IRIS Practice Management

Chapter Four IRIS Practice Management IRIS Software Group

Contents 1 Introduction... 3 1.1 A review of the last chapter... 3 1.2 What s in this chapter... 3 1.3 IRIS Practice Management Overview... 3 1.4 Course Content what have we done?... 4 1.5 Course Content what is left to do?... 4 2 Quiz... 5 3 Staff Planning... 7 3.1 The Staff Planning Screen... 7 3.2 Different Types of Postings... 9 3.3 Booking a Holiday... 10 3.4 Setting up Non Charge Codes... 11 3.5 Booking a Miscellaneous Job... 13 3.6 Booking a Client Job... 14 4 Accepting the Email Notification... 20 5 Staff Control Panel... 21 5.1 Job Stages Tab... 21 5.2 Jobs Tab... 22 5.3 Communications Tab... 23 5.4 Timesheet Tab... 25 5.5 Tasks Tab... 26 6 Homework... 27 6.1 Book the Three Main Types of Jobs... 27 6.2 Review the Main Functions of Practice Management... 27 7 Quiz... 27 7.1 Quiz Answers... 28 Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 2

1 Introduction This document is to be used in conjunction with the IRIS Practice Management webinar programme and includes the contents for chapter 4 out of 4. You should have already received and worked through chapters 1, 2 and 3. In this chapter we will cover: 1.1 A review of the last chapter Communication tracking how to log all the documents generated by IRIS automatically, and how to email the clients individually or in bulk. Data Mining how to search your database, saving the searches, profiling your clients, setting up attributes client categories and how you can use it for marketing campaigns and monitoring. Homework & Quiz 1.2 What s in this chapter Review of Communication Tracking, Data Mining, saving searches, profiling your clients, categories, attributes, marketing, homework, and quiz Staff Planning Summary of Practice Management bringing it altogether Homework and quiz 1.3 IRIS Practice Management Overview In the first session we said on average a recent survey shows that an IRIS Practice Management user saves an extra 5 hours per staff member per month (Survey, May 2012). As you are setting up Practice Management it is early days to see this fully, but hopefully you are beginning to see some gain. We also reviewed the key functions and benefits of using IRIS Practice Management to: Know what jobs are coming up don t miss anything Plan your jobs make sure you have the right staff to do the work in the time frame Monitor your jobs make sure no deadlines are missed Deal with unexpected problems if staff are off sick know you can manage their workload Use communication tracking file away all the documents and phone calls automatically Use data mining know your clients for marketing purposes and enhanced services Use staff planning graphical view of what your staff are doing and when So in the chapters so far, where have we got to? The first 3 chapters we looked at how to set up, plan and monitor your workload. We looked at how to file the documents and how data mining can help you profile and market information to your clients. At the end of this chapter you should be able to use the Staff Planning part. We will have reviewed all the main aspects of the software so hopefully you will be in a position to bring it all together. Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 3

1.4 Course Content what have we done? 1.) Chapter 1 - Done Course Goals What is Practice Management an overview Course content Starting point quick client lookup and data mining search Workflow getting started Homework and quiz 2.) Chapter 2 Done Review of Workflow getting started, homework, and quiz Workflow planning, monitoring and reporting (Personal Tax MASTER list and using this for the other products) Communication tracking getting started Homework and quiz 3.) Chapter 3 - Done Communication Tracking logging and filing documents Data Mining saving searches, profiling your clients, categories, attributes and marketing Homework and quiz before 1.5 Course Content what is left to do? 4.) Chapter 4 Review of Communication Tracking, Data Mining, saving searches, profiling your clients, categories, attributes, marketing, homework, and quiz Staff Planning Summary of Practice Management bringing it altogether Homework and quiz Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 4

