Tag Archives: email second round

Lesson #94

Tools – Bulk Import function

Data entry and getting RB populated is a time-consuming task. One of those long drawn-out processes is entering firms, contacts, and resources from scratch. If you have existing client and reporter/resource information, don’t re-key these entities into RB; instead export it to Microsoft Excel spreadsheets from your application, then import it into RB.

RB offers 3 import options:

• Firms
• Firms with Contacts
• Resources

If you’re new to RB and want to import your clients first, we recommend using Firms with Contacts so you import your client law firms and other entities, such as insurance companies, along with your contacts at those firms at the same time.

Preparation is key

Bringing your client and resource databases into RB using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets will save you a lot of time but there are a few things to note:

• To import your data into RB the Excel spreadsheet must have all of the same column headers in the same order as the Bulk Import headers. So we provide Excel templates to make it easy to set up your spreadsheet correctly. All you have to do is copy and paste your data into the template.
• While you must have the exact same column headers in the exact same order, you do not have to populate all the fields in the spreadsheet. Only required fields in each spreadsheet must have entries in each row in the spreadsheet. For example when importing Firms with Contacts, only the firm name and the contact’s name must be included in each row.
• If you are including an entity’s state you must use the 2-letter USPS abbreviation.
• If you are including email addresses for contacts or resources, each entity should have only one email address.
• When importing entities RB does not check the database for duplicate entries. If you discover duplicate entities after importing, you can either delete the duplicate or merge the entries.

Process is easy

After exporting your existing data to an Excel spreadsheet the import process is simple: Select the type of spreadsheet you are importing in Bulk Import and upload the spreadsheet’s .xlsx file.

If the spreadsheet was formatted correctly, the data will appear in the Bulk Import results grid. You can view your entries but not edit them. If you see any errors, you can edit your spreadsheet and re-upload the file or edit the entries in RB after importing. If the data looks ok, you can have RB import the entries to the appropriate Entity database automatically.

TL;DR: Import existing client and resource information from other applications via Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

RB concepts in this lesson

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

Entity: Individual, business, place, or discrete part of your company, such as revenue centers or branch offices. More >

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

Resource: Person or thing that provides your business with a service, such as reporters.

Lesson #92

Reports – Tracking Productivity Analysis function

Do you want to find out how many items have been finished on time? Analyze productivity by different tracking metrics in this interactive report if you use RB9’s Tracking function to monitor service item production and management.

View items you are tracking in RB9 that have reached a milestone during a specific time period by item, step, manager, or resource in an interactive report that lets you see total entries in the selected category at a glance. Drill down to see quarterly and monthly milestone achievements and how many milestones were achieved on time, late, with no due date, or were canceled.

The default Tracking Productivity Analysis report lists all tracked items that finished a tracking step in the current month to date alphabetically. You can expand the view of a single item or the whole list to see the breakdown of milestones — so you can quickly gauge how well your staff hit productivity goals this month.

You can change the report to analyze milestones by:

• Tracking step
• Managers (grouped by manager)
• Resources (grouped by resource)

You can also change the report to:

• View longer/different time periods.
• Include quarterly breakdowns.
• View milestones for one or more of your company’s business units.

Like other interactive reports in RB9, you can quickly switch between detailed and summary views of the report. The initial results in the report are displayed as yearly totals by tracked item. You can “expand” the view to see the monthly (and quarterly, if desired) subtotals for all entries and toggle between summary and monthly (and quarterly) views for individual years/quarters, or “collapse” all to the initial yearly view again.

You can also expand and collapse the tracked items to see breakdowns by timeliness (on time, late, etc.). You can toggle individual items between the collapsed/summary view and the breakdown-by-timeliness view.

If viewing the report by step, all items listed expand to display steps and their status.

If searched by manager, all managers listed expand to display items and their status.

If searched by resource, all resources listed expand to display items, steps and their status.

