Tag Archives: RB Lite

Lesson #116

Setup – Service Item Master function

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. In-house they provide information to help you analyze your revenue streams.

You store and organize all the service items you bill to clients in the Service Item Master. Then during Turn In you select services from lists instead of entering items by hand. If you have RB Connect your clients and resources also select services from lists, eliminating longhand requests from clients and an assortment of descriptions in turned-in jobs. Instead service item descriptions are consistent throughout your system.

Service Item Master set-up

There are 9 main categories in the Service Items Master List, called Service Groups, which represent the most commonly used billable items for court reporters. These main categories are preset by the system and cannot be modified by the user.

Within these main groups are subgroups that further organize your services so you do not have to scroll through your entire list of billable items to find a service to add to an invoice.  You can add/edit/remove subgroups that organize your miscellaneous services in the Service Item Subgroups function. After setting up your subgroups enter your company’s billable services with their details into these subgroups in the Service Item Master. You will use these items for setting billing rates.

Customize the defaults

The Service Item Master comes with a set of default service items already organized into subgroups. You can:

• Add/edit/merge/delete/de-activate service items in Misc. Charge subgroups.
• Edit the name of service items in the Attendance Service Group.
• Set default billing and pay information for all individual service items.
• If you have clients who require that invoices be submitted electronically, you can enter LEDES codes in your service items.

Once you have set up your service items with their defaults, you can set up multiple billing rate and pay rate tables with custom rates for service items to cover different invoicing and resource pay scenarios. The options that you set in each service item copy to the billing and pay rates tables you create, saving time because you only have to update the defaults that need changing.

At any time, you can update service item rates and options. The default view in the Service Item Master lists all active service items within their service groups and subgroups to make it easy to locate an item. You can restrict the view to a single service group, a single subgroup, or service item name. You can also view all items, not only active items, that fit your search criteria.

You can:

• Add new service items
• Delete service items that are not needed.
• Merge service items into other service items.
• If you do not want to delete or merge an item you can de-activate it. (Deactivated service items do not appear as a choice when billing.)
• If you have multiple billing or pay rate tables that need the same rate or option changed (including LEDES codes), you can update them all at once within Service Item Master with the Mass Update feature.

Information you can include in each service item:

• Service item Subgroup
• Service item name (the only required field). The name is important because it is how the service will appear in Turn-In, on invoices, and in RB Connect.
• Unit type, such as pages, miles, or hours. RB prints the unit type on detailed invoices next to the number of units so your clients have a better idea of what they are being billed for. You can set up your own unit types in Lists.
• Account number of the related revenue account. You can customize your accounts in Chart of Accounts.
• Whether the item is active (will appear as an option when billing) or not
• Default billing rate (amount you charge per unit for the service item) and minimum billing amount, if applicable
• Whether you pay resources a flat amount ($) or a percentage of what’s billed (%) for this service item
• Default pay rate (amount/percentage you pay per unit) and minimum pay amount, if applicable
• If the billing rate or pay rate increases when an order containing this service item is expedited
• If the service item is a taxable court cost or sales taxable
• If the service item is discountable (if you offer a negotiated discount on a firms’ invoices, what’s discountable is specified at the service item level, and the discount percentage the client will receive is entered in their Firms setup.)
• If you award clients points for ordering services, and the service item should be included in the revenue calculation to accumulate points
• If you have sales representatives or pay incentive commissions to resources who bring in their own clients, and the service item should be included in the calculation of commissions
• If you want to include the service item name and/or amount when an invoice is printed with “no details”
• If you want to make the service item available for clients to request when they are scheduling online, or for resources to select when they are turning in jobs online using RB Connect
• If you want to include the service item on production sheets
• If you want RB to calculate charges for this service item based on the number of pages in the transcript and pages to deduct like Original/Copy service items do
• UTBMS codes (if you want invoices to be LEDES compliant). If an insurance company requires different codes than the standard, you can update their billing rate tables only without modifying the service item master list.

