Tag Archives: email second round

Lesson #55

Receivables – Aged A/R function

The first step in collecting a debt is finding out who owes you what and for how long. Aged A/R (Accounts Receivable) reports tell you which clients have unpaid invoices, how much they are in arrears, and for how long — but RB’s version is much more than that.

Multi-tasking tool

RB’s Aged A/R reports are interactive so after you compile a report you can click a firm name in the report to get all of their contact info — plus see the record of which collections actions you have already pursued with them. You don’t have to go to a separate function to do collections tasks. You can also click a monthly total to see which invoices are included and view their details.

In addition to viewing firm and invoice details, you can view relevant information directly from the Aged A/R report that you would otherwise go into separate functions to look up. Having this information at your fingertips in Aged A/R saves you time when researching outstanding invoices, making collection efforts, or talking with a client about their invoices.

While the default report ages invoices from today, you can use this function to generate Aged A/R reports for prior time periods too. You can export or print out the report if desired. You can even resend invoices without leaving the function.

Viewing aged accounts receivable

The default report lists clients with unpaid balances in descending order by the ones who have the largest amount outstanding in the oldest time period — the clients you want to go after first. However you can sort the grid by one or more of the columns — so you can view the list in ascending or descending order by any time period, grand total owed, firm name or number, assigned collector, and/or COD status. (When you exit the function RB will revert back to the default order.)

You can also choose how many time periods to review. Amounts due from the past to the present are grouped in 30-day increments with the default view being 6 of these time periods in columns — plus 1 column for all outstanding amounts beyond 6 months. You can extend the report up to 12 months plus the extra column for older outstanding balances.

A final column in the report lists the grand total outstanding amount for each firm. The last row in the report displays grand totals in each column of outstanding amounts for all clients.

In addition to changing the number of the periods displayed, you can further customize the report to:

• Age receivables from an an earlier date.
• List firms by who ordered services instead of who was billed for services (if you want to contact the law firms who bought services instead of the insurance companies who will pay the invoices, for example).
• Group all of a parent firms’ subsidiaries’ amounts into the parent firm’s total, instead of listing all firms separately.
• Show the invoices for a single firm or a parent firm and its subsidiaries.
• Show invoices assigned to a single collector in your office.
• Display only invoices in one or more categories (such as affiliate invoices).
• Display invoices for one or more business units in your company.

Printing Aged A/R reports

If you want a static report to work with or for your records, you can export it. Aged A/R reports can be exported as an Excel spreadsheet with each client’s overdue amounts broken down by age plus a list of all of their overdue invoices with their basic details. The exported report also includes the grand totals column and row.

If you want an exported Aged A/R report without invoices, you can export it as an Excel spreadsheet or generic file the same way you export other results grids in RB. Once exported with or without invoices, you can print the report.

Viewing client details

You can drill down in an Aged A/R report to see details about a client, their outstanding invoices, and your collection efforts with them to date.

Firm names in RB’s Aged A/R report are hyperlinked to their profiles in your system so with one click you can pull up all of a client’s contact information — plus the rest of their details instantly including your collections notes to review.

After accessing a firm from the Aged A/R report, you can easily:

• Contact the firm.
• Record your current collections action.
• Enter any notes about the situation.
• Set a reminder date/time for follow-up.
• Designate a follow-up person to receive the reminder.
• Update any other information about the firm such as an address change.

Viewing invoice details

In addition to the hyperlinked firms, firms’ outstanding balances for each time period are hyperlinked too. Clicking an outstanding balance brings up a list of the client’s unpaid invoices included in that time period’s total — along with basic contact and invoice information so you can easily refer to specific invoices while on the phone with the client.

Plus the outstanding invoices in this list are all hyperlinked to their details. So you have ALL the facts when talking to the client about getting paid.

When looking at the list of invoices in a client’s Aged A/R detail window, you can:

• See the client’s basic contact information such as the firm’s main phone number.
• View basic invoice information at a glance including each invoice’s balance due and how many days old it is.
• Drill down to view/update detailed information about the firm and the collector assigned to the account.
• Drill down to view an invoice’s details. In addition to listing the services provided and other invoice details, you can use information from an invoice details window to  provide clients with details about the specific invoice’s overdue amounts and any payments or other transactions credited to the invoice. You can also update Bill To and Sold To client information.
• Resend invoices directly from the client’s Aged A/R detail window.

