Tag Archives: email second round

Lesson #45

Inquiry – Anniversary Inquiry function

Never miss a chance to congratulate your clients on their personal milestones with RB9’s automatic reminders and Anniversary Inquiry’s ability to print envelopes and labels. RB9 will remind you of upcoming events so you can use Anniversary Inquiry to pull up a list of those events and print envelopes for cards and/or labels for gifts to send.

You set up the kinds of events you want to remember for contacts — such as birthdays and wedding anniversaries, then enter dates for these events in individual contacts’ RB9 records and when you want to be alerted about these upcoming events.

Print envelopes & labels

When RB9 sends you a reminder about a client’s upcoming event through its internal email system you can use Anniversary Inquiry to print an envelope and/or a label with the contact’s business address or home address.

Or if you prefer you can use Anniversary Inquiry to periodically generate a list of clients with upcoming milestones you want to acknowledge. You can restrict your list to only clients you have designated as active, and select specific anniversary types that you want to celebrate this time that occur on a specific date or in a date range. You can also generate lists of contacts at a single firm or contacts that are clients of a specific resource or sales rep.

Contact listings in the search results include the person’s name, firm name, address, anniversary type, and date. You can sort your lists by one or more columns in ascending or descending order — but when you exit the function, RB9 will revert back to the default order.

You can view or edit any contact’s details in the list before printing envelopes and labels. And you can export the list to save, share, use in other applications, or print as a report.

NOTE: This is an RB9 Standard-only function. It is not included in RB9 Lite.

TL;DR: Generate lists of clients celebrating upcoming birthdays and other anniversaries, then print envelopes and labels for sending cards and gifts to them.

RB9 concepts in this lesson

Client Of: Resource that receives a commission for jobs their clients scheduled or that are part of a case the resource was designated as the Client Of resource. You can also give reporters right of first refusal on their clients/cases’ jobs by displaying unassigned jobs from their clients/cases in Resource-side online calendars in RB Connect.

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with.

Firm: Business you provide services to — usually law firms.

Lesson #44

Inquiry – Receivable Transaction Inquiry function

Look up the payment details for a single check or search payment histories by transaction type and/or other options. Searchable options include:

• Check number
• Check date
• Invoice number
• Transaction date
• Posted date
• Payment details
• Firm billed
• Payer

Searching by check date will return only check payments. You can also search for any posted receivable transaction. Transaction types include:

• Payment
• Duplicate payment
• Credit
• Debit
• Miscellaneous receipt
• Write-off
• Void
• Refund

Any transactions that meet your search criteria will appear as a report. The search results in the report include all of the search categories (except the billed firm) plus:

• Payment type
• Payment amount
• Who entered the payment into RB9
• When it was entered

You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order — or group transactions by one or more parameters to more easily see information you want to know (but when you exit the function, RB9 will revert back to the default order). You can export the report to save, share, use in other applications, or print.

View & update individual transactions

From your search results you can view detailed information about individual payments and other transactions. If you look at a payment’s details, it will include a list of the invoices paid by the payment and a breakdown of how the payment was applied to each invoice in the list. For other transactions, you can find information about the client and/or remarks about the transaction depending on the type of transaction. If needed, you can update the Check No., Check Date, and Made By (the issuer of the check) fields in individual payments.

You can also view invoice details directly for all transaction types except miscellaneous receipts.

Use with Aged A/R

In addition to using Receivable Transaction Inquiry to look up payments or search payment histories, you can also use it when you are managing collections and accounts receivable with the Aged A/R function. In the interactive Aged A/R report you can open the Receivable Transaction Inquiry directly for any client and it will automatically list that client’s payment activity for the past 90 days.

TL;DR: Use Receivable Transaction Inquiry to look up a single check or search payment histories and view detailed information about individual payments and other transactions such as refunds and write-offs.

RB9 concepts in this lesson

Firm: Business you provide services to — usually law firms. More >

Lesson #43

Inquiry – Witness Inquiry function

Instead of going through Turn In to find information about a witness, use this function to find information about witnesses quickly. Find individual deponents by name — or bring up a list of all deponents for a particular case, job, and/or range of job dates. You can also find witnesses tied to one or more business units in your company.