The list of service items in the Service Item Master displays all of this information for each item listed, so you can see it upfront. You do not need to go into individual service items unless you want to edit/delete/merge/mass update rate tables. You can sort the list 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: Set up service items, including default billing and pay info. Group related service items so you can locate them quickly in their subgroups when billing, instead of scrolling through a long, undifferentiated list of all miscellaneous service items. If you have RB Connect, your clients and resources will be able to select service items the same way.

RB concepts in this lesson

Award Points: Used to encourage clients to book with your agency by rewarding them with points for different services.

Firm: Companies you do business with.

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

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

Lesson #115

Setup – Service Item Subgroups function

Any billable services that you include on invoices must be set up as Service Items in RB. You could have over a hundred service items to cover all the types of billable services you provide. To make it easier to add billable services to invoices, they are broken down into 9 basic service groups: Original, Copy w/ Original, Copy, Additional Copy, Rush, Exhibit, Mileage, Attendance, and Misc. Charge.

However since you can still have potentially a hundred or more miscellaneous charges to bill, RB breaks down service groups further into Service Item Subgroups. This way, you can locate individual service items quickly when billing based on their subgroup instead of searching through a long uncategorized list of service items.

RB includes some default subgroups and you can add/edit/delete subgroups in the Misc. Charge group to better fit your company. Since the idea with subgroups is to make billing easier by limiting the amount of time it takes to find an individual service item, take some time upfront to consider what would be logical groupings of your billable services and make Service Item Subgroups for each of those categories.

An example of a Service Item Subgroup would be Exhibits. You have multiple items for exhibit billing: Color Copies, B&W Exhibits, Bates Stamping, etc., that could all be categorized as Exhibits.

You can update your subgroups at any time but you cannot delete any subgroups containing service items that you have already used on invoices.

Create your own subgroups

The default view in Service Item Subgroups is to list all subgroups, but you can narrow the view to the Misc. Charge Service Group to make it easier to see if you need to add a subgroup or update one in this group by editing its name to better fit your needs. (You can view but you cannot add subgroups to or edit the other Service Groups.)

You can sort the list by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, RB will revert back to the default order). It might be helpful when setting up subgroups to export the list of existing subgroups to share with others, work with in other applications, or print out.

Creating new subgroups is easy. All you do is click New, give the subgroup a name, and save. Your new subgroup will automatically be added to the Misc. Charge Service Group for you to use in other functions. Some common subgroups are Production, Exhibits, Delivery, Video, and Video Conference.

After setting up a subgroup you can then enter its related service items using the Service Item Master.

Using subgroups

Service Item Subgroups come into play when adding a client’s requested services to either a job or case party, or when adding service items to an invoice during Turn In. You can also use them to narrow the results of reports such as the Additional Resource Production Report or Misc. Sales report and to see subtotal breakdowns in interactive reports such as Client Analysis.

TL;DR: To make finding a particular service item quicker set up Service Item Subgroups, then arrange your company’s billable services into these subgroups.

RB concepts in this lesson

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition but can also be any kind of service you provide with your reporters or other resources, such as realtime, videoconferencing, or read & sign. More >

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.

Service Groups: The most commonly used billable items for court reporters such as Original or Copy. These main categories are preset by the system and cannot be modified by the user. The catch-all Misc. Charge Service Group is where you enter billable service items that are not a separate Service Group.

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

Lesson #114

Setup – Chart of Accounts function

Although RB is not a general accounting system, it uses account numbers to keep track of sales, cash receipts, accounts receivable, payables, and other transactions in a basic double-entry bookkeeping system. You can set up RB’s accounts to match your general ledger or accounting software.

For example, if you use QuickBooks, you can use QuickBooks Integrator to import your RB data directly into your QuickBooks. But before you can import RB invoices and payments into QuickBooks, you must set up your RB business units’ accounts to match your QuickBooks setup.

If RB’s default set of accounts is not accurate to your in-house setup, you can add, edit, and delete accounts to match RB9 to your general ledger or accounting software.

Set up account types first

The first step in matching RB to your in-house setup would be to customize your account types in the Lists function. Basic accounting rules group all finance-related things into 5 fundamental types of accounts: Assets, Liabilities, Equity, Income, and Expenses. RB includes these and other account types, which you can edit/delete and add your own. Entries here appear in the Account Type drop-down in individual accounts in the Chart of Accounts function.