Shortcuts to other functions

Aged A/R interacts with other RB functions eliminating the need to set search filters to find the relevant client information in those other functions.

You can directly access a Bill To client’s current 90-day payment history from Aged A/R instead of going into the Receivable Transaction Inquiry function and compiling that history yourself.

You can also directly access all of a Bill To or Sold To client’s financial activity with your company from within Aged A/R instead of going to the Client Activity function.

And you can compile and send collection letters for any or all of a client’s outstanding invoices without leaving Aged A/R.

TL;DR: Aged A/R summarizes each client’s unpaid invoices, grouped by when the invoice was due (aging period). It is interactive so you have your complete set of collection tools and invoice information linked into the report to maximize your collection efforts.

RB concepts in this lesson

Bill To Firm: The firm responsible for paying the invoice for a job — usually the firm that scheduled the job — 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 — but can also be other court reporting firms, vendors, insurance companies, corporate clients, and courts.

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

Lesson #54

Receivables – Monthly Journals function

Monthly Journals are static monthly reports that break down all sales and cash receipts posted during the selected month into debits and credits. Your accountant uses these reports to prepare your company’s financials.

The Sales Journal lists all posted daily credit sales totals for the selected month, grouped and subtotaled by business unit (BU). It shows you how much you billed. Each BU has its own page(s) — and in addition to listing the BU’s sales as debits in Accounts Receivable and credits in Revenue at the end, it lists the number of jobs and invoices included in that amount.

The Cash Receipts Journal lists all posted daily cash inflows for the selected month, grouped and subtotaled by BU. It shows you how much money you received. Each BU has its own page(s) — and includes the total amount for each applicable account per BU, crediting sales and debiting cash and other transactions.

The last page of each journal is a grand totals page for your entire company that includes the totals of all of your BUs.

Report options

The journals default to the current month displaying revenue from all BU accounts and subtotals by date posted for all of your company’s BUs. You can view information from other months broken down by service item, in summary form, and/or for one or several of your BUs.

Daily financial transactions are temporary until they are posted (i.e., closed out). Once posted they cannot be modified nor deleted. Monthly Journals use the post date — not the transaction date — to select and group transactions on the report.

Monthly Journals compile posted transactions that meet your criteria as 2 separate reports which each group their entries under one BU per page and includes a Grand Total page. Each report is shown as a tab above the report pane so you can quickly access either one.

You can search for a word or phrase in the onscreen report. RB 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. You can print or export monthly journal reports in a variety of formats — PDF, CSV, Excel, Rich Text, TIFF, or web archive — to email to your accountant.

TL;DR: A summary recap of daily sales and cash receipts registers. Your accountant uses this report to prepare your company’s financials.

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. More >

Lesson #52

Receivables – Daily Balance Log function

Get an instant snapshot of accounts receivable — or reestablish a starting balance as of a certain date — by using this audit function. You can view the report for your company as a whole, for a single business unit, or for several BUs.

Daily Balance Log defaults to all transactions for your company in the current month to date. You can change the start date for reporting transactions to find previous starting balances.

The report lists all dates within your specified range on which transactions occurred that affected your accounts receivable and displays the day’s:

• Beginning balance
• Amounts from transactions that increased and decreased A/R
• Ending balance after the increases are added and the decreases are subtracted

Daily Balance Log uses the entered date of a Receivables transaction instead of the post date (when it was closed out) to match the Aged A/R report.

You can view any listed day’s transactions broken out and grouped according to type (invoices, payments, debits, voids, write-offs, etc.). You can also sort these breakout lists by invoice number or date.

You can export the report and breakout lists as Excel or CSV files to save, share, print, or use in other applications.

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

TL;DR: Use this audit function to see accounts receivable balances for any date. For example if you need to 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 — such as branch offices, other companies you own, affiliates, and profit-sharing operations.