See at a glance in the results returned the witness name, job number and date, case, resource on the job, your company’s business unit responsible, and transcript information like number of pages, last exhibit marked, and when the transcript was sent, signed, and received, or is expected back.

You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function RB will revert back to the default order). Export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, share, use in other applications, or print as a report.

Download files & update information

Click a witness name in the results to get complete witness details including original transcript location, production notes, etc. Download witness files — such as exhibits — and read the witness Notes Log. You can also enter new information about deponents and upload new files to the witness repository.

TL;DR: Lists a single deponent or all deponents for a particular case, job, range of job dates, and/or business unit. View and update witness details.

RB concepts in this lesson

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately.

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition but can also be any kind of service you provide with your reporters or other resources. More >

Notes Logs: Un-editable internal-use only notes entered either by a user or automatically by RB appear in chronological logs.

Repository: RB has 9 repositories where you store files for safekeeping and quick retrieval, including one for witness-related files like exhibits.

Resource: Person or thing that provides your business with a service.

Lesson #42

Inquiry – Resource Analysis function

This interactive report summarizes a resource’s billing and payroll amounts in different time period by service item so you can see what services are being provided by a resource and the amounts you are paying them for these services. Compare totals by period to monitor your most productive resources.

In addition to viewing all the payable services a resource has been responsible for, you can also view only the ones in the resource’s next pay or total outstanding payables. When viewing all services or only the outstanding payables, you can restrict the results listed to a date or date range of the related invoices, jobs, or when the invoices were posted in RB9.

You can search for a resource’s payable services:

• That involve a specific firm or a single contact only.
• Related to a single case.
• For all, some, or a single business unit of your company.

You have the option to include voided invoices in your search — so if you do not void resource pay when voiding invoices, you can choose to see a resource’s true total pay amount.

Interactive snapshot of billed services

Like Client Analysis, Resource Analysis displays a snapshot of billed services that meet the specified search condition(s), with each category broken down into:

• Number of units sold
• Payable rush charges
• Total pay amounts year-to-date
• All-time total pay amounts

It includes sales and court taxes as separate line items so amounts match Client Analysis reports.

Like Client Analysis, the results returned in Resource Analysis are interactive — so you can drill down in the information by clicking on dates or service line items. You can see monthly and quarterly amounts for:

• Main service categories
• Subgroups within the main categories
• Individual service items

Category totals and subtotals appear on gray backgrounds with bold headers to differentiate them from individual line items. You can even see the details of all of the results at once with a click.

You can export the report in Excel format to save, share, use in other applications, or print.

NOTE: This is an RB9 Standard-only function. It is not included in RB9 Lite.

TL;DR: This interactive report summarizes a resource’s billed and payable activity, broken down by service. Compare totals by period to monitor your most productive resources.

RB9 concepts in this lesson

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately.

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with.

Firm: Business you provide services to — usually law firms.

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition but can also be any kind of service you provide with your reporters or other resources. More >

Resource: Person or thing that provides your business with a service.

Lesson #41

Inquiry – Resource Activity function

If a reporter has questions about their pay — such as whether they got paid for a particular job, what their next paycheck will include, or what’s the total amount you owe them — use Resource Activity to search for invoices that include a specific resource’s billable services.

You can view a resource’s full pay history or use filters to focus your search. For example you can find the next pay amount or the total payable for any resource within seconds. View basic information about the invoices at a glance — such as invoice amount and pay amount, whether the resource was paid or not, if they were paid for the original or copies, the job number and date, and basic client information. You can drill down to view complete details of individual invoices the same as in Client Activity, and update invoice information.

View pay history

In addition to viewing a resource’s next pay or total payables, you can also view all invoices related to the resource — including paid invoices so you can review if the resource was paid correctly for any invoice they are challenging. You can restrict the results listed to a date or date range of the related invoices, jobs, or when the invoices were posted in RB.

You can search for a resource’s invoices for a specific firm or a single contact only. You can also search for invoices related to a single case. And you can find invoices for all, some, or a single business unit.

The invoices listed in the search results display:

• Invoice number
• Invoice date
• Invoice amount
• Invoice balance
• Invoice payment date
• If the invoice was for an original transcript
• Resource pay amount and when paid
• Related business unit
• Job number
• Job date
• Case name
• Sold To and Bill To clients
• Date voided

The results include grand totals at the bottom for invoice amounts, invoice balance amounts, and resource pay.

