Tag Archives: email second round

Lesson #66

Payables – Pay Resources function

Before you can pay resources or send them pay statements you must close (i.e., finalize) payroll. Closing payroll ensures that no changes can be made to the payroll data after you distribute checks and pay statements to your resources.

Before you use this function to close payroll and pay resources you must set up pay dates in your RB System Preferences and enter individual resources’ pay information — such as how long they wait to get paid for an invoice — in their RB listing.

After these initial preparations Pay Resources is where you set payroll for an open payroll date — including reviewing scheduled payments to resources and updating which invoices will be included in payroll. It is also where you close payroll.

Review current payroll

The first step in paying resources is to run the Draft Resource Pay Statements report for review. The Draft Resource Pay Statements report lists each invoice — selected for the specified pay date — grouped and subtotaled by resource. If you or your resources find any errors or missing information, you can modify the current payroll before closing payroll.

To generate the Draft Resource Pay Statements report you select a pay date from the list you set up previously. The Pay Group (i.e., pay period) and Cutoff Date (last date for invoices to be included) associated with the pay date are displayed. (You designate the Pay Group and Cutoff Date when setting up pay dates.) Choosing from a set list minimizes the chance of running the wrong payroll: All open pay dates are listed along with their cutoff dates in chronological order with the earliest one first to make it easier to select the correct pay date.

RB calculates payroll for the selected pay date and shows every resource that has eligible outstanding pay amounts. Clicking any resource listed opens a sub-listing of all of their outstanding invoices with invoice amounts, dates, balances, pay amounts, and other relevant information displayed. Beneath the list of invoices RB lists any pay adjustments not specifically tied to an invoice that will be included in the payroll.

Modify payroll

Click one or more column headers in any sub-listing to sort the order of payments listed in ascending or descending order by those criteria. Only invoices that are checked in the sub-listing are included in this payroll. You can override which invoices to include. You cannot change or remove the non-invoice pay adjustments listed in this function. IF you need to update those use the Pay Adjustments function.

RB automatically selects which invoices to pay based on the Original Term and Copy Term settings for each resource. Terms include the number of days you wait before paying a resource on an invoice and whether the wait period starts from the invoice date or the date the invoice was paid. You can have different terms for originals and copies.

Before closing payroll you can review and modify RB’s selection of invoices for any resource. For example if a reporter asks for more money than is currently due, you can add more invoices to the current pay sheet instead of giving an advance. As you add or remove invoices for a resource the total pay for the resource adjusts on the screen.

If a resource’s list of invoices is too long to see what you want easily based on invoice number, you can click one or more different column headers to sort the list by those columns in ascending or descending order.

You can export the list of resources and their invoices as an Excel spreadsheet to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

Review payroll as a report

You can review this information in its final form as a report and have your resources review their upcoming payroll before closing payroll. Choose summary or detailed draft pay statements which you can print or email to resources. Draft pay statements have the word “Draft” splashed across every page so you don’t accidentally send or archive a draft statement instead of the real thing. If you choose a print version, you can print the report or export it in a variety of formats to view elsewhere or archive.

Draft pay statement reports compile the current payroll into a draft report with one resource per page and a grand total payroll as the last page. Each invoice listed under a resource includes:

• Invoice number and date
• Whether the invoice is for an original or copy
• Pay amount
• Job number and date
• Case name or description
• Sold To Contact
• Resource’s reference number

You can generate 3 versions of the draft pay statement:

• A detailed version for your office that includes the most information listing each invoice broken down by service item, including the billing rate, number of units, pay rate, pay percentage, and pay amount. This is the best draft report to select for verifying pay because it is the most complete.
• A detailed version of the report to either print out or email to resources which lists pay by service item for each invoice included in this payroll. Similar to the detailed office version except it does not include billing rates or pay percentages.
• A summary report which only lists pay amounts by invoice with no further break-downs by service item. This is the draft of the report you either print out or email to resources if you prefer to give them pay statements with no details.

Reset payroll when there are mistakes

If there are any mistakes in the Pay Resources results grid or a draft pay statement, you reset payroll which deletes all entries in the current payroll, then start the payroll over again after correcting the errors. If you find the errors are due to incorrect pay info settings in the resources’ profiles (such as original term or copy term) correct those settings first before resetting the payroll.

Close payroll

After verifying payroll use this function to close payroll. RB finalizes payroll so all checked invoices are included in resource pay for this payroll and will no longer appear as outstanding obligations in payroll. Then use the Send Resource Pay Statements function to make a final copy of the Resource Pay Statements report for your office and send resources their pay statements.

TIP: You can also generate a report in Pay Resources that includes all resources who are owed money on outstanding invoices — whether they are scheduled to be paid on this pay date or not — for your records.

TL;DR: Review a specific pay date’s invoices, grouped and subtotaled by resource. Review and modify RB’s automatic selection of invoices for any resource. You can also reset (restart) an incorrect payroll.

RB concepts in this lesson

Pay Group: Category of time period your company uses to pay resources, e.g., Monthly, Weekly, On Demand.

Reference No. (for resources): If a reporter or other resource (such as an agency which works for other agencies) bills you for work done, enter their invoice number as the reference number when turning in jobs so they will know which of their invoices you are paying on their pay statements.

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

Sold To Contact: Person who ordered the services on the invoice. Usually the Ordering Contact on a job.

Lesson #65

Payables – Pay Adjustments function

Before closing payroll adjust resource earnings in the current payroll for amounts not tied to specific invoices — such as a bonus or repayment of an advance. You can also apply recurring deductions to the current payroll, make pay adjustments to other open payrolls, and look up pay adjustments made in closed payrolls.

The default Pay Adjustments results show all resources with outstanding pay adjustments. Important information about each adjustment is displayed in the main grid.

Searching pay adjustments

You can choose to view open or closed pay dates (if you want to check previous payrolls for overlooked pay adjustments). If looking at open pay adjustments you can choose to see all open adjustments or only those for a specific pay date. If checking previous payrolls you can search a date range. You can also view pay adjustments for a single resource. (Pay Groups and cutoff dates are designated when setting up pay dates.)

Listings in the results grid display:

• Pay Date
• Pay Group
• Resource
• Amount paid/deducted
• Any remarks/notes

The cutoff date (last date for invoices to be included) for the pay date appears in the search criteria but is uneditable.

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.

Adding pay adjustments

To add one-off adjustments you select the resource then enter the amount and any notes you want. To include recurring deductions set them up first in the resource’s RB listing by entering the recurring amount and the start and end dates for the repayments. Then Pay Adjustments will list all resources with pay adjustments eligible for the selected payroll so you can easily select one, some, or all of them and apply the deductions to the current payroll automatically.

If you add a pay adjustment without a defined pay date the adjustment is automatically set to the next payroll. However if the open pay adjustment is a negative amount, it is set to the next payroll only if the amount can be deducted. Otherwise it remains an open pay adjustment. And if you reset payroll the pay date is automatically cleared for open pay adjustments which will be set again to the next payroll.

Pay adjustments vs. pay overrides

Use Pay Adjustments when you want to increase or decrease a resource’s payroll amount for a reason not related to a specific job or invoice — such as a bonus or a repayment of an advance on outstanding invoices. This includes recurring amounts — such as if a resource is paying back an advance in installments.

Use Override Resource Pay when you want to increase or decrease the amount a resource is paid for a billable service item tied to a specific job/invoice, add new service items to invoices to pay resources for but not bill clients for, or change which resources to pay.

TL;DR: Before closing payroll, adjust resource earnings for the current payroll including applying recurring deductions.

RB concepts in this lesson

Pay Groups: Categories of time periods your company uses to pay resources, e.g., Monthly, Weekly, On Demand.

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

Lesson #64

Payables – Override Resource Pay function

If you forgot to include resource pay when calculating an invoice or you used the wrong pay rate so the pay amount is wrong, you can manually change resource pay amounts on posted invoices as long as you haven’t paid the resource yet. (If you have paid the resource but want to adjust pay tied to a posted invoice you will have to reset payroll.)

Use this function to correct pay amounts for specific service items on posted invoices. You can also:

• Add pay for miscellaneous charges you are not billing to the client but want tied to the invoice, such as mileage or parking at the deposition.
• Add pay for other resources for miscellaneous charges you are not billing to the client.
• Change the resource for specific service items.

Overriding resource pay does not change the invoice for the client because the invoice has already been posted. This function only affects the amount paid by your office and/or the payee for work related to the invoice.

Correct the pay side of invoices

Look up the invoice that needs resource pay corrected by either its invoice number or job number. RB displays the invoice broken down by resource with the associated witness(es) listed beneath each resource. You can export the list as an Excel spreadsheet to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

Billed services are listed for each witness. If the resource has not been paid yet the services are editable.

If you made a mistake on a resource’s pay for a service item listed you can correct the pay rate, the pay rate type (either flat rate or percentage), and the minimum pay for the service item.

If you want to pay resources for miscellaneous services not charged on posted invoices or add additional resources to pay for miscellaneous charges you are not billing to the client, you select:

• The current resource or one from your RB database. You can also look up resources by task assignments.
• A miscellaneous service item and how many units to bill.
• A pay rate table to generate pay automatically or manually enter the rate to multiply the number of units of the service item. If the resource you are paying has a pay rate assigned to them that pay rate will appear as the default but you can use a different pay rate if desired.

If the wrong resource is listed for payment on an invoice you can delete the resource and select a new one if you have not posted the invoice yet.

Any new additional pay entered appears as a line item on the invoice in RB. You can export the updated invoice to use in other applications, print, and/or archive.

Pay overrides vs. pay adjustments

Use Override Resource Pay when you want to:

• Increase or decrease the amount a resource is paid for a billable service item tied to a specific job/invoice.
• Add new service items to invoices to pay resources for but not bill clients for.
• Change which resources to pay.

Use Pay Adjustments when you want to:

• Increase or decrease a resource’s payroll amount for a reason not related to a specific job or invoice, such as a bonus or a repayment of an advance on outstanding invoices.
• This includes recurring amounts, such as if a resource is paying back an advance in installments.

TL;DR: Add or change resource pay amounts for individual service items on posted invoices. Add pay for service items not charged to the client such as parking. Change the resource to pay.

RB concepts in this lesson

Additional pay: Payment to resources for miscellaneous services not charged on posted invoices. For example, you pay a resource for parking at a deposition without billing the client but you want the payment tied to the job’s invoice.

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

Lesson #62

Receivables – Collection Forecast function

When a client promises to make a payment at a future date on an outstanding invoice, record it in their RB9 records. Then you can project increases in your cash flow based on the promised payment dates and amounts of outstanding invoices.

The Collection Forecast lists all of the clients with payment-promised dates and amounts for a specified period so you can forecast cash inflow to your business.

Customize your forecast

The promised date defaults to today but you can select any date range to view. You can also narrow results to clients tied to a single collector in charge of collecting their overdue payments — for example if you want to see only those accounts that are your responsibility. Based on the amounts and dates promised by clients for outstanding invoices, you can forecast cash inflow to your business.

Listings in the results display the firm name, the promised date and amount, and the collector. A total amount of all the listed amounts is included at the bottom.  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.

View & update individual collection activity

You can also monitor your collection progress with clients, document new attempts, and view graphs of clients’ account activity by clicking a hyperlinked firm in the Collection Forecast results to view the firm’s collection history and account overview.

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

TL;DR: Project changes in your cash flow based on the promised payment dates and amounts of outstanding invoices listed in this function.

RB concepts in this lesson

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

Lesson #60

Receivables – Collection Letters function

If you want to send collection letters instead of or in addition to calling clients, RB9 includes a set of customizable collection letters. You can print and mail them traditionally — or email them directly from within RB9.

Collection letters are part of RB9’s collection toolbox making collections easier and more productive. After running the Aged A/R report to find clients who owe you money use collection letters are part of your efforts to contact them. RB9’s collection form letters automatically include client and invoice details from your RB database. RB9’s collection form letters are fully customizable — and you can create new ones to cover all of your collections’ situations in the Form Templates function.

You can access the Collection Letters function from RB9’s main menu or within the Aged A/R function — which gives you a head start by selecting all of a client’s outstanding invoices for you.

Target your letters

You generate collection letters for one client firm at a time. You can choose to send letters to either the firm that is responsible for paying for the invoice(s) or the firm that scheduled the job(s) the invoice(s) are billing.

After selecting the firm, you can choose to generate letters regarding invoices for:

• A single contact
• All of the contacts at the firm
• All overdue invoices
• A particular date range
• A single case
• One, some, or all of your company’s business units

Search results listings include all of the search categories plus the invoice number, amount, and balance. 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 edit, share, archive, or print.

Customize letters

When contacting a client regarding multiple overdue invoices, you can send one letter to the client that compiles information about all of the selected invoices — or send multiple letters with each letter including information about a single invoice. Whether you are sending letters regarding one invoice or multiple invoices you choose which collection letter template you want to use and whether you are sending the collection letter(s) via email or print.

Whether emailing or printing collection letters, you can review and edit the contents generated by RB9 before emailing/printing the letter.

When emailing collection letters you enter a custom Subject line. Optionally you can include the related invoices. Even add other files from your desktop as attachments. RB9 records the email sent in the Email Log function in Tools so you can refer back to it later. (When emailing collection letters for multiple invoices we do not recommend using the send one collection letter per invoice option because it will embed multiple collection letters in one email body.)

If email isn’t appropriate for collections, you can have RB9 compose collection letters in a print-friendly format which you can review and edit in RB9’s word processing interface, then send via traditional methods.

Follow up letters

After sending a client a collection letter, make an entry in the firm’s Collections Notes Log to keep a record of your actions — and set a follow-up reminder date in Collections Follow-up to have RB9 remind you when you should check in with the client again.

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

TL;DR: Send clients collection letters via email or traditional mail with all relevant details automatically filled in.

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.

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition but can also be any kind of service you provide.  More >

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

Lesson #56

Receivables – Send Statements function

RB can generate monthly statements that summarize clients’ overdue invoices. Send these monthly statements and/or open (overdue) invoices to clients either by email or regular mail.

Attorneys receive separate statements unless their firm is flagged to consolidate statements in which case the consolidated statements would be sent to “Accounts Payable” at the firm’s billing address.

Statements list overdue invoices including the date, number, balance due, related job number and date, witness, and case for each invoice. Overdue invoice listings are color coded on statements to make older invoices stand out.

Statements can include copies of the invoices that show any payments, credits, finance charges, and the invoice’s current balance. Invoices can be stamped PAST DUE in red to enforce your message. If you or your clients prefer, you can send only the current invoices instead of the statement.

You can include insurance claim numbers on statements. And you can customize your company’s statements including color coding, graphics, text, and payment options. If you send statements by email you can customize the subject line and message of the email that accompanies the PDF statement. You can edit individual emails before sending them and attach additional files if desired.

Generate list of overdue clients

Enter a client’s preferred method of receiving statements — email, print, or don’t send — in their RB firm listing. Then when generating statements in Send Statements you can search for only those clients whose sending method matches the method you are using to send statements. You can choose to search for only email, print, or don’t send clients, or any combination of the three options.

You can search for all open invoices over 30 days old or pick a different date range to include. You can search for all clients with open invoices, search for parent companies to send statements to, or narrow the results to a single firm or parent company.

You can restrict results to specific firm classes (if you rank or rate law firms), firms tied to a single case, and/or firms tied to one or more of your company’s business units.

The results returned list all of the firms that meet the specified search condition(s) along with their outstanding amounts. 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 results list of clients with overdue invoices as an Excel or CSV file to archive, share, print, or use elsewhere.

Send statements

From the results returned you can select one, some, or all of the firms to send statements to. Then select the send method such as email statement, statement and invoices, or open invoices only. You have the same options for printing to send via regular mail. For “don’t send statement” clients you can use the print options to generate reports you can export or print for your records or to use otherwise.

If you email statements RB records the emails sent in the Email Log function in Tools (RB9 only function), so you can refer back to them later. RB also makes an entry in the client’s Notes Log that includes the receiver’s email address.

TL;DR: Monthly statements summarize each client’s overdue invoices. Email or print customized statements with or without invoices, or email/print the open invoices without a statement.

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.

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

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. More >

Parent Firm: Headquarters of a multi-branch corporation.

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 #53

Receivables – Finance Charges function

Finance Charge is a fee that is added to invoices when they haven’t been paid in 30 days or more. If you plan to assess finance charges for overdue invoices, set up finance charge percentage rates in clients’ firm records first. Then use this function to generate finance charges. You can generate finance charges manually or have RB automatically generate them for every invoice that is more than 30 days old. RB assesses finance charges by multiplying an invoice’s current balance by the billed firm’s finance charge percentage rate if it has been more than 28 days since you performed this task last.

Generate finance charges automatically

Generate finance charges before running monthly statements. You can generate finance charges for one or more invoices at the same time.

RB generates finance charges on open invoices billed to only those firms that have finance charge rates in their records. If you do not want to charge a particular firm finance charges, leave the default “0.000” finance charge rate in their firm records. Their open invoices will not appear in the Finance Charges function, and they won’t be assessed finance changes.

Generate finance charges manually

You can also add finance charges yourself for any time range and amount. For example if you have an invoice that is overdue — but you have not had RB9 automatically generate finance charges on it each month — you can add retroactive finance charges manually so you do not miss out on any amounts due.

View history & clear charges

You can also use this function to clear finance charges and to look up the history of finance charges applied and cleared. You can view a list of all generated and cleared charges, or use filters to view charges:

• Within a date range
• For a specific firm or invoice
• For one, several, or all of your company’s business units

If you want to clear finance charges, use the filters to search for the invoice(s) you want to clear of finance charges. You can clear charges for:

• A single invoice
• Selected invoices
• All invoices in your results at once

If a client makes a payment that only covers the current balance of an invoice and not the finance charge, zero out the finance charge if you do not plan to pursue the issue. Any invoice with a zero balance is considered paid in full even though it still has unpaid finance charges or late charges. (Cleared finance charges are not deleted: RB does not actually zero out the finance charge for each cleared invoice. It creates an entry with a negative amount for the finance charge so that you will have an audit trail.)

You can sort your finance charge 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 results as an Excel or CSV file to save, use in other applications, share, or print if you want a hard copy record of finance charges you generated and cleared.

TL;DR: Generate finance charges, view finance charges, clear finance charges, and view finance charges that were cleared.

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.

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