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

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

TL;DR: See how many tracking items have been finished on time, by item, by step, by manager, or by resource.

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.

Manager: Used with the Tracking function, RB user responsible for overseeing a tracked item through the system.

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

Lesson #91

Reports – Daily Tracking Summary function

The Daily Tracking Summary list all jobs you are tracking in RB9 with completed steps within a specified period. Use this function to produce reports that document your progress for any time period.

The default Daily Tracking Summary lists all tracking items with steps that were completed today so you can document your day’s progress. Items are listed in descending alphabetical order of their description/title.

Each item listed includes:

• Its related job number
• Job date
• Case
• Client
• Witness
• Tracking item’s description/title
• Type of item being tracked
• Current step in process
• Its due date
• Start date
• End date
• Your company’s assigned business unit
• Assigned tracking manager

The report’s footer displays the searched by finish date (today) above the timestamp.

Create reports using different criteria

You can generate the report for:

• A different date range
• A single manager
• One or more tracking items
• One or more of your company’s business units

The report’s footer will display which search criteria you used to generate the particular report with the exception of blank search fields, ALL list selections, or if generating a report for one or several tracking items. If you select two or more items in the Business Units list, the report will display that as “(multiple values selected).”

Instead of generating a report that only includes the current step of tracking items, you can also create a report that lists all the steps completed in the specified time range for each tracking item.

You can search for a word or phrase in the onscreen report. RB9 will highlight all instances of your searched word/phrase in the report and list them in a scroll box along with the page number where they occur. Export the report in a variety of formats to save it and/or edit in another application, or print it.

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

TL;DR: Generate reports of all jobs with completed tracking steps within a specified period. 

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 >

Manager: Used with the Tracking function, RB user responsible for overseeing a tracked item through the system.

Lesson #90

Reports – Task Turnaround Analysis function

This report summarizes by resource how quickly they turn around jobs on average for a specified period.

View turn-around by ordered date

The default Task Turnaround Analysis report shows all tasks that have been turned in for jobs scheduled for today — or for previously billed jobs which had transcripts ordered today — grouped by resource. Each resource starts on their own page and there’s a separate grand totals page at the end.

Each resource page lists all their tasks completed today and includes each task’s:

• Job number
• Job date
• Job status
• Ordered, due, and turned-in dates
• Number of days it took the resource to complete the task
• Ordering firm
• Assigned business unit

The report’s footer displays the searched by order date (today) above the timestamp.

You can generate the report for:

• Different dates or date ranges
• A single resource
• A single task, several tasks, or all tasks
• One or more of your company’s business units

View turn-around by completed task

In addition to Tasks by Ordered Date reports you can also generate the report based on the date(s) tasks were completed by the resource instead of when they were ordered or scheduled to take place. The report’s footer will display which search criteria you used to generate the particular report with the exception of blank search fields, ALL list selections, or if generating a report for a single resource. If you include two or more business units in your search criteria, the report will display that as “[BU] (multiple values selected).”

You can generate summary reports which list only the resources and their total number of tasks and average turnaround in days with grand totals at the end of the list.

You can search for a word or phrase in the onscreen report. RB9 will highlight all instances of your searched word/phrase in the report and list them in a scroll box along with the page number where they occur. Export the report in a variety of formats to save it and/or edit in another application, or print it.

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

TL;DR: View how quickly resources turn around jobs on average for a specified period.

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 >

Order Date: Instead of a job’s scheduled date, this category includes assignments for write-ups ordered for previously billed non-transcribed jobs.

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

Task: Service requested with a job, such as reporting, interpreting, or video, that require a separate resource (person, company, thing) to accomplish. More >

Lesson #89

Reports – Original Page Production function

This simple report lists all jobs (including the page count) generated for the specified period, grouped and subtotaled by resource. If you pay incentives to resources who produce more than certain number of pages per month, use this report to get the totals you need.