2 Quiz Have a look at the following and determine if they are true or false: 1. It is only possible to set up 99 attributes. You can set up as many attributes that you need at any time. 2. You can set up 7 categories within IRIS. There are only 6 client categories that you can set up. Remember you need to be logged in as MASTER to set up the client categories. 3. The categories can be used for reporting purposes in Data Mining only. Client categories can be used by most reports within IRIS Practice Management and IRIS Time and Fees. You can add them in as a separate column to see on the screen and you can have a page break for each new category. 4. You can change the job that a document will automatically be saved to within Communication Tracking. This is true. The reports will be logged against a default system standard job where they have been set up, but it is possible to go in a bespoke the job that you want the document to be saved against. This applies to the letters in AutoMail, whereby you can determine what job the letter is saved against. This is very useful to help with the reporting. 5. If you email the documents out of the Communication Tracking tab, then you can only email one document at a time to the client. A selection of documents can be emailed out to a client in one email. The best way to do this is through the client or staff control panel communications tab. Highlight all the documents and right click, action email. There is an option to say whether you want them all to be emailed together. 6. You always get prompted if you want to log a report into the communications tab for a client. It is an option within the report logging. You can set each report up and say whether you want the employees to be prompted. There is merit in turning it off and defining how the document is to be saved (for example; always), as then it is one less key press for you to have to select. 7. You can use the attributes for a marketing campaign and identify those clients you have not heard back from. This is true. You can use the attributes to define the steps of a marketing campaign. For example; identify the clients, send an email to the clients, received email response, received phone call, follow up with a phone call and so on. 8. It is possible to assign a manager to a group of clients in bulk all in one go. This is true. Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 5

Partners, managers, attributes and categories can all be applied to a group of clients in bulk. 9. If you send the letters out from within Data Mining for each client then they are not tracked within the communications tab for each client. If you have selected to track the letter for the client, then it will be saved automatically within the communications tab for the client. You can then go and search for this letter at a later stage. 10. You can identify clients within Data Mining that have pension relief. This is true. Within the tax section you can see which of your clients have claimed pension relief. Very useful if you wanted to match this up perhaps with their age to determine whether they may need some retirement planning advice for example. 11. You can identify clients within Data Mining that have employees greater than 50. This is true. There is a field within Accounts Production where you enter the number of employees that a business has. If you have used this, then the field is available for you to interrogate on. This can be useful for identifying those clients that you might be able to apply a payroll bureau service to. 12. It is possible to find out how many children a person might have within Data Mining. This is not set up within the system. The only way that you could identify this in the current version of the software is to set up an attribute for children and then an attribute category to identify the number. Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 6

3 Staff Planning IRIS Staff Planning is part of the IRIS Practice Management module and it is accessed off the IRIS OpenPortal. It is a graphical format showing what staff are doing, with staff listed down the left hand side and time along the top. You can use this as a staff member to see what jobs are coming up, and as a manager it is a tool to identify which staff members are available. 3.1 The Staff Planning Screen Select Staff Planning off the IRIS OpenPortal to display: On the left hand side you will see the staff listed Along the top you will see the dates displayed It is possible to change the size of the screen to see the information the way that s easy for you to do the planning: In the screen shot above it says the view is a Week in the top left hand corner. You can change this to Day or Month The percentage field next to this can adjust the view.. The Show Weekends button will add these into the display. Selecting it again will hide them. This could be useful if you say have an audit at a month end that falls on a weekend and need to plan time in to cover this. The Today button over on the right hand side takes you back to today. This is useful if you have used the scroll bar to move forwards or backwards. Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 7

The first time you go in you will need to select some staff that you want to plan time for. If it is the very first time you will be prompted, if you already have some staff member s listed but want to add some more then select Setup Staff to display the staff browser. Highlight a staff member and select View On the Basic tab enter an email address for the staff member (this is optional and will allow you to send the bookings to the staff members Microsoft Outlook calendar as appointments.) If you enter the email address select Save to keep the changes. On the Privileges tab enter a tick next to the two privileges for planning: You may want to tweak this later, but for now switch them on and select Save Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 8

Select the Staff Hours tab to display: Enter a tick into Registered with Staff Planning If you are a Time & Fees user you will already have the staff member s hours defined. A staff member can be: Regular uses the standard hours within the system Part time you can enter the number of hours on the screen displayed above to suit the staff member. Select Save to keep the changes Note: if you do make changes to the hours for the staff member it will reflect in Time & Fees. Repeat this for each staff member you want to book time for. This is set up so you do only need to do this once. 3.2 Different Types of Postings You will notice on the Staff Planning screen above there are three different colours on the bookings. These represent the different types of bookings that can be made. The colours are meant to help you easily identify what the staff members are doing, The different types of bookings are: Non chargeable bookings are shown in blue where time is posted to non-chargeable codes such as holiday, training or admin. The miscellaneous jobs are shown in green. This is the type of work where you want the staff to be working on tax returns or VAT returns, but because the jobs are quite small you might not know exactly who. This gives you the opportunity to define say, for the next two weeks you will be working on personal tax returns. Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 9