Lesson #51

Receivables – Daily Register function

Run the Daily Register function so you can review reports of transactions for a specific day or other time period. Generally you run daily registers at the end of the day after posting. You can also generate the reports for unposted transactions to review them.

All daily transactions — such as invoices, payments, credit memos, etc. — are temporary until they are posted (i.e., closed out). Once posted they cannot be modified nor deleted so daily registers use the post date — not the transaction date — to select and group posted transactions on the report. If you use Daily Register to monitor unposted transactions, it uses the invoice number or date of the transaction to order the list of results returned.

Types of daily registers included

RB provides three types of daily registers:

1. The Sales Register lists all invoices posted for the specified period, grouped and subtotaled by business unit (BU). It shows you how much revenue you generated. Each BU has its own page(s). In addition to listing the BU’s total billed amount at the end of its invoices, it lists the number of jobs and invoices included in that amount.
2. The Cash Receipts Register-Payment lists all payments posted for the specified period, grouped and subtotaled by BU. It shows how much money you received. Each payment lists its total amount and breaks down how it was applied to the invoice balance (credit), discount, overpayment, late charge, finance charge, processing fee, and net cash. Each BU has its own page(s). In addition to listing the BU’s totals at the end of its transactions, it breaks out the total amounts for invoices over 90 days old.
3. The Cash Receipts Register-Other lists credit memos, debit memos, duplicate payments, miscellaneous receipts, refunds, voids, and write-offs posted for the specified period, grouped and subtotaled by BU. It shows amounts for all transaction types that are not payments. Each BU has its own page(s), and includes the total amount for each transaction type.

In addition to grouping transactions onto separate pages for each of your company’s BUs, the last page of each register lists grand totals combining the activities of all of your BUs.

Generate targeted registers

The function defaults to today because it’s a good practice to review posted transactions daily so you stay on top of things and catch any issues quickly. You can also run daily registers for any date or date range.

You can limit which categories of invoices to search if you want to focus on a particular type of invoice — such as ones for your affiliates. You can also choose to run reports for a single BU, several selected BUs, or all BUs.

Daily Register compiles transactions that meet your criteria as 3 separate reports — which each group their entries under one BU per page — plus a Grand Total page. Each report is shown as a tab above the report pane so you can quickly access each one.

You can search for a word or phrase in each of the 3 reports. RB will highlight all instances of your searched word/phrase in the current report and list them in a scroll box along with the page number where they occur.

Each report’s footer will display which search criteria you used to generate the report with the exception of blank search fields and ALL list selections. You can export any of these 3 reports to save and/or edit it in another application, or print it.

TL;DR: Monitor your posted transactions daily or for any other time period with these 3 reports: Sales, Cash Receipts-Payment, and Cash Receipts-Other. You can also monitor unposted transactions separately.

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, such as branch offices, other companies you own, affiliates, and profit-sharing operations.

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

Lesson #50

Receivables – Resource Billings Report function

If your firm currently provides resources copies of their invoices, you can provide this report instead. Resources can check that they are getting paid for their work that was billed without seeing all the details on the invoice to the client.

When an invoice is generated in RB9, resources’ earnings are created simultaneously. You can have an unlimited number of earnings per invoice. The Resource Billings Report lists each earning (i.e., a service item and its pay amount), grouped and subtotaled by resource, one resource per page. The report includes a grand total on the last page adding together all the resources’ earnings in the report.

The default report lists today’s earnings for all of your resources. You can generate these earnings reports for other time periods, for a single resource or all resources, and/or for one or more business units of your company. The report’s footer will display which search criteria you used to generate the report with the exception of blank search fields, ALL list selections, or if you are generating a report for a single resource.

You can search for a word or phrase in the 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 as PDF (or one of the other 5 file formats) or print it to give each resource a copy of their own earnings.

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

TL;DR: Provide resources with their own reports of what work they completed has been posted and what amounts they can expect from that work. The report lists each service item and its pay amount, grouped and subtotaled by resource, one resource per page.

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.

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

Lesson #49

Receivables – Enter Other Transactions function

Financial transactions do not always entail client payments for invoices. Use this function to deal with bounced checks, incorrect invoice charges, misapplied payments, duplicate payments, refunds, miscellaneous income, and uncollectible bad debts.