The default Original Page Production report lists all jobs that resources produced original transcript pages for today — with each resource starting on their own page and a separate grand totals page at the end. The report is designed so that you can distribute the individual pages to your resources for their records.

Under each resource the report lists their relevant job(s) with the job number, job date, case name, witness name, and number of original pages produced. The report’s footer displays the searched by job date (today) above the timestamp.

Use search criteria to generate different reports

You can generate the report for a different date range, a single resource, and/or one or more of your company’s business units. The report’s footer will display which search criteria you used to generate the particular report with the exception of blank search fields, ALL list selections, or if generating a report for a single resource. If you select two or more items in the Business Units list, the report will display that as “(multiple values selected).”

You can search for a word or phrase in the onscreen report. RB9 will highlight all instances of your searched word/phrase in the report and list them in a scroll box along with the page number where they occur. Export the report in a variety of formats to save, share, and/or edit in another application, or print it.

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

TL;DR: View jobs for a specific time period, broken out by resource. Provide resources with their own copies of these reports. 

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 >

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

Lesson #86

Reports – Client Rating Report function

This report lists all invoices — starting with O&1 — grouped and subtotaled by client. Each client is listed with the number of originals and amount billed for originals, number of copies and amount billed for copies, combined totals, their outstanding balance, and payment history.

Default is all invoices posted today in descending order by amount — grouped by firm and contact who ordered the services billed (Sold To Firm).

• Each firm’s listing includes their address and phone number to help you identify them correctly.
• Contacts with qualifying original and/or copy orders appear under their firm name with their posted invoice details broken out.
• At the end of the report grand totals for each column are listed.
• The report’s footer displays the searched by date (today) above the timestamp.

Customize your reports

You can generate reports for:

• Different date ranges
• Firms that are responsible for paying the invoices (Bill To Firm)
• Subsidiary firms that belong to one parent firm
• A single Sold To or Bill To Firm
• Firms in specific Billing Rate Group(s)
• One or more of your company’s business units

You can sort the list by amount or alphabetically by firm name. Sorting by amount lists clients in descending order starting with total amounts billed for originals, then copies. Sorting this list by amount can generate a holiday gift list.

The report’s footer will display which search criteria you used to generate the particular report with the exception of blank search fields, ALL list selections — or if generating a report for a single firm. If you select two or more items in a list, the report will display that as “(multiple values selected).”

You can also choose a summary version that gives each client one line in the report that lists the firm name, the same original and copy breakdowns and combined totals for the firm, their outstanding balance and payment history. It also hides any zero amounts — making it easier to see the other amounts at a glance.

You can search for a word or phrase in the onscreen report. RB9 will highlight all instances of your searched word/phrase in the report and list them in a scroll box along with the page number where they occur. Export the report in a variety of formats to save, share and/or edit in another application, or print it.

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

TL;DR: Generate reports rating clients on original and copy orders. One use of this report is to generate a holiday gift list based on the amounts shown.

RB concepts in this lesson

Billing Rate Groups: Umbrella structures that categorize your billing rates.

Bill To Firm: The firm responsible for paying the invoice for a job — usually the Sold To Firm but can be a third party, such as an insurance agency.

Firm: Company you do business with.

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

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

Parent Firm: Headquarters of a multi-branch corporation.

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

Lesson #85

Reports – Misc. Sales function

Beyond originals, copies, exhibits, rush charges, mileage, and attendance are a whole host of other charges you bill to your clients called miscellaneous service items. The Misc. Sales report summarizes billed miscellaneous charges by client for a specific date range.

When you set up RB9, you organized your miscellaneous service items into groups of related items called Service Item Subgroups. For example under the Service Item Subgroup “Delivery” you included all of the delivery options you offer, e.g., FedEx, UPS, USPS, courier, DHL, shipping & handling. The Misc. Sales report covers one Service Item Subgroup at a time.