You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function RB will revert back to the default order). Export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

TL;DR: View a resource’s next pay amount or their total payables — along with basic information about the invoices, such as invoice and pay amounts. Drill down to view complete details of individual invoices.

RB concepts in this lesson

Bill To Contact/Firm: Contact/Firm responsible for paying the invoice for a job.

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately.

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with.

Firm: Business you provide services to — usually law firms.

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition but can also be any kind of service you provide with your reporters or other resources. More >

Resource: Person or thing that provides your business with a service.

Lesson #40

Inquiry – Client Analysis function

Use Client Analysis to get a snapshot of a client’s billing activity via what services they purchased. Compare totals by period to track your most important customers.

Client Analysis is similar to Client Activity, except in Client Activity you see information about a client’s invoices that fit your search criteria. In Client Analysis you see information about service items billed to the client.

You can view billed service item amounts for:

• Firms that scheduled the jobs that included the billed services or by the firms responsible for paying the invoices for the services (since they are not always the same firm).
• A firm’s parent company, not just the individual firm if they are part of a larger organization.
• All of the contacts at the firm, or a specific contact.

You can further refine your results by including a date or date range for the invoice(s), the job(s), or when the invoice(s) posted in RB9. You can view billed service items for paid or unpaid invoices, or all invoices that match the other search criteria.

You can find billed service item amounts for a single case. And you can view billed services by all, some, or a single business unitof your company.

If you don’t use any of the search filters, Client Analysis will list all of the selected client’s billed services with your company since their first invoice.

Interactive snapshot of billed services

Client Analysis displays a snapshot of billed service item amounts that meet the specified search condition(s), with each category broken down into number of units sold, billed rush charges, and total billed amounts’ year-to-date and all-time totals. It includes sales and court taxes as separate line items so amounts match Client Activity reports.

The results returned in Client Analysis are interactive, so you can drill down in the information by clicking on dates or service line items. You can see monthly and quarterly amounts for the main service categories, for subgroups within the main categories, and for individual service items. Category totals and subtotals appear on gray backgrounds with bold headers to differentiate them from individual line items. You can also see the details of all of the results at once with a click.

You can export the report in Excel format to save, share, use in other applications, or print.

NOTE: This is an RB9 Standard-only function. It is not included in RB9 Lite.

TL;DR: This interactive report summarizes a client’s billed activity, broken down by service item. Compare totals by period to track your most important customers.

RB9 concepts in this lesson

Bill To Firm: Firm responsible for paying the invoice for a job.

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately.

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with.

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition but can also be any kind of service you provide with your reporters or other resources. More >

Parent Firm: Headquarters of a multi-branch corporation.

Resource: Person or thing that provides your business with a service.

Sold To Firm: Firm responsible for a job with your company.

Lesson #39

Inquiry – Client Activity function

Look up a single client’s invoices using filters to focus your search so you can, for example search the client’s invoices by case to come up with a settlement amount for a particular case in seconds, no matter how long the case has been going on.

And if the client requests a copy of all the invoices for that case you can email them all of those invoices as a single PDF file with the click of a button.

Finding invoices

You can find invoices for a firm that scheduled the jobs billed or the firm responsible for paying the invoices (since they are not always the same firm). You can find invoices for a firm’s parent company — not just the individual firm if they are part of a larger organization. You can find invoices for all of the contacts at the firm, or a specific contact.

You can further refine your results by filtering for the date or date range of the invoice(s), the job(s), or when the invoice(s) posted in RB9. You can find a firm’s invoices for all jobs or a single case. And you can find firms invoices billed by all, some, or a single business unit of your company.

The search results include all of the search categories (except the post date) plus invoice number and amount, balance, payment date, job number, and date voided. You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function RB9 will revert back to the default order).

You can export the results to save, share, use in other applications, or print as a report.

Email multiple invoices as single PDF

You can view all invoices or only paid or unpaid invoices — which is handy when you are looking for a client’s outstanding invoices. If viewing unpaid invoices you can email a single PDF of the invoices with “Past Due” automatically stamped on them.

If you don’t use any of the search filters RB9 will list all of the selected client’s financial activity with your company.

