its status is returned to POSTED. Question: I wrote a manual check. How do I account for it? Answer: Create a voucher. Choose Manual Check as the voucher type. Enter the voucher details. When you press Done, you are asked for a check book, check
number, and check date. Provide this information and press OK. The voucher will be marked as Paid and the appropriate GL entries will be created. Question: I started to create voucher and decided I did not want it. The Cancel button is not available. How do I get out of the screen without creating the voucher? Answer: Remove the Invoice Date and tab to another field. The Cancel button is now available. Question: My check printed correctly but I clicked 'No' when prompted "Did the check print correctly?". Now I have a check and want to clear the voucher. What do I do? Answer: Use the Convert to Manual process in AP navigator to enter the check number on the voucher and commit it. Question: I created a new check book with the CheckBook program, but when I go to pay a voucher in AP Navigator I don t see my new checkbook on the drop down list. Answer: There are two types of checkbooks, Regular and Trust. AP Navigator will only allow you to see Regular checkbooks. Reopen the Checkbook program and make sure the checkbook was set up as Regular when you created it and that it is marked as Active. Question: Where does the date on the expense card come from? Answer:The expense card date is the transaction date assigned on the voucher detail entry screen. The transaction date will default to the date on the voucher (invoice date) but can be overwritten. Question: How do I use a voucher template? Answer:Instructions on how to use template vouchers in AP. Templates provide the ability to quickly produce vouchers from predefined copies. They become useful when you have recurring monthly payables such as rent or utilities. I) To create a voucher template first create an AP session. a. From the AP Navigator, click the Add Voucher button b. Click the New Session button c. Type in a Session Name and Click OK
II) Next create the template. a. From the AP Navigator, click the Add Voucher button. b. On the main voucher screen, click the drop down for Voucher Type and select Template. c. Click on the look-up for Session and select the session to put the template in. Using our example, that would be the session called "Mid Month Payables". d. Complete the Template like a normal voucher including voucher details.
III) How to use a template to create vouchers. a. In AP Navigator, click the Add Batch button. b. Select the session you created in step I. This is your template(s) reside. c. Specify the Management Period and Date for Vouchers being created. These vouchers will be created with a status of Entered and will appear in AP Navigator grid. Double click to make any adjustments and print your check(s).
Year End Processing: Questions and Answers Question: Do I have to make journal entries to retained earnings or does the system do that when I close the GL for the year? Answer: Depending on what you do with retainer earnings, you will have to make journal entries to move them to the Prior YTD earnings or into individual partner accounts.
Custom Reporting ProfilesFX requires a minimum of one copy of Crystal Professional used for engineering the reports. Typically, your firms IT manager will be the designer of the reports your firm needs over time. (CLIENT PROFILES can of course provide those services as well.) Once reports are created, they can be "Registered" to any ProfilesFX application, (See report registration) including Executive Inquiry. Users need not own a copy of Crystal Professional on their desktop or laptop just to run and enjoy Executive Inquiry. Whether you need detailed or summary reports your Crystal Report writer has access to every bit and byte of information from all tables in the ProfilesFX system. All that is necessary is to visualize your needs, make a rough drawing, set it up in Crystal, register it and begin using it. Note: CLIENT PROFILES supports only the most current version of Crystal Reports. (see our web page for requirements) Be sure to register your copy of Crystal reports, and purchase upgrades promptly.
Database Connection As part of the desktop software installation, you must indicate: The server where the CP Fx database resides. This is normally your SQL Server. If you don't know, contact your IT department. The name given to the CP Fx database residing on the SQL server. Typically called CPFS in new installations. Enter the server and database name, then press the Change Database button.
Desktop Installation Installation of our software to a new or existing desktop computer is a simple task. Below are the steps required to complete this process. 1.) Locate the current version of software. It is typically on your SQL server in a folder called \CPSHARE\CPFS\Install or \CPSHARE\CPFS\Upgrade. Each firm is unique in naming their SQL server so unfortunately, we cannot provide it for you here. If you don't know it, look it up via the Database Connection option or ask your IT support staff. 2.) When you have successfully navigated to the \Install folder, you can now run the SETUP program to begin the installation. 3.) The CPFinancial Setup Wizard will guide you through a series of steps toward the completion of this installation.
the Next button. Press 4.) Select the folder to place the CP Financial software on your desktop computer. The suggested preference would be to accept the default.
the Next button. Press 5.) Confirm and commit to the installation.
Next to confirm and begin the software installation. Press
the installation is complete, press the Close button. When 6.) With the software successfully loaded on the desktop computer, you will now have a Client Profiles program group on available from your windows Program Menu. Select Client Profiles Financial from the list and you are presented with the CP Financial program menu.
7.) The final step in this installation is the one most often forgotten. Select Help from the CP program menu. Then choose the Database Connection option.
Enter your server and database name then press the Change Database button. If you are doing an upgrade, hopefully you made note of this information earlier. If you don t know this information then contact you IT Administrator or CP Support. 8.) If this installation is being done for a staff member who is new to the CP Financial programs then you will have to create an employee record and put them into a security group. If the installation is being for an existing user of CP Financial, then you are done. If a user of CP Financial selects one of the programs from the menu and receives the Login screen, then you will need to update their employee record. The value in the LoginID field must be identical to their network login. Case sensitivity applies here. For those with remote access to CP or are hosted by MindShift you may want to verify the exactness of your login ID. 9.) With your installation or upgrade complete and you are unable to run reports you will need to copy the file CRPE32.dll from: \program files\business object\common\3.5\bin to Windows\System32 or \Win32
If you get an error from the Print Wizard such as, Report not found or a reference to CRPE32.DLL then you need to take the action as described above. Installing on 64 bit windows operating system. When installing on a 64 bit windows operating system the software will run from the Program Files (x86) folder. At present, you must add to the PATH statement on your computer so that our programs will be able to locate certain files. To update your PATH statement: Right click on My Computer, press the Advanced Tab. Press the Environment Variables button and you are presented with a screen similar to the one below. Find the PATH variable and click the Edit button. Append C:\Program Files (x86)\business Objects\Common\3.5\bin to end of the PATH statement and press OK at the dialog box. Click OK again while viewing the Environment Variables dialog to apply your changes. Your CP programs should now operate as designed.
Trouble Shooting Overview Delete this text and replace it with your own content. Troubleshooting Topics Receiving the Login Screen for each program: Employee login value does not match windows network login Crystal/Print Wizard error: copy CRPE32.DLL to Windows\System32 Spell Check not working:for PD Lite users, go to File/Preferences from the startup dialog and choose your spell check preference. Can't connect to database: Set Database Connection from Help Menu. Problem:We have experienced an issue at several client sites where we cannot log in with a couple of our applications. When you start up certain applications: DBSetup, PdpReport, GLMainAccount, and 1 or 2 others Windows will prompt you with a message box about a security item and want you to confirm that you are indeed wanting to start that application. After hitting YES, it will not connect. Solution:The fix is that there is not really a Couloir.ini file in the C:\Windows directory on these machines. It is a virtual.ini file. Put a Couloir.ini file into the C:\Windows directory, make sure it is writable, set the values like what you want, and these applications will run (although you will still be prompted to confirm the running of the application).
Contact Information Client Profiles Financial Systems 1215 Hightower Trail Atlanta, GA 33333 888-111-2222 info@clientprofiles.com Support Phone: 866-720-5005 Email: Support@ClientProfiles.com Clients with maintenance agreements can get unlimited telephone support via our toll free number or by contacting the help desk at support@clientprofiles.com.