Today’s miscellaneous sales

The default Misc. Sales report shows all miscellaneous charges that are part of your first Service Item Subgroup that were included on any invoices posted today. Service item charges are broken down by firm billed — and the firm totals are further broken down to each contact at the firm that was billed for the relevant service items. Each firm’s listing includes their address and phone number to help you identify them correctly.

Each contact line on the report lists:

• Contact’s name
• Number of times they were billed for the service item
• Total amount they were billed
• Average amount they were billed

A firm totals line appears after each firm’s contact listings. At the end of the report grand totals for the 3 amounts (number of times billed, total amount billed, and average amount billed) are listed.

Other miscellaneous sales reports

You can generate reports for:

• Different date ranges
• Different Service Item Subgroups
• A single service item or several from the same subgroup
• Service items posted for all firms under a single Parent Firm
• Service items posted under one or more of your company’s business units

One way to use this report is to find out which clients are buying services you introduced recently.

You can have the results listed in alphabetical order of the billed firm’s name or in ascending order of the total amount billed. And you can have the report compile results from all contacts in each firm into single firm-wide entries in the list.

The report’s footer will display which search criteria you used to generate the particular report with the exception of blank search fields, ALL list selections, and service items. If you generate a report for a single service item or several from the same subgroup, the service items searched will appear at the top of each page of the report. If you select two or more items in the Business Units list, the report will display that as “(multiple values selected)” in the footer.

You can search for a word or phrase in the onscreen report. RB9 will highlight all instances of your searched word/phrase in the report and list them in a scroll box along with the page number where they occur. Export the report in a variety of formats to save, share, and/or edit in another application, or print it.

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

TL;DR: View miscellaneous sales charges totals & averages by contact and firm.

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.

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

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

Parent Firm: Headquarters of a multi-branch corporation.

Service items: Regular charges that you bill to your clients.

Service Item Subgroups: Groups of related service items that make billing faster, because instead of scrolling through a long undifferentiated list of all of your miscellaneous service items, you can locate individual items quickly in their small subgroups.

Lesson #84

Reports – Gross Profit function

Gross profit is the difference between the invoice amount and resource costs. This static report lists the gross profit (in amount and percentage) for each job or invoice. You can customize the information shown in the report and create summary reports that only show each firm’s total amounts for the selected time period.

The default report shows the gross profit for all of today’s scheduled jobs — broken down by the firm that ordered the services on the invoice (Sold To firm). Each firm’s listing includes their address and phone number to help you identify them correctly.

Every job listed under a firm includes:

• Job number, date, and case
• Invoice number, date, and total amount
• Resource pay
• Resulting gross profit in dollars and by percentage

It also lists any voided or credited amount and the associated deduction to resource pay. At the end of the report are grand totals for invoice amount, voided and credit memo amounts, resource pay, and gross profit in dollars and by percentage.

Find gross profit for different variables

You can view the same information for:

• A different date range
• Invoices billed during the date range
• Invoices posted during the date range
• Firms that ordered the billed jobs, instead of the billed services (Ordering Firm)
• Firms responsible for paying invoices (This is useful to see the gross profit for a carrier/corporation that has multiple firms booking jobs.)
• A single Sold To Firm, Ordering Firm, or Bill To Firm
• A Sold To, Ordering, or Bill To Firm’s parent company
• A particular case
• A selected number of your top clients
• One or more of your company’s business units

The report’s footer will display which search criteria you used to generate the particular report with the exception of blank search fields, ALL list selections, or if generating a report for a single firm. If you select two or more items in the Business Units list, the report will display that as “(multiple values selected).”

View a detailed or summary report

You can also choose a summary version that gives each client one line in the report that lists the firm name, address, and phone number — plus the total amounts for invoice billings, voids/credit memos, resource pay, and gross profit in dollars and percentages.

You can search for a word or phrase in the onscreen report. RB9 will highlight all instances of your searched word/phrase in the report and list them in a scroll box along with the page number where they occur. Export the report in a variety of formats to save, share, and/or edit in another application, or print it.