Set up your Chart of Accounts

Each account in Chart of Accounts is tied to an Account Type, and includes an account name and reference number (account number). RB uses these accounts for different financial activities in your company’s business units.

The default view in Chart of Accounts shows all accounts in the system in numerical order by account number. It also includes the account names, their account types, and whether the account is active or not. You can restrict the view to a single account type or multiple account types.

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 your Chart of Accounts as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

You can keep the default accounts set up by RB or customize the default Chart of Accounts by adding, editing, and deleting accounts. If an account is not used but you don’t want to delete it, you can make it inactive so it will not appear as a choice in account lists elsewhere in RB.

If you are going to process credit card fees in RB, you must set up two accounts in Chart of Accounts so RB will separate out those fees:

1. An Expense-type account for the fees
2. An Other Current Assets-type account for undeposited processing fee funds

Then you can assign those accounts to handle those fees in your business units.

Designate accounts to use

After you have set up your accounts, you designate which ones to use for different financial activities. Where you use accounts in RB:

• When setting up business units, you can leave the default accounts set up by RB or select which accounts handle which types of transactions for each of your company’s business units.
• When setting up billable services (called service items in RB), you select an account to associate with each service item.

TL;DR: Use RB’s default accounts as is, or customize the Chart of Accounts to match your in-house system or QuickBooks.

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.

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

Lesson #113

Setup – Users and Groups function

You can run RB as a single user, but if you have other in-house personnel who need access to your RB, set them up as users. Then give them user names and passwords to access RB, and store work-related and personal information about them. Group them according to their access levels and job functions so they can perform their jobs and receive internal messages, but not access areas of RB you do not want them to use. 

Groups give users defined access

Users and Groups is the tool you use to manage RB users, individually and grouped according to permissions, rights, and notifications. There are 2 default groups in RB:

1. Administrators, which grants group members full access to all areas of RB
2. Users, which is the basic group every RB user is part of and grants them limited access to only essential areas of RB.

The initial user of your RB system is designated as an administrator so they can enter other users and grant them permissions. They can add other users to the Administrators group, and anyone who is an administrator in RB can perform the same functions. There is no limit to how many administrators your system can have.

Security Groups

Administrators can set up Security Groups in addition to the default groups, which can have different access to RB functions. For example, you could set up a Calendar group, in which you give access to all Calendar functions in RB and maybe some select functions in other modules, such as the repository and entities.

When setting up a new group the only required information is the Group Name. Other information you can add to a group is a group description, group members (RB users), and security permissions/function access.

There are 2 levels to security permissions:

1. Simple access — Users in the group can search and view information, i.e., a read only level.
2. Comprehensive access — Users can also edit and delete information.

Most functions offer comprehensive access only, but in some functions you can limit access to read only. Functions that offer both access levels are generally more critical areas — such as cases, jobs, and invoices — which you might want to allow some users to view but not change.

In addition to setting up Security Groups, administrators can:

• Add or delete users from each group (one user, several, or all users at once).
• Change which functions are accessible in a group (except the Administrators group).
• Delete groups (except the Administrators and Users groups).

Users can be members of more than one group so you do not have to have a lot of groups to cover every option. If someone’s responsibilities overlap different areas — such as someone who oversees both calendaring and billing — administrators can give that person access to both areas through membership in multiple Security Groups.

While members of the Administrators group have all of the capabilities described by default, they can also grant members of other Security Groups the same capabilities if desired.

Message Groups

In addition to Security Groups RB also has Message Groups, which allow you to send a message to all the members of a group simultaneously. Members of a Message Group can also send messages to the group. There are no required Message Groups nor are users required to be a member of any Message Group to use RB.

Similarly to Security Groups the only requirement when setting up a Message Group is a group name. Administrators can also add a group name, and add or delete members. Administrators can edit or delete existing Message Groups.

With either group you can sort the list by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function RB will revert back to the default order).

Adding users

When you open the Users and Groups function it lists all of the users who are already entered into your RB system — along with their user name, email address, whether they are an active user, and when they last logged into the system. You can sort the list 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 also export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

Administrators can add users to RB at any time. When entering a new user the only required information is their full name, RB login name, and password. When saving a new user RB will prompt you to tie them to your company’s business units (BUs). You can tie them to one or more of your company’s BUs.