3.3 Booking a Holiday To make a holiday booking: Put your mouse where you want the booking to start, left click and drag the mouse over the area you want the booking to cover and highlight it. Right click the mouse and choose New Booking to display: You will see that the Staff Id will default to the staff member The Start date will default to the date selected along with the start time for that staff member Note: it is a 24 hour clock so you can change the timings to suit the booking you are making. This could be useful if it is a Doctors or Dentists appointment, or a short meeting The Total working time shows the time covered in hours The Type is where you select the entry to be Non Charge If the appointment is Out of office put a tick in this box If you are happy for the booking to overlap with something else then enter a tick in the Can overlap other bookings box Drill down on the magnifying glass to the right of the Non Charge Activity field to select the Non charge code from a list (if this is the first time you have selected the non-charge codes there will be a default list, that you can change if you need to, see below). Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 10

Enter a narrative into the subject line The Notes field is for anything extra you may wish to say. The Send email notification tick box will send the booking as an appointment to the Microsoft Outlook calendar for that staff member providing the email address is set up in Staff Maintenance as shown above. Once you have entered the booking information select OK to save the booking to the planning screen 3.4 Setting up Non Charge Codes If you do not use IRIS Time & Fees you may not have the non-charge codes set up as you would like. To review and change the Non Charge codes log into IRIS Staff Planning as MASTER. From the menu within Staff Planning select Setup Non Charge Activities to display: If this is the first time you have selected the Non Charge activities you may be asked to create them. A default list will be displayed which will look similar to this. You can change the existing ones by selecting the View button, or create a new one by selecting the New button. Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 11

You will need to enter an Identifier for the non-charge activity Enter a Description for the non-charge activity The Included in over/under recovery tick box is only relevant if you have IRIS Time & Fees. It s a way of making the statistical analysis on non-chargeable time fairer. For example; you may decide to include clerical work, but not holiday as everyone is allowed their holiday and so on Select Save to save the details to the database Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 12

3.5 Booking a Miscellaneous Job To make a miscellaneous job booking, this is to reserve some time to work on a particular job such as tax returns where you may not know exactly the client: Put your mouse where you want the booking to start, left click and drag the mouse over the area you want the booking to cover to highlight it. Right click the mouse and choose New Booking to display: You will see that the Staff Id will default to the staff member The Start date will default to the date selected along with the start time for that staff member Note: it is a 24 hour clock so you can change the timings to suit the booking you are making. This could be useful if it is a Doctors or Dentists appointment, or a short meeting The Total working time shows the time covered in hours The Type is where you select the entry to be Misc Job If the appointment is Out of office put a tick in this box If you are happy for the booking to overlap with something else then enter a tick in the Can overlap other bookings box Drill down on the magnifying glass to the right of the Misc Job field to select the Job Type code from a list Enter a narrative into the subject line The Notes field is for anything extra you may wish to say Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 13

The Send email notification tick box will send the booking as an appointment to the Microsoft Outlook calendar for that staff member providing the email address is set up in Staff Maintenance as shown above Once you have entered the booking information select OK to save the booking to the planning screen 3.6 Booking a Client Job The third type of booking is the client s job booking. This is where we bring in the Job Planning that we looked at in Chapter 2. To book the client jobs: Select the Job Planning tab off the IRIS Staff Planning screen Next select the Service you wish to plan for and select Find If you want to filter the information further to show only those jobs for a partner or manager then choose the Selection button Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 14

Enter the partner or manager identifier, or any other filter you require and select OK Only the clients you want will then be displayed on the screen. Hints & Tips: Remember you can sort, and move the columns around as with any other Practice Management screen. You can right click on any client And select: The Staff Job Planner (we will look at this below) To look at the client file Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 15