Enter these types of non-cash transactions into RB to keep your RB ledger accurate. Balance the transactions and post them.

‘Other Transactions’ in RB include:

• Credit Memos
• Debit Memos
• Duplicate Payments
• Refunds
• Miscellaneous Receipts
• Voids
• Write-offs

Credit Memos

Use a credit memo to reduce the balance of an invoice — for example when a client returns a product or was charged for a service they didn’t ask for. A credit memo can be for the full amount or part of the amount of an invoice. If a commission was earned on the sale you can choose to decrease the sale rep’s/Client Of resource’s commission or honor it.

Debit Memos

If a client bounces a check or you applied a payment to the wrong invoice, use a debit memo to increase the invoice balance. You can use the entire balance — including late charges and finance charges — in a debit memo. You can also credit any commissions back to the related sale rep/Client Of resource. After posting the debit memo you can enter the payment again with the correct invoice.

Duplicate Payments

If you receive a check for an invoice that has been paid already and you want to deposit the check (rather than return it) enter it as a duplicate payment in RB to record the payment.

Miscellaneous Receipts

If you receive a check from a client or resource that does not reference an invoice — such as the check for a retainer (upfront deposit) — you can record it as a miscellaneous receipt for tracking purposes.

Refunds

If a client sent you an overpayment or a duplicate payment for an invoice reimburse them through your accounting system such as QuickBooks, then enter the refund in RB so that the Payment Transactions log is complete.

Voids

Posted invoices cannot be canceled or deleted. So if a client returns a product, its invoice must be voided. Or if a job was billed incorrectly the invoice(s) should be voided before the job is billed again. By default, pay and commissions are voided when an invoice is voided and if the resource/sales rep has already been paid you must adjust (reduce) their pay (in Payables) to deduct the amount paid from the next payroll. Or you can choose on a case by case basis to pay the resource’s fee and/or commission in spite of the voided invoice.

Write-offs

If an invoice becomes uncollectible, write it off as a bad debt. When you write off an invoice the resource’s regular pay is not affected and any commissions related to the invoice are not voided by default. However you can choose to void commission(s) on any write-off.

Entering ‘Other Transactions’

When you open this function any unposted transactions are listed with their basic information:

• Transaction type, date, and amount
• Amount of any late charge or finance charge to be debited
• Applicable internal account number (from the Chart of Accounts)
• Invoice number
• Who created the transaction and when

You can view, edit, or delete any individual transaction in the list. Depending on the transaction you can view information about the invoice and its related client and update the client’s information, if desired. You can post transactions here singly or in batches. And you can enter new transactions by type.

Enter relevant information about the transaction including the date, amount, and account you want the transaction recorded in. Also enter any remarks about the reason for the transaction or other relevant information. Depending on the transaction you can also enter information such as the relevant check number and date, and how to handle commissions related to the transaction.

If you have multiple transactions of the same type, you can continuously add them in the same window to save time when processing transactions. When finished all transactions appear in a list along with any other unposted transactions. 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, print, or use in other applications.

Don’t forget to post transactions

Finally you post the transactions to close them. You can post them singly, a select few, or all at once. When you run the daily registers, these transactions will appear on the Cash Receipts Register – Other Transactions page of the report. You can also use the Voided Invoices function to quickly review all invoices voided today or for any time period.

TL;DR: Keep your RB ledger accurate by including all types of transactions beyond payments — including credit memos to deal with returns or incorrect service item billing, debit memos for bounced checks or payments applied to the wrong invoices, duplicate payments, refunds, miscellaneous receipts such as retainers, voided invoices, and write-offs for bad debts.

RB 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.

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

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

Lesson #48

Receivables – Receive Payments function

Enter a payment and apply it to outstanding invoices in this function — whether the payment is for a single invoice or multiple invoices. RB can handle an unlimited number of invoices paid by one check or other type of payment — such as credit card, electronic payment, or retainer.

Adjustments

You can make adjustments if needed when applying payments to invoices — such as when a client sends you a check that is slightly less than the current balance of an invoice and you don’t want to try to collect the difference. You can discount the difference on the posted invoice. Or if a client sends you a check for more than is owed, enter the excess as an overpayment. (RB tracks all overpayments so they can be refunded in the future.)

