Tag Archives: Inquiry

Lesson #164

Inquiry – Override Resource Pay Inquiry function

Audit payments made using the Override Resource Pay function separately from the resource pay total for a specific time period, a single resource, a single job, and/or a single invoice.

With this Inquiry function you can search historical data about Override Resource Pay payments separately from the resource pay total by:

• Date the override was entered in RB9
• Invoice date
• Job date
• Pay date

In addition to the date type, you can use one or more of these filters to search for invoices that include pay overrides:

• Date range
• Resource
• Invoice number
• Job number

The results returned display:

• Resource
• Pay date
• Service item
• Units
• Pay amount
• Date the overpayment was entered
• Who on your staff entered the overpayment
• Related invoice number
• Invoice date
• Witness

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.

Find invoice/job details & files

Click an invoice number in the results to view or update invoice details and upload/download invoice related files. Click the job number in the invoice to view or update the associated job’s details and upload/download job files. Not all details are editable in either the invoice or job.

TL;DR: Search historical data about Override Resource Pay payments separately from the resource pay total.

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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

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.

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 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 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, 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.

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 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 they schedule with you.

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 #45

Inquiry – Anniversary Inquiry function

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

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

Print envelopes & labels

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Lesson #44

Inquiry – Receivable Transaction Inquiry function

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

View individual transactions

From your search results you can view detailed information about individual payments and other transactions. If you look at a payment’s details, it will include a list of the invoices paid by the payment and a breakdown of how the payment was applied to each invoice in the list. For other transactions, you can find information about the client and/or remarks about the transaction depending on the type of transaction.

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

Use with Aged A/R

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

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

RB concepts in this lesson

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

Lesson #43

Inquiry – Witness Inquiry function

Instead of going through Turn In to find information about a witness, use this function to find information about witnesses quickly. Find individual deponents or bring up a list of all deponents for a particular case, job, or range of job dates. Find witnesses tied to specific 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, or range of job dates. View and update witness details.

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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

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

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

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

Lesson #42

Inquiry – Resource Analysis function

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

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

You can search for a resource’s payable services:

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

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

Interactive snapshot of billed services

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 with your reporters or other resources. More >

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

Lesson #41

Inquiry – Resource Activity function

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

You can view a resource’s full pay history, or use filters to focus your search. For example, you can find the next pay amount or the total payable for any resource within seconds. View basic information about the invoices at a glance, such as invoice amount and pay amount, whether the resource was paid or not, if they were paid for original or copies, 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 the invoice number, date, amount, and balance, payment date, if the invoice was for an original transcript, pay amount and when paid, the related business unit, job number and date, case name, Sold To and Bill To clients, and date voided. The results include grand totals at the bottom for invoice amounts, invoice balance amounts, and resource pay.

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

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

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lesson #40

Inquiry – Client Analysis function

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

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

You can view billed service item amounts for firms that scheduled the jobs that included the billed services or by the firms responsible for paying the invoices for the services (since they are not always the same firm). You can view service billing for a firm’s parent company, not just the individual firm if they are part of a larger organization. And you can view billed service item amounts for all of the contacts at the firm, or a specific contact.

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

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

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

Interactive snapshot of billed services

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

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

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

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

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

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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

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

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

Parent Firm: Headquarters of a multi-branch corporation.

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

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

Lesson #39

Inquiry – Client Activity function

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

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

Finding invoices

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

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

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

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

Email multiple invoices as single PDF

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

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

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

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

Embedded in Aged A/R report

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

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

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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

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

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

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

Parent Firm: Headquarters of a multi-branch corporation.

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

Lesson #38

Inquiry – Invoice Inquiry function

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

Quickest way to find invoices

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

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

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

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

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

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

Customize how you view posted invoice lists

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

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

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

View, re-send & edit any invoice listed

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

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

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

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

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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