To review the service, or the job Put the job into the planning stage Complete the job if needed Print off the list Or generate a letter Once you have the clients listed you are ready to start planning. To do this: Select the client at the top of the list, right click and select Staff Job Planner It may ask you to create the job if the job is not already created so say Yes, if you are asked any other questions for now say Yes to display the Staff Job Planner The only staff that are currently booked on this job will be displayed when you first go in. If no bookings are currently made, then there will be no staff showing. In this case select the Add button and identify what staff you want to see. For example; who is free, what grade etc. For now though if you are not sure select OK and this will display all your staff as shown above. To check the Job Profile select the Job button in the top right hand corner, followed by the Assignments button Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 16

At this stage verify you are happy with: The Job Manager The Job Assignee The start date (if you know it) The job stages, who is responsible for each part Remember this is the section that flows through to the to-do list for each staff member. Once this has been checked choose Save and Close Now let s make the booking. Note: you can do it the other way round, make the booking first and then check the profile, this is up to you and what works best for you. To make the booking on the Staff Job Planner, highlight the time frame, right click and select New Booking. Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 17

The options are the same as for any other booking: You will see that the Staff Id will default to the staff member The Start date will default to the date selected along with the start time for that staff member Note: it is a 24 hour clock so you can change the timings to suit the booking you are making. This could be useful if it is a Doctors or Dentists appointment, or a short meeting The Total working time shows the time covered in hours The Type is where you select the entry to be Client Job in this case it will default to the client s job If the appointment is Out of office put a tick in this box If you are happy for the booking to overlap with something else then enter a tick in the Can overlap other bookings box The client identifier will appear in the Client field Enter a narrative into the Subject line Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 18

The Notes field is for anything extra you may wish to say The Send email notification tick box will send the booking as an appointment to the Microsoft Outlook calendar for that staff member providing the email address is set up in Staff Maintenance as shown above Once you have entered the booking information select OK to save the booking to the planning screen Repeat the process until you have all the bookings made for this job. To complete the process select Save and then the Next Client button in the bottom left hand corner to move onto the next client for scheduling. Hints & Tips The first couple may seem to take an age, but very quickly you will be planning all your jobs and saving time in the process. Every staff member has access to the staff planner with IRIS Practice Management so they can have the graphical display open on their machine. You could have a central screen up in the office showing the staff planner so everyone can see what is going on instead of having it loaded locally on everyone s desktop. Once you have done all your planning you can go back to the main planning screen and see all the jobs booked. To edit any client bookings go back into the Staff Job Planner. Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 19

4 Accepting the Email Notification As each booking is made it is possible to notify the staff member by email by selecting the tick box on the bookings described above. If this box has been ticked then the staff member will be sent an email. If the email is opened in Outlook you will see: Double click on the attachment to open the appointment: Select Save to insert the booking into your Microsoft Calender If within IRIS Staff Planning the booking is changed or deleted then an email will be sent to update the staff member. Note: email notifications are optional, but useful if your staff do use their Outlook calenders. Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 20

5 Staff Control Panel During the webinar series we have referred to all the items within the Staff Control Panel (SCP), so let s take a moment to bring all that together and see how the Staff Control Panel is used. As you log in each day the SCP is the first thing that you see. We talked in an earlier chapter that you can determine which tab you want this to open up on. Each staff member can tailor this to suit their requirements. 5.1 Job Stages Tab The Job Stages tab is the tab that drives the day for each staff member (including partners and managers). It is the to-do list, the critical list, it is made up of those things that have to be done and if the deadlines are missed it could cost you money. Remember all the priorities for the staff member are decided by the job profiles as they have been defined for your business. Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 21

5.2 Jobs Tab The Jobs tab is the higher level view of what is going on. It is those jobs that you are responsible for as a partner or manager. You can use the filters to show what you need to see. For example; This then shows a one line per client view of the status on each job: If needed you can drill down into the client to see more information about a job. For example: What the holdup might be The WIP or Fee balance for the job The letters and reports that have been saved for the client, and any recent phone calls or communication This on-screen monitoring tool keeps you up to date on what is going on and gives you the facilities needed to react quickly. Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 22

5.3 Communications Tab The Communications tab by default shows all the documents you have selected but not actioned. For example; those letters generated but not printed or emailed today. You can also use it to select a range of documents such as all the engagement letters. This would be very useful to understand when the last letters were sent. Especially if there was a change needed to the engagement letters. To do this select the Find button in the top left hand corner and use the filters to focus on the clients needed: Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 23