Fees & other charges

You can also enter late charges, finance charges, and credit card/PayPal processing fees. (If you receive a payment prior to when late charges would accrue, the Late Charges and Finance Charges fields in Receive Payments are grayed out and uneditable so you won’t accidentally penalize a client.)

Credit card payments

When processing credit card payments, you can break out the usage fees associated with them. Set up credit card payment processing fee accounts in your business units. Then when processing fees are applied to invoices in Receive Payments, they are included in the corresponding accounts for your company. You have 2 options for handling credit card fees in RB: If you pay the processing fee, you use the Processing Fee option; if your client will pay the fee in addition to the balance of the invoice, you use the Surcharge option.

Retainers

If you are holding a retainer from a client, it will automatically appear when applying payments by that client so you don’t overlook it. If any money is left over, it remains in the client’s retainer account until you issue a refund check to the client.

Other payment info

Beyond payment types and adjustments, you can maintain a wealth of information about a payment from the check number and date to third-party payer to transaction date (when you entered the payment) and debited account.

Online payments

If clients pay online through RB Connect, you do not have to enter payment information manually. RB9 automatically enters the payment — including the processing fee if you have set up processing fees in RB9. You can review and edit the payment if needed, then post it like any other payment.

One Check One Invoice vs. Multiple Invoices

If a client is paying for a single invoice, you can use the streamlined One Check One Invoice sub-function to quickly enter the payment. If a client is paying for multiple invoices with one check or you don’t know what invoice they are paying, use the One Check Multiple Invoices sub-function which displays a client’s entire list of open invoices which you can search by job number, invoice number, or amount range. You can export the list as an Excel spreadsheet to save, print, or use in other applications.

Posting payments

After entering a payment and applying it to outstanding invoices, you can continue to add payments to other invoices or finish the payment process by posting the payment. If you have a lot of transactions to record — instead of posting payments as you go — enter them all first then select a batch to post all at once.

All daily transactions are temporary until they are posted (i.e., closed out). And once posted they cannot be modified nor deleted. Some RB reports — such as monthly journals — use the post date (not the transaction date) to select and group transactions on the report.

When you post a payment it must match the total amount of the invoice(s) you applied it to. If the payment is more than the invoice balance(s), RB will not allow you to post it until you balance it with credits (such as the overpayment credit). One exception: RB does not require payment of late fees or finance charges to post. So if a client sent a check for the original amount of the invoice only even though there have since been late fees and/or finance charges applied, you can post the invoice and RB will zero out the fees and remove the invoice from your outstanding receivables.

Audit trail

Unposted payments remain in Receive Payments until they are balanced. RB tracks who entered a payment and when, so you have an audit trail of who is responsible for crediting payments to invoices. You can use this feature to filter unposted payments to see only those you entered to get a total amount and reconcile.

Information on who entered payments and when appears in the results when you search for unposted payments in Receive Payments so you can see it at a glance. Listings also display the payment type, transaction date, payer and if it was a third party (for example if an insurance company paid for a bill their lawyer incurred for them), invoice amount, and its outstanding balance. Grand total and total outstanding balance amounts also appear in the results.

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 to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

You can pull up any unposted payment’s details from the results — either as a drop-down to quickly see all the invoices paid with one transaction, along with their fees breakdown and bill to/sold to information — or in a separate transaction screen.

TL;DR: Enter payments and apply them to one or more invoices — making adjustments as needed for overpayments, late charges, finance charges, and credit card processing fees. Maintain an audit trail of who entered which payments and when.

RB concepts in this lesson

Bill To Contact: The person responsible for paying the invoice for a job.

Bill To Firm: The company 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.

Processing Fee: If you pay the credit card processing fee when a client pays an invoice by credit card, you record it as a processing fee in RB.

RB Connect: Online repository, calendar, and access to your office for clients and resources. More >

Sold To Contact: Person who ordered the services on the invoice.

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

Surcharge: If you pass along the credit card processing fee when a client pays an invoice by credit card to the client, you record it as a surcharge in RB.