If you don’t want to send all the invoices listed in your search results you can select only the ones you want to include in the compiled PDF. You can also include other attachments with the email if desired. When you send invoices from Client Activity RB9 logs the event in the invoice’s Notes Log.

You can view any invoice’s details from the search results and see the same level of detail as in Invoice Inquiry.

Embedded in Aged A/R report

While you can access Client Activity from the main menu in RB9, you can also access individual client’s activity directly from the interactive Aged A/R report in Receivables — saving you time when working on collections or just looking for answers about the client’s outstanding invoice amounts displayed in the Aged A/R report.

TL;DR: One use of Client Activity is to generate a settlement amount for a particular case in seconds — no matter how long the case has been going on. Plus you can send the client a single PDF of their related invoices. 

RB9 concepts in this lesson

Bill To Firm: Firm responsible for paying the invoice for a job.

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately.

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with.

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition — but can also be any kind of service you provide with your reporters or other resources. More >

Notes Log: Un-editable internal-use only notes entered either by a user or automatically by RB9 appear in chronological logs in the database record where they occurred — such as a case, job, invoice, or entity. More >

Parent Firm: Headquarters of a multi-branch corporation.

Sold To Firm: Firm responsible for a job with your company.

Lesson #38

Inquiry – Invoice Inquiry function

Search for posted invoices using a variety of criteria, such as invoice number, type, amount(s) and/or date(s). Find invoices for a particular job, location, case, claim number and/or client matter number. Limit your search to open or paid invoices. Send original or current invoices to clients. Export or print the results as a report. Get detailed information about the invoices including payment history.

Quickest way to find invoices

Invoice Inquiry will usually be the best function for finding invoices when you don’t have the invoice number because it has the most search filters. You can search for all open invoices or invoices that match any one or combination of these filters:

• Invoice number
• Invoice date, job date, or invoice-posted date
• Date range
• Job number
• Open invoices, paid invoices, or both
• Case
• Claim number
• Client matter number
• Invoice total $ amount range
• Client’s reference number
• Resource’s reference number
• Type of invoice — such as its source, purpose, or function
• Job location city and/or state
• Business units

Invoice Inquiry lists posted invoices based on your set of search criteria as an exportable/printable report. The report includes information from the search categories as well as the amount outstanding, void date, Bill To client, and Sold To client so you can see most information about an invoice at a glance.

Invoice Inquiry displays an invoice’s original amount plus 2 current balance amounts:

1. The outstanding amount of the original invoice minus any payments appears in the Balance column.
2. The current balance for the invoice including all fees added since the original invoice was issued — such as late charges and finance charges — and minus any payments already made appears in the Balance+ column.

The report also includes a Totals line. You can export the grid as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV(comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

Customize how you view posted invoice lists

The grid in which you view posted invoices is customizable to your individual preference:

• Re-arrange the columns so the most important information is most prominent.
• Stick up to 10 columns to the left side of the grid so they do not scroll when you have a results grid wider than your screen.
• Stretch/shrink columns to fit the results.
• Hide columns you don’t need to see.
• Choose which column(s) to sort results by.
• If you select more than one column, choose in what column order to sort the list.
• Choose whether to sort info by ascending or descending order in each selected column.
• Save your custom grid as your default.

You can save your custom grid as your default. Your customizations do not affect other users, and you can restore the original RB grid layout anytime.

View, re-send, & edit any invoice listed

You can view, send, and update individual invoices listed. For example if you didn’t get a party’s e-billing information until you posted the invoice, you can enter it here. You can see information about the witness, service items, and billed amounts. Plus you can see what the resource was paid and when. You can also view an invoice’s detailed receivables transactions — including late fees, finance charges, and credit card processing fees — as well as download the invoice from the repository and read the invoice’s Notes Log.

You can email or print out the invoice you are viewing. You can choose the original or the current invoice that includes any finance or late charges added since the invoice was originally issued. If emailing you can include other attachments from your desktop or RB’s Witness-level Repository plus edit the email contents before sending. If you choose the print option, you can preview the invoice with details on or off, export the invoice in a variety of formats plus search for a word or phrase in the onscreen invoice. RB will highlight all instances of your searched word/phrase in the invoice and list them in a scroll box along with the page number where they occur.

NOTE: Because COD invoices are different from regular invoices and cannot be posted until paid, they are not included in Invoice Inquiry searches. To find COD invoices, use Billing > COD Invoices.