You could use AutoMail to make the change, find all the letters and then re-generate the letter through the Communications tab. This action would re-generate the letter using the adjusted AutoMail template with your changes in. To do this highlight on the clients in the list and right click and select Re-generate Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 24

5.4 Timesheet Tab If you have a Time & Fees licence then as you are able to post your time as you work your way through your job stages. This will save you time and make the timesheet posting process less tedious. Select the Timesheet Time Postings tab to display: You can arrange the screen to appear as you would like it removing and adding columns as necessary. Most people use a weekly timesheet with a daily total, but you can have timesheets of varying lengths. The integration with Practice Management means that the jobs already exist for the clients to post the work to. However there are options to determine what level of analysis you wish to post to. Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 25

5.5 Tasks Tab Lastly the Tasks tab. These are extra tasks over and above the Job Stages for the client. They may be to-do s that relate to a client or not. For example; Can you give Mr Armitage a call about his bank statements and this is connected to the relevant job stage. The dentist called, can you give him a call back as they need to rearrange your appointment Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 26

6 Homework 6.1 Book the Three Main Types of Jobs Use IRIS Staff Planning and make a booking for: Non chargeable time Miscellaneous jobs Client jobs In the latter case this make take a few jobs to be planned to get the hang of it. 6.2 Review the Main Functions of Practice Management Go through all the things that we have looked at over the last few weeks and check: 1.) Are your system standard jobs defined? 2.) Are you happy with your job profiles? 3.) How is the report logging working? 4.) Have you used Data Mining to do a search? 5.) Have you set up any attributes? 6.) Is the communication tracking working well? 7.) Are the staff comfortable with the staff control panel? If the answer is no what are the concerns, and how can they be alleviated? 7 Quiz Go through the following and mark whether they are true or false? 1.) There are four types of bookings that can be made in Staff Planning. 2.) The graphical display cannot be changed. 3.) There is no way to filter the staff that are available on the staff planning screen. 4.) Once an entry is made it cannot be changed. 5.) It is possible to make a booking for more than one staff member at the same time. 6.) Only the data for the last year is stored. 7.) It is possible to mark whether a booking is out of the office. 8.) The smallest time frame that can be booked is 15 minutes. 9.) The communications tab on the staff control panel can be used to finding letters that have been printed in the past for a group of clients. 10.) It is not possible to measure the turnaround time for a job. 11.) On the jobs tab you can drill down to see the clients WIP and Fees balance, and then drill down further to see the invoices and receipts posted for that client. 12.) You cannot overlap bookings on the staff planner. Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 27

7.1 Quiz Answers 1.) There are four types of bookings that can be made in Staff Planning. There are three types of bookings; non charge bookings, miscellaneous jobs such as Personal Tax where you know you wish to block the time out, but you are not sure which client the staff member will be working on and finally client bookings. 2.) The graphical display cannot be changed. You can modify the screen to see the bookings in as much detail as you would like. 3.) There is no way to filter the staff that are available on the staff planning screen. There is a filtering mechanism to see only those staff you would like to see who are available on the staff job planner. 4.) Once an entry is made it cannot be changed. If you have the privileges then you can change any of the bookings. 5.) It is possible to make a booking for more than one staff member at the same time. This is true. You can select more than one client and make a booking. 6.) Only the data for the last year is stored. No data is deleted so you have all the history moving forwards, 7.) It is possible to mark whether a booking is out of the office. This is true. You can mark a booking as out of the office. 8.) The smallest time frame that can be booked is 15 minutes. You can book a meeting down to a minute if you want to. 9.) The communications tab on the staff control panel can be used to finding letters that have been printed in the past for a group of clients. This is true. You can use the communications tab to look for letters and reports generated for a group of clients in the past. 10.) It is not possible to measure the turnaround time for a job. You can measure the turnaround time on a job within the reporting. 11.) On the jobs tab you can drill down to see the clients WIP and Fees balance, and then drill down further to see the invoices and receipts posted for that client. This is true. Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 28

The system is flexible and integrated so that when you are viewing a client you can see the fees information and any communications that have been sent out to the client. 12.) You cannot overlap bookings on the staff planner. It is possible to overlap bookings if you have selected it is alright to do so when you create the booking. There is control over this. Copyright 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 29