Lesson #46

Inquiry – Marketing Inquiry function

Know where your business is coming from and which resources are your most valuable assets. Discover problems — such as inactive clients — to deal with proactively — such as sending them reminder cards.

Client-focused inquiries

Evaluate clients on a firm or contact level in terms of jobs scheduled and revenue generated. Review new client entries and check for duplicate entries. View individual clients’ details. Then use this information for more targeted marketing efforts.

Review new clients

When you start using RB9 review new firm and contact entries for errors or actions to take. Then periodically review new clients within a range of dates to acquaint yourself with them. You can also use these reviews as a form of quality control — especially if you allow resources to enter new firms and contacts when they turn in jobs through RB Connect to check that they’re not a duplicate entry.

As clients schedule jobs and you invoice them, you can use other filters in Marketing Inquiry to find out more about your clients and tailor your marketing efforts.

Find your best clients

Find your best clients by firm or contact in terms of most jobs scheduled or most revenue generated within a date range. You can include or exclude copy sales in revenue generated. Including copy sales gives you an overall view of your real top revenue-generating firms and contacts because it’s not only including their invoices, but any other invoices posted for the jobs they schedule with you. You can also search by ordering client — usually lawyers — or scheduling contact — usually secretaries and paralegals.

Find clients to reconnect with

Find inactive clients by searching for which firms or contacts have not scheduled any jobs during a range of dates as compared to the year prior. Seeing who fell off the calendar gives you a list of clients to contact and see if there are any services you can provide for them.

You can also search to see which clients generated no revenue with you within the date range searched as compared to the exact same time period in the prior year. If a client appears in the results, it means they had at least one invoice posted between the dates searched for the previous year.

When searching for clients to market to you can exclude any firms or contacts that have requested that you do not market to them.

If you searched for firms the listings in the results includes firm name and address. If you searched for contacts the listings in the results includes contact name, firm they work at, address, phone numbers, fax number, email, and the email’s category in the contact’s listing. 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).

Use the email category for further targeting your marketing. For example if you want to offer a limited time discount for paying invoices early, you can generate your list for Accounting email notifications only then select the contacts in the list with an accounting email address.

Export the results as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use to create reports in other applications. If you see any incorrect or missing information in the listings, you can update entities directly from their listings.

Print envelopes and labels from Marketing Inquiry results for your targeted marketing efforts. For example generate labels for holiday gifts to your best clients.

Resource-focused inquiries

Find new hires, top producing resources, non-performing resources, and top commission-earning resources. Queries run in this section will give you an idea of which resources are assigned to the most jobs and earning the most money. You’ll also be able to run queries on the opposite end of the spectrum as well, comparing those resources that are not assigned to jobs and not earning money.

Review new resources

Find resources added during a particular time period. Review each new resource’s details to check for errors. Print envelopes or labels for sending welcome cards or new employee packages.

Find your best resources

Find your best resources by searching for who had the most assignments or earned the most income during a particular time period.

Find resources that received the highest commissions from their own clients/assigned cases (AKA Client Of resources) or sales representatives that earned the highest commissions during a particular time period. You can include or exclude copy sales in commissions generated. Including copy sales gives you an overall view of your real top commissions-generating resources because it’s not only including their clients’ invoices, but any other invoices posted for their clients’ jobs scheduled with you.

Find underperforming resources

Find resources that had no assignments during a particular time period but were assigned to jobs for the same time period in the previous year. Find resources that did not get paid by closing payroll in RB9 in a particular time period but did get paid during the same time period in the previous year.

The listings in the results includes resource name, address, type of resource, email, and the email’s category in the resource’s listing. 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).

In all resource queries you can view and update details of any individual resource listed. Print envelopes and labels from inquiry results. Export the results as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use to create reports in other applications.

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

TL;DR: Lists clients or resources in a range of categories, so you can see who your best clients and resources are, review new client and resource entries, find your highest commissioned resources, see which clients are inactive and need marketing to, and which resources are underperforming, so you can address any issues. Print envelopes and labels from inquiry results. 

RB 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.

RB Connect: Online repository, calendar, and access to your office for clients and resources. More >

Resource: Person or thing that provides your business with a service — such as a reporter.

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 #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.