TL;DR: Search for posted invoices using a wide variety of criteria. Export or print your results as a report. Get detailed information about the invoices including payment history.

RB concepts in this lesson

Bill To client: Client responsible for paying the invoice for a job.

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately.

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition but can also be any kind of service you provide with your reporters or other resources. More >

Notes Log: Un-editable internal-use only notes entered either by a user or automatically by RB appear in a chronological log.

Repository: RB has 9 repositories where you store files for safekeeping and quick retrieval, including a dedicated invoice repository.

Resource: Person or thing that provides your business with a service.

Sold To client: Client responsible for a job with your company.

Lesson #36

Billing – Export Invoices function

If you have clients that require LEDES-compliant electronic billing, first set up your RB9 LEDES preferences for service items and invoices. Then enter your clients’ codes — such as their Client Matter No. and Client ID — on the case party, job party, or invoice level. When you generate invoices for the related jobs, they will have the proper UTBMS codes and you can export them in LEDES 98B format, which is the most commonly used LEDES format, and email the text file to the client.

After posting invoices, search for a particular firm’s invoices in Export Invoices. The default is invoices generated yesterday but you can choose any date range. You can also search for a firm’s invoices by post date instead of invoice date. Restrict your search results further by filtering for a single case and/or your company’s business units.

Invoices in the results gird display their information in all of the search categories plus:

• Invoice number
• Invoice amount
• Bill To contacts and firms (clients)
• Sold To clients
• Job number
• Job date

You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, RB will revert back to the default order). Export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

You can view any individual invoice’s details, edit some of its information, upload/download/email/manage its repository files, and make notes in its Notes Log.

Export any or all invoices listed in Export Invoices results in LEDES 1998B format to your device as a .txt file, which you can then validate and email to your client from your device.

NOTE: This is an RB9 Standard-only function. It is not included in RB9 Lite.

TL;DR: Export invoices in LEDES 98B format for clients who require electronic billing that complies with LEDES standards.

RB9 concepts in this lesson

Bill To Contact/Firm: The contact/firm responsible for paying the invoice for a job.

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately.

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition but can also be any kind of service you provide with your reporters or other resources, such as realtime, videoconferencing, or read & sign. More >

Notes Logs: Un-editable internal-use only notes entered either by a user or automatically by RB appear in chronological logs in the database record where they occurred — such as a case, job, invoice, or entity.

Service items: Regular charges that you bill to your clients. Service items are listed on your invoices to provide itemized details for your clients and third-party payers. In-house, they provide information to help you analyze your revenue streams.

Sold To Contact/Firm: Contact/Firm that ordered the services on the invoice.

Lesson #35

Billing – Transfer Invoice function

Transfer invoices between clients when there has been a mistake in addressing the invoice to a client, instead of voiding and re-billing.

Find the invoice you want to transfer to another client by its invoice number, date, job number, case, and/or your company’s business unit(s).

Invoices in the results gird display their information in all of the search categories plus:

• Invoice amount
• Balance
• Post date
• Sent date
• Bill To and Sold To clients
• Job date
• Void date

You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function RB9 will revert back to the default order). Export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

Transfer options

You have several options for transferring invoices. You can change the:

• Firm responsible for paying the invoice (Bill To firm)
• Contact responsible for paying the invoice (Bill To contact)
• Firm that ordered the services billed on the invoice (Sold To firm)
• Contact who ordered the services billed on the invoice (Sold To contact)

You can transfer a posted invoice even if it has already been paid.

TL;DR: If you billed the wrong client, transfer the invoice to the correct client — instead of voiding the invoice and re-billing.

RB9 concepts in this lesson

Bill To Contact: The person responsible for paying the invoice for a job. This contact could be the same as the Sold To Contact, but also could be a different person at the same firm or a person at a third-party firm that is paying the invoice, such as an insurance agency.

Bill To Firm: The firm responsible for paying the invoice for a job. This firm could be the same as the Sold To Firm, but also could be a third-party firm, such as an insurance agency.

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately.

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition but can also be any kind of service you provide with your reporters or other resources. More >

Sold To Contact: Usually the person who ordered a job.

Sold To Firm: Usually the firm that ordered a job.