If you are using email addresses as user login names you will be required to enter the user’s email address instead of a login name. We recommend this option because everyone knows their email address so it is easier for them to remember than a unique user name for their RB user ID. The option to use email addresses for RB login is a general system preference.

General information

In addition to required information you can store users’ contact information— such as their work email address, and other work related information, including their work phone number, start date/termination date, title and department (which you choose from lists you customized in the Lists function), the user’s supervisor, and any information you want to include that is not covered elsewhere in the user’s listing.

In addition to storing info about the user this is also where administrators can:

• Reset the user’s password for them if they forgot their password and don’t want to change it themselves (administrators do not have a way to retrieve passwords).
• Let the user back into RB if they got locked out for making too many incorrect attempts to log in (using the wrong user name and/or password). Administrators set how many tries users get to log in correctly before being locked out in System Preferences.
• Deactivate the user if they no longer work for the company or otherwise don’t need to be assigned or contacted anymore. Deactivated users can no longer log into RB and their names will not appear in the system by default.
• Delete a user if they never did anything in the system. RB tracks and logs user interactions so if someone has added or updated information in RB, they cannot be deleted from the system because their interactions are part of your audit trail.

Personal info

Personal information about a user includes their home address, date of birth, and personal phone numbers. When entering the user’s street address or P.O. box number, skip the other fields and enter the zip code. RB will fill in the city, state, and country for you. After entering the user’s address you can view maps and directions to it in RB.

After saving a new user, 2 other panes appear in their listing: Groups and Business Units. Groups will have the default Users group listed and Business Units will list any BUs you tied to the user. You can add or delete groups and business units you want to associate with the user here.

Who gets RB access?

Clients or resources who need access to their information in your system are not the same as RB users who are your staff, managers, or other company personnel who need access on a more global level. If you want to give your clients and resources access to their calendars, financial info, files, and other relevant info, add RB Connect to your RB system, where they can have their own online RB offices automatically populated with their information exclusively. Add RB Connect Mobile to give them similar access on their iPhones and other mobile devices.

TL;DR: Store work and personal information about company personnel. Give them access to specific functions in RB through Security Groups, and communicate internally with multiple users at once through Message Groups.

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

RB Connect: Online repository, calendar, and access to your office for clients and resources — including interactive transcripts, downloadable invoices and e-commerce for clients, and online turn-in, one-touch job acknowledgements, and downloadable pay statements for 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 #112

Setup – Lists function

Lists in RB allow users to choose an entry from a set of available values — saving time and reducing errors that result from keying in entries. RB includes initial values and defaults for lists used throughout the system, and you can run your business using these defaults. You can also edit, hide, merge, or delete most of these entries. You cannot create new lists, but you can add your own entries to most RB lists.

Managing lists

When setting up your RB system, take some time to customize its default lists to better match your company. You can revise a list at any time you have new options to add or unused options you’d like to remove/hide.

You can set each list’s default entry which will appear in any field tied to that list. Default entries cannot be deleted. If you want to delete a default-designated entry, you must set a different entry in the list as the default. Then you can delete the other entry if it is not required by RB.

If you no longer need a particular entry — but want to keep its historical data — you can merge it into an existing entry of the same data type.

If you don’t want to delete an entry or merge it into another entry— but you also don’t want it to appear as a list option in RB — you can de-activate it. It will still exist in the database but it will be hidden.

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

Lists can be customized for:

• Accounting: Although RB is not an accounting system, it does track many financial aspects of your business. Its data can be used with QuickBooks, and it replaces separate billing software.
  Set up categories for types of accounts, financial transactions, payments, payment terms, and units of service items (e.g., pages, miles, or hours).
  Also set up billing and pay rate groups: parent structures for related billing or pay rates. (You could have 100s of billing and pay rates, which can quickly become overwhelming without some sort of organizing capability.) You will assign each billing rate table, firm, contact, and party to a case to a billing rate group — and assign each pay rate table and resource to a pay rate group.
• Cases: RB is a case-based system. Case attributes will be automatically applied to jobs tied to a case.
  Set up categories for types of cases, sides represented in a suit, notes, and case statuses — such as in progress or settled.
• Connect: RB Connect is the RB9 plug-in that gives your clients and resources direct access to your office via the internet.
  Set up designations for RB Connect support ticket ratings, support ticket status (e.g., Awaiting Response or Closed), and resource time-off request status (e.g., Pending or Approved).
• Contacts: Contacts are people who work at firms that schedule jobs with you.
  Set up categories for types of contacts, notes, work turnaround preferences, credit ratings, and tags to organize contacts. Also set up gender classifications, work titles, and salutations.
• Firms: Firms are companies you do business with: They schedule depositions with you, e.g., a law firm, or they are a third party that pays you, e.g., an insurance company.
  Set up categories for types of firms, notes, credit ratings, collection actions, and tags to organize firms. Also set up designations for account status, class (the quality or ranking of a firm), and client sources (how clients heard of you).
• Invoice: Set up categories (Groups) for invoice headers and messages so you can find what you want when invoicing without having to scroll through all of your invoice headers or messages. Also set up categories for invoice types and notes types to use as search filters.
• Jobs: Set up categories for types of expert witnesses, client referrals, jobs, notes, job status, tasks, and task status.
• Locations: Set up categories for types of locations, notes, and tags to organize job locations.
  Not all job locations should be entered in the location database so they would not need categories here. Examples would be law firms or other businesses in your Firms database, resources — such as other court reporting firms, your own conference rooms or business units, one-off locations you won’t use again, and virtual locations — such as Zoom meetings.
• Other: Set up categories for types of events to acknowledge — such as client birthdays and anniversaries, how notes in Notes Logs were received (e.g., System, Email, or call), and award point redemption like gift cards or cash.
• Production: Set up designations for how products are delivered to clients, e.g. USPS, courier, or FedEx.
• Repository: Set up designations for types of files that you will store in the central repository.
• Resources: Resources are people or things that provide your business with services — such as reporters, other court reporting agencies you work with, and your conference rooms.
  Set up categories for types of resources, notes, and tags to organize resources. Also set up categories of time periods you pay resources, certifications, specialties, priority levels (e.g., staff or overflow), salutations, and reasons for resources’ time-off periods (e.g., vacation or personal time).
• Tracking: Tracking is a stand-alone function in RB9 used to monitor where production items are in your production cycle and physical space.
  Set up categories for archival status, types of service items (such as DVD, Editing, Exhibit, Scanning, Synching, and Transcript), and priority of tracked items. Also set up media classifications (e.g., Confidential or Under Protective Order) and media formats.
• Users: Users are people on your staff who directly access RB — as opposed to contacts and resources who access your office through RB Connect.
  Set up categories for departments in your company and position titles.
• Witnesses: Set up categories for notes types to use as search filters.

TL;DR: Many lists in RB can be customized by adding/editing options to better fit your company.

RB concepts in this lesson

Award Points: Used to encourage clients to book with your agency by rewarding them with points for different services.

Billing Rate Groups: Umbrella structures aimed at categorizing your billing rates. Instead of one long list of billing rates, Billing Rate Groups create a series of shorter lists to search through when invoicing clients.

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

Firm: Companies you do business with.

Header Group: Parent structure that contains related invoice headers as its children.

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

Location: Place where jobs occur — such as court rooms, hospitals, schools, doctors’ offices, or private residences.

Message Group: Parent structure that contains related invoice messages as its children.

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, such as a case, job, invoice, or entity. More >

Pay Groups: Categories of time periods your company uses to pay resources, e.g., Monthly, Weekly, On Demand. Group resources according to their pay period (frequency) to reduce errors when running payroll.

Pay Rate Groups:  Umbrella structures aimed at categorizing the rates you pay resources, such as by experience levels, percentage paid on services, or affiliates. Instead of one long list of pay rates, Pay Rate Groups create a series of shorter lists to search through when invoicing clients.

RB Connect: Online repository, calendar, and access to your office for clients and resources, including interactive transcripts, downloadable invoices and e-commerce for clients, and online turn-in, one-touch job acknowledgements, and downloadable pay statements for resources. More >

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.

Tracking: System for keeping track of where production items are in your production cycle and physically in your office.

Users: You and your staff who directly access RB.

Lesson #110

Customize your RB setup

You can run your business using the setup defaults that RB includes. Or use this module to edit them, delete any you don’t need, and add your own options to tailor RB to your work processes. You can update any Setup function at any time. In this module, you can:

• Customize lists by adding, editing, merging, and deleting list entries. Set the default entry that appears in any field tied to a list.
• Set up users, store work-related and personal information about them, and give them user names and passwords to access RB. Group them according to their access levels and job functions, so they can perform their jobs and receive internal messages. 
• Customize the default Chart of Accounts to match your general ledger or accounting software.
• Set up service items and group related service items so you can locate them quickly in their subgroups when billing, instead of scrolling through a long, undifferentiated list of all miscellaneous service items.
• Enter billing, pay, and rush rates for services, including e-billing information.
• Set up billing rate groups for different categories of clients so you don’t have to scroll through all of your billing rate tables each time you invoice a client. Set up pay rate groups for resources too.
• Group service items into billing sets to speed up billable services selection because you only have to choose the set, not each of the items individually.
• Set the year’s pay dates and their corresponding cutoff dates for each pay period. 
• Create your own invoice headers and messages for different circumstances.
• Set up tracking items to match your production workflow, then define the steps each item goes through in your process.
• Define preferences for how your RB-PDF transcripts will appear and what options they will include. Create multiple transcript preference profiles to cover different transcript requirements.
• Create stamps like “Original” or ”Certified Copy” to apply to transcripts.
• If exhibit file names and exhibit references in transcripts follow a pattern, for example they are numbered consecutively, save production time by setting up those patterns before producing hyperlinked transcripts.
• Set up exhibit stamp templates that will automatically include RB job information and number PDF exhibits sequentially.
• Set global preferences for difference features in RB.
• View your RB subscription billing history and individual invoices, increase or decrease your user licenses, pay overdue invoices, and manage your credit cards used to pay for RB.

Setup functions by name

• Lists
• Users and Groups
• Chart of Accounts
• Service Item Subgroups
• Service Item Master
• Rush Type Master
• Billing Rates
• Pay Rates
• Billing Sets
• Pay Dates
• Invoice Headers
• Invoice Messages
• Tracking Steps – RB9-only function
• PDF Transcript Preferences – RB9-only function
• PDF Transcript Stamps – RB9-only function
• Link Exhibits Patterns – RB9-only function
• Exhibit Stamps – RB9-only function
• System Preferences

TL;DR: Customize RB to match your business better.

RB concepts in this lesson

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

RB-PDF Transcript: PDF version of a transcript with built-in transcript-specific features like hyperlinked exhibits, word lists/indexes, errata sheets, and enhanced headers/footers containing case and depo information.

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

Lesson #110

Entities – Business Units function

A Business Unit (BU) can be any entity within your company whose revenue you want to track separately. This could be a branch office, affiliate, another company you own, or an internal division that you want to monitor independently from other segments of your company.

Depending on the size of your company, you could have just one business unit or multiple BUs. The ability to create multiple BUs allows you to track jobs and revenue down to individual offices/divisions/etc.

Many functions and reports in RB can be filtered to show results for one business unit, several BUs, or all BUs. Some reports group data by business unit, such as the Daily Register and Monthly Journals which give each business unit its own page(s) breaking down sales and receipts, plus grand total pages that combine information from all of your business units.

Information you can view/edit in individual BU listings in RB includes their address and contact information; financial info like tax ID; scheduling, production and billing preferences; which accounts to use for different types of financial transactions; your company logo to include on your invoices, statements, and transcripts; and miscellaneous information and notes.

Adding BUs to your database

Because RB comes with a built-in set of default values, forms, and templates, you only need to set up one thing to start using RB: a business unit. RB requires you to set up at least one BU so you can process receivables.

After designating a single business unit, you can start using RB, plus you can create additional BUs and customize RB to your company. You can update your set-up at any time — adding/editing/deleting BUs and RB defaults — to better meet your needs.

You can enter business units from scratch, or save time and reduce entry errors by copying an existing BU and editing it to create a new BU. All of the BU’s details are copied into the new BU, except company logos.

Search for business units

You can search for business units by city, or you can view all of your business units in the business units main grid. 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).

From the Business Units results grid, you can view and update any listed BU’s details, add new BUs, and export the grid as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

Basic BU information

The only information you are required to enter about a business unit is its name and ID. The name will appear in your report headers, invoices and statements, so it might be simply your company name. Different BUs can have the same name.

The ID, however, must be a unique maximum 10-character designation. Keep IDs brief, yet meaningful. For example, you could combine abbreviations for the location and the service provided (LA-DEP for Los Angeles – Deposition; LA-VID for Los Angeles – Video).

In addition to the business unit name and ID, enter the BU’s location and contact information under General information. Like the BU name, this information will appear in your report headers, invoices and statements, so enter this info as you want it to look on these documents.

Other General information tips

While you can have hundreds of business units in RB, we recommend setting up as few as possible so that when designating a business unit, you don’t have to scroll through a long list of BUs to find one.

If you are entering the BU’s street address or P.O. box number, skip the other fields and enter the zip code. RB will fill in the city, state, and country for you.

If you have entered the BU’s address, you can view maps and directions to the address in RB. You can also add your own directions to the BU’s listing. Any instructions entered here will appear in the Directions field of a job if the job will be at the business unit’s office. (BU is one of the options when setting job locations, so you can select one of your offices as the job location.)

Additional information

In the Additional pane, enter miscellaneous information about the business unit, including your company’s tax ID associated with the BU, and which BU payments for invoices and statements associated with this BU should be sent to. For example, if you have a P.O. box that you want payments sent to, set it up as a separate BU and select it for remittances.

This is also where you enter your company’s web address, and any information about the business unit that is not covered in other BU fields.

Preferences

Preferences set in business units will be used automatically in other RB functions. In the Preferences section, you enter the business unit’s production and billing preferences.

If you add late charges to invoices, this is where you enter the number of days before you assess a late charge. After the defined number of days passes, the late charge specified in the firm being billed will be automatically added to the invoice amount.

If your reporters must wait to get paid until you are paid, and you require checks to be entered into RB by a certain date before you release related payments to resources, you can set a preference in your business units to apply cutoff dates to when payments are received instead of when invoices are issued.

If you deduct a specific number of pages from transcript pages when calculating resources’ pay (for example, you don’t pay resources for cover pages), you can enter that preference here. This default can be overridden for a specific job at the time of billing.

You can also choose to show or hide per unit rates when printing detailed invoices that you send to clients.

Accounts

Default financial accounts are included in RB, but you can set up your company’s own accounts and/or designate which accounts RB should use for different types of financial transactions involving the business unit. For example, if you use QuickBooks for accounting, set up your BUs’ accounts to match your QuickBooks. Then you can import your RB data directly into your QuickBooks using RB9’s QuickBooks Integrator, eliminating the need to re-key financial data.

If you accept credit cards, you set up credit card payment processing fee accounts in your business units, then when processing fees are applied to invoices in Receive Payments, they are included in the corresponding accounts.

Invoice/Statement Logo

Upload your properly-formatted company logo into each business unit to automatically include your logo on financial correspondence from RB.

PDF Transcript Logo

Upload a small version of your properly-formatted company logo into each business unit if you want to automatically include your logo in headers and/or footers of RB-PDF Transcripts.

After initial setup, add more information

When you save a new BU, RB asks if you want to restrict access to this BU. Usually you will not want to restrict access: you will want the BU to appear as a selection when setting new jobs and performing other functions in RB. However, there are times when you do not want people selecting a specific BU.

For example if you want a BU that is only used for new jobs coming from client requests through RB Connect, set up a restricted BU for web orders and select it as the preferred BU for New Jobs in Contact – Calendar preferences. It will then be used when job requests come from RB Connect but it will not appear as a selection when your staff is setting new jobs.

Task Due Days

Once you save a business unit in RB a new pane, Task Due Days, appears.

Set a general time frame for each type of task (for regular deliveries) by business