Tag Archives: Payables

Lesson #135

Setup – System Preferences function

Payables System Preferences

In addition to options for fixing printing problems on checks and 1099 forms, you can also set up direct deposit for payroll and other pay options.

1099 Form

In RB9, you have the ability to print each resource’s 1099 directly from the system. RB9 is designed to print in the correct fields on the 1099-NEC forms, but you can adjust the placement if needed to align the RB9 output with the 1099 form’s fields on your printer. Adjustments are in inches. You can increase (or decrease with a negative number) the top and left margins, using up to 2 decimal placements.

NOTE: Print 1099 Forms is an RB9-only function. It is not included in RB Lite.

Check

If you want to print checks directly from RB9, RB9 will create a PDF of the check information, according to your settings to print on your own standard or voucher (2-part check) business checks. You can use Quickbooks-compatible laser checks (standard or voucher). Adjust where RB9 information is printing on your checks by increasing (or decreasing with a negative number) the top and left margins, using up to 2 decimal placements.

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

NACHA (National Automated Clearing House Association)

Instead of printing checks or using a third-party payroll service, use RB9’s direct deposit feature to deposit pay into your resources’ accounts instead. After signing up for direct deposit with your bank, use information provided by your bank to set up your system preferences for direct deposit payables. Some of the information you must get from your bank includes a unique 9-digit number assigned by the bank and a company ID number. (You will need to enter your resources’ banking information in their profiles.) Then all you have to do is send a NACHA-formatted file (exported from RB9) to your bank, and your bank will transfer the funds for you.

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

Draft Pay Statement

Before closing, you can print out or email your resources a draft of their pay statements, so they can review which invoices they will be paid for and how much will be included in their next paycheck.

If you email draft pay statements, you can customize the email that accompanies them. Similarly to invoice emails set up in Billing preferences, you can change the default text in the Subject and Message fields and insert contextual data fields, so that real data from RB related to the resource and payroll merge into the email automatically. You can also customize the appearance of the body of the emails with text formatting, colors, images, hyperlinks, and tables.

The draft pay statement itself will attach to the email as a PDF. And you can override the defaults set here in any pay statement emails sent from RB.

Pay Statement

After you run payroll in RB and close it, you can print out or email your resources their pay statements, which is the report that shows them exactly which invoices they were paid for on a closed payroll. You have the same settings options for pay statements as for draft pay statements.

Payroll

You have 2 options for when you pay resources:

1. “Hard Wait” is the default and refers to waiting a set number of days before releasing an invoice for payroll, regardless of whether you received payment from clients. (The default number of days to wait for originals and copies are set in Entities preferences, and can be overridden in individual resources’ settings.)
2. “Soft Wait” is similar in having your resources wait to get paid after a certain number of days, but there is an exception. If you receive payment for an invoice within the wait period, then RB will release the invoice to the resource in the next payroll you run.

TL;DR: Customize pay statement emails. Specify when resources get paid in relation to invoices. Adjust printing layouts for 1099s and checks. Set up your direct deposit account for paying resources.

RB concepts in this lesson

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

Lesson #81

Payables – Reward Points Analysis function

If you reward your best customers with points based on the business generated by their calls to you, use this function to get a monthly, quarterly, and yearly breakdown of clients’ point activity.

This interactive report lists clients’ yearly, quarterly, and monthly points activity for a defined time span, including points earned, points redeemed, adjustments, and transfers.

Reward Points Analysis defaults to all activities in the current month to date, broken down by firm and contact. You can restrict the results to:

• One or more selected activities
• Different date range
• Single firm or contact at a firm and/or
• One or more redemption types (such as cash or gift cards).

The report defaults to displaying points activity by month and year. You can choose to have it break down activity by quarters too which can be helpful when viewing information over a longer date range.

The report displays a list of all contacts with points activity that fit your search criteria, grouped by firm, in year-to-date totals. Firms are listed in order of points earned in descending order. Contacts are listed similarly within each firm. Each contact’s point activities are subtotaled by type (earned, adjustment, transfer, redemption) in each year, month, and quarter (optionally), with grand totals of each type for the entire date range.

Like other interactive reports in RB9 you can quickly switch between detailed and summary views of the report. While the default view is to view points activity by contact, you can “collapse” the view to firm listings, which merges points activity in each activity type column for all contacts at a firm. You can also toggle individual firms between the collapsed/summary view and the breakdown-by-contact view.

Similarly the initial results in the report are displayed as yearly totals. You can “expand” the view to see the monthly (and quarterly, if desired) subtotals and toggle between summary and monthly (and quarterly) views for individual years/quarters.

The Reward Points Analysis report is uneditable. You can export it to save, use in other applications, or print out.