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

TL;DR: View gross profit by invoice. Customizable report can also display summary information for each client.

RB concepts in this lesson

Bill To Firm: The firm responsible for paying the invoice for a job. This firm could be the same as the Ordering 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.

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, such as realtime, videoconferencing, or read & sign. More >

Ordering Firm: Firm that is responsible for a job with your company.

Parent Firm: Headquarters of a multi-branch corporation.

Resource: Person or thing that provides your business with a service — such as reporters, videographers, interpreters, scopists, proofreaders, account executives, other agencies that cover jobs for you, or a conference room.

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

Lesson #83

Reports – Business Analysis function

View your business’s posted income by groups of related service items for a specific time period in an interactive report that lets you see total amounts at a glance. Drill down to see individual service items — plus quarterly and monthly breakdowns of posted totals. Compare the current month-, quarter- and year-to-date totals — such as sales amount and gross profit — to previous periods.

The default report lists the main categories of services with amounts posted today for any of its service items to any Sold To clients in any state and under any of your company’s business units. The default view is yearly total amounts for:

• Number of units billed
• Rush charges
• All charges
• Related resource pay
• Voids/Credits
• Gross profit

Because it is interactive you can drill down to monthly totals and individual service items.

View profitability for different periods/segments

You can change the report to:

• View longer/different time periods.
• Include quarterly breakdowns.
• Switch to totals by Bill To clients (such as insurance companies who are paying for litigation services their lawyers order from you), parent firms (i.e. headquarters), or a single firm.
• See income for one state, e.g., if you pay local business taxes based on the total revenue generated within your own state, view posted income for your state.
• Analyze business for a particular case.
• View income for one or more of your company’s business units.

Like other interactive reports in RB9 you can quickly switch between detailed and summary views of the report. The initial results in the report are displayed as yearly totals by Service Group (main categories of services).

You can “expand” the view to see the monthly — and quarterly if desired — subtotals and toggle between summary and monthly (and quarterly) views for individual years/quarters. You can also expand and collapse the Service Groups to see breakdowns by category subgroups and individual service items — or toggle individual Service Groups between the collapsed/summary view and the breakdown-by-service-item view. Category totals and subtotals appear on gray backgrounds with bold headers to differentiate them from individual line items.

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

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

TL;DR: Get an instant snapshot of your business broken down by Service Group for today or any time period. Compare the current month-, quarter- and year-to-date totals to previous periods. 

RB concepts in this lesson

Bill To: Client responsible for paying the invoice for a job. Could be the same as the Sold To client, 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.

Parent Firm: Headquarters of a multi-branch corporation.

Service Groups: The most commonly used billable items for court reporters. These main categories are preset by the system and cannot be modified by the user.

Service items: Regular charges that you bill to your clients are called service items in RB and are categorized into Service Groups.

Sold To: Client ordering services.

Lesson #78

Payables – Liability Balance Log function

You can get an instant snapshot of what you currently owe resources on posted invoices and other transactions — or reestablish a starting balance of your resources payable as of a certain date — by using this audit function.

The default Liability Balance Log covers the current month to date and all of your business units. You can extend the date range to a longer historical period from today, and restrict the results to one or more of your company’s business units.

The log lists all dates transactions with resources payable were posted, beginning with the starting date you specified. Each date shows the day’s resources payable beginning balance, ending balance, and the amounts that increased or decreased the resources payable balance that day.

You can view the transactions for any date. All transactions for a selected day are grouped by type (Billings, Voids, etc.) and listed by invoice date within each group.

Export the report and individual dates’ details as Excel spreadsheets or CSV (comma-separated values) files to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

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

TL;DR: Audit the current month’s resources payable. Can also reestablish a starting balance as of a certain date.

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.

Resource: Person or thing that provides your business with a service, such as reporters.