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

TL;DR: View clients’ point activity by contact or firm in specified date ranges in summary or detailed form.

RB concepts in this lesson

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with, such as attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, legal assistants, claim adjusters, and court clerks.

Firm: Business you provide services to, usually law firms, but can also be other court reporting firms, vendors, insurance companies, corporate clients, and courts.

Lesson #77

Payables – Reward Points History function

If you reward your best customers with points based on the business generated by their calls to you, use this function to see at a glance what points-related activities have been done by which contacts.

Reward Points History defaults to all activities (earned, transferred, redeemed, and adjustments) in all stages of completion that occurred today. It lists activities alphabetically by:

• Firm
• Contacts at the firm
• Date
• Type of activity
• Current activity status
• Points earned or used by the activity
• Number of the invoice that earned points
• Method of redemption
• Any related remarks

It includes a points grand total at the bottom of the grid.

You can change the date range, display history for a single firm or contact, view points related to one or more specific activities, and/or restrict the results to one or more activity statuses.

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).

Reward Points History is an overview only and uneditable. You can export the list of activities as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

NOTE: Contact point history is also available in each enrolled contact’s RB9 listing and in the Reward Points Summary.

Point history in contact listings is all of the contact’s activity in chronological order, most recent first.

Point history in Reward Points Summary is searchable (it is the Reward Points History function defaulting to today’s activities by the contact selected in Reward Points Summary).

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

TL;DR: Get an overview of clients’ reward points activity.

RB concepts in this lesson

Award Points: Used to encourage clients to book with your agency by rewarding them with points for different services. If you have RB Connect, you can allow contacts to request point redemptions online. (Also referred to as reward points.)

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with, such as attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, legal assistants, claim adjusters, and court clerks.

Firm: Business you provide services to, usually law firms, but can also be other court reporting firms, vendors, insurance companies, corporate clients, and courts.

Lesson #79

Payables – Reward Points Summary function

Reward your best customers with points like airlines and credit cards do, based on the business generated by their calls to you. Use this function to monitor and manage your reward points program.

Before setting up reward points in RB9, check what your local laws and regulations allow and what you must provide participants with, such as terms and conditions and any legal agreements you must obtain before you enroll a client in your reward program. Some states do not allow these programs for court reporting firms, and OMTI makes no guarantees or assurances about these programs.

Set up your points system first

Contacts don’t earn points until you turn on the reward points system in RB9 and set up points in contacts’ RB9 listings. When you turn on the points system, you also set:

• Whether points are earned on all invoices or original invoices only.
• Default for how many dollars billed on an invoice equal a point.
• How invoice amounts are rounded up or down for determining points.
• What the conversion rate is for points earned to redeemable dollar amounts.

You also designate which services are “pointable,” i.e. which ones earn points. For example, you probably would want to give clients points for originals and copies, but not for delivery expenses.

When designating who receives points for a contact’s bookings, you can choose the contact themselves and/or other contacts at the same firm. You can also override your default point conversion settings, if for example you have an important client you want to give double points to.

Snapshot of contact/firm reward point activity

Once you have your reward points system in place, use this function to manage your program. You can look up:

• A single contact
• All of the contacts at a single firm who have earned points
• All of a firm’s contacts, including those with zero points

The Reward Points Summary displays a snapshot of point activity, listing each contact’s:

• Firm
• City
• State
• Current points
• Pending points
• Total points earned
• Points spent

Total amounts in each points category are displayed at the bottom of the summary.

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).

From the summary, you can access any contact’s Reward Points History, where you can see at a glance what activities they have done and how their points history has been affected.

If your state does not allow reward programs, you can still use the points system to track your clients’ order history and see who your best customers are by which contact’s calls generate the most revenue instead of by firm only.

You can export the summary as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

Manage points

From the Reward Points Summary, you can adjust, transfer, and redeem points for any contact listed. And if a contact is no longer participating in your points program, you can move their points history to another contact.

Adjust points

If you want to correct an error in the amount of points earned by a contact or to give bonus points, such as for welcoming a new client or other marketing purpose, you can adjust their total points amount up or down.

Transfer points

You can transfer earned points from one contact to another contact in the same firm, for example if a lawyer wants to give some or all of their points to their secretary or everybody in a firm wants to pool their points.

Redeem points

When a contact earns enough points and wants to redeem them, you document that here by noting the type of redemption chosen, the number of points redeemed, and making any notes about the transaction.

Move points

In addition to transferring points from one person at a firm to another, you can also move a contact’s entire points history to another contact. The contact does not have to be at the same firm. A use for this feature would be if a contact moves to a different firm, you can transfer their points to the new listing you make for the contact in their new firm so they don’t lose their points. RB9 will make automatic notes log entries in both contact listings recording who points were moved to/from, when and by which staff member.

Let clients access points online

If you have RB Connect, your clients can view and manage their reward points online. They can:

• Check how many points they have available currently and in the future.
• Look up their previous point history.
• Redeem any amount of points up to their currently available points for rewards.
• Transfer points to other people in their firm.

If you have RB Connect Mobile, they can do the same things on their smartphones or other mobile devices.

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

TL;DR: Reward your best customers with points like airlines and credit cards do, based on the business generated by their calls to you. Monitor, adjust, transfer, and redeem points.

RB concepts in this lesson

Award Points: Used to encourage clients to book with your agency by rewarding them with points for different services. If you have RB Connect, you can allow contacts to request point redemptions online. (Also referred to as reward points.)

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with, such as attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, legal assistants, claim adjusters, and court clerks.

Firm: Business you provide services to, usually law firms, but can also be other court reporting firms, vendors, insurance companies, corporate clients, and courts.

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

RB Connect Mobile: Clients and resources can access your RB Connect on their smartphones and tablets in an interface optimized for mobile devices. More >

Lesson #78

Payables – Liability Balance Log function

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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

Lesson #76

Payables – Sales Tax function

If you provide taxable services to clients in states or other areas that charge a tax on receipts, enter the sales tax rate in the firms’ listings and flag which service items are taxable. RB9 automatically calculates sales tax on invoices. This report lists all invoices with sales tax charges generated for a specific period.

How sales tax works in RB9

You enter the appropriate total sales tax rate (state + locality) in every firm listing in RB9 that is located in an area/state that charges sales tax on receipts. Then you mark service items as taxable in RB9’s Service Items Master or in individual billing rate tables.

The sales taxable amount is calculated by adding all of the service items on the invoice that are marked as “sales taxable.” Then the sales tax is calculated by multiplying the sales taxable amount by the sales tax rate for the client.

Using this report

The default Sales Tax report lists all invoices that include a sales tax amount, generated today. It includes each invoice’s number, date, and amount; the amount of sales tax charged; the Bill To Firm; the job number and date; the case; and the related business unit.

You can generate reports for different dates or date ranges, and for specific business unit(s) in your company.

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). The report in RB9 is not editable, but you can export it as an Excel spreadsheet or CSV file to save, share, work with in other applications, and/or print.

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

TL;DR: View all invoices having sales tax charges generated for a specific period. Export the report as an Excel spreadsheet.

RB concepts in this lesson

Billing rate tables: Amounts that you charge for services are organized into tables, so you can charge different clients different amounts for the same service items by applying different billing rate tables. More >

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

Business Unit: 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.

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

Service Item Master: List of your firm’s services. More >

Lesson #75

Payables – Total Payable Report function

The Total Payable Report lists all invoices with payables still due to resources, grouped and subtotaled by resource, with a grand total that represents your current resources payable liability.

Each invoice on the report includes:

• Invoice number
• Invoice date
• Invoice amount
• Resource pay amount
• Job number
• Job date
• Case
• Sold To Firm
• Resource’s reference number (e.g., the number on the invoice an affiliate gave you for services rendered)

Each resource with outstanding payables gets their own page(s) in the report, and the last page of the report shows the grand totals for outstanding invoice amounts and your current resources payable liability.

The default report shows all resources’ outstanding payables. You can generate the report for a single resource and/or specific business units in your company.

If you want to give resources a list of their outstanding pay, you can have RB generate a resource version of the report without the invoice amount column.

Print or export the report in a variety of formats (including PDF, Excel, and CSV) to save, share, or edit in another application.

TL;DR: View all invoices still due to resources, grouped and subtotaled by resource. The grand total shown on the last page is your current resources payable liability. You can also generate a version to give resources a list of their outstanding pay.

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.

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 are outstanding by the reference numbers on their Total Payables Report.

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

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

Lesson #74

Payables – Additional Resource Production Report function

When you pay resources for miscellaneous services related to a job but not charged on the job’s posted invoices — for example parking at a deposition — you can track this additional pay using this function.

The default report lists all of today’s invoices that include additional pay. You can also generate reports for a different date or date range, a single resource, specific Resource Type(s), specific service item(s), and/or specific business unit(s).

The Additional Resource Production Report lists each invoice having additional pay, grouped and subtotaled by resource. Each resource has their own page(s) in the report, with a final page of grand total invoice and additional pay amounts. Invoices listed are broken down by invoice number and date, total invoice amount, the additional pay-related service item(s), how many units of each service item, pay amount, job number and date, case, and the Sold To firm.

The report’s footer will display which search criteria you used to generate the particular report with the exception of:

• Blank search fields
• ALL list selections
• If you generate a report for a single resource

If you select two or more items in a list, the report will display that as “(multiple values selected).”

You can search for a word or phrase in the onscreen report. RB9 will highlight all instances of your searched word/phrase in the report and list them in a scroll box along with the page number where they occur.

Print the report or export it to save, share, and/or edit in another application.

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

TL;DR: This report lists each invoice (including the unit count) having additional pay, grouped and subtotaled by resource.

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.

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, such as reporters.

Resource Type: Profession (such as Scopist, Proofreader, or Interpreter) and other categories of resources.

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

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

Lesson #73

Payables – Override Sales Commission function

RB9 automatically calculates commissions for sales reps and resources with their own clients/assigned cases (Client Of). You can override the calculated commissionable amount on a single posted invoice without changing your commission rates and/or change the person receiving the commission.

RB9 calculates commissions by multiplying the commissionable amount by the sales rep or Client Of resource’s commission rate. The commissionable amount is calculated and stored for each invoice by adding all of the service items that are marked as “commissionable.” You determined whether a particular service item is commissionable or not when setting up RB9. However, you can override the calculated commissionable amount on any invoice using this function.

Find, view, update

You can look up posted invoices to update by invoice number or job number, a date or date range for the invoice or related job, a case, the assigned sales rep or Client Of resource, and/or the specific business unit(s) in your company.

Search results include all of the search categories plus invoice amount, balance, and commissionable amount; Bill To and Sold To clients; 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). Export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

When you locate the invoice with a commissionable amount you want to override, you can view basic details about the invoice and related job, including a breakdown of the commissionable service items and the total commission for the Client Of resource and/or sales rep.

You can update the total amount for the Client of resource or the sales rep; or if the wrong resource appears in Client Of or Sales Rep, you can change or remove the resource. Export the results to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

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

TL;DR: RB9 automatically calculates commissions for sales reps and resources with their own clients. You can correct commissions on individual invoices without changing your commission rates.

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.

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, such as reporters.

Service items: Regular charges that you bill to your clients are called service items in RB. Service items are listed on your invoices to provide itemized details for your clients and third-party payers.

Lesson #72

Payables – Sales Commission Report function

In RB9, you can pay sales commissions to 2 groups of people:

• Sales representatives/account executives (Sales Rep resources)
• Resources who bring their own clients to your business and should receive commissions on the revenue generated from their clients’ jobs, or are assigned to receive commissions on jobs from specific cases (Client Of resources)

The Sales Commission Report report lists all invoices that include a commission, grouped and subtotaled by sales rep or Client Of resource. A commission is automatically generated from invoices on jobs initiated by a sales rep/Client Of resource’s client.

The default report list all invoices posted today that include sales rep commissions. It includes commissions on both originals and copies, and doesn’t deduct resource expenses from commission calculations.

Customize report views

You can also view reports:

• For different days or date ranges.
• By payment post date instead of invoice post date.
• For Client Of resources.
• For a single sales rep or Client Of resource.
• For originals only if you do not pay commissions on copy sales.
• For copy sales only.
• Excluding resource costs if you pay commissions based on RARE (Revenue After Resource Expenses) or NIBO (Net Income Before Overhead).
• For one or more of your company’s business units.

Depending on your search conditions, RB9 lists all of the relevant invoices as a report, grouped by sales rep/Client Of resource, with each having their own page(s) and a grand total page of all commissionable amounts and commissions. The report’s footer will display which Date Type and date range you used to generate the particular report.

The report breaks out ordering firm and contact, invoice number and date, whether a commission is for original or copy, job number and date, commissionable amount, commission, case name, and Sold To firm. In addition to the report subtotaling commissionable amount and commissions by resource, each resource’s total is further broken down into subtotals for ordering contacts and firms.

You can search for a word or phrase in the onscreen report. RB9 will highlight all instances of your searched word/phrase in the report and list them in a scroll box along with the page number where they occur.

Using the report

In addition to looking up details about sales commissions, you can use the report to help you adjust commissions in the Override Sales Commission function, and in other ways:

Voided invoices and invoices for which you have issued credit memos or debit memos are listed at the end of each person’s commissions as adjustments so you can void, decrease, or increase the commissions if desired. (You also have the option when voiding or issuing a credit/debit memo on an invoice to not alter the commission, then that invoice will not appear in the Adjustment list.)

Export the report to save it, give to resources, edit in another application, or print.

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

TL;DR: View all invoices that include a commission, grouped and subtotaled by Client Of resource or sales rep (account executive). Invoices that may require an adjustment to the commission, such as voids, are listed separately for each person.

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.

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.

Ordering Contact: Contact at the firm that is responsible for a job with your company.

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

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 Firm: Usually the Ordering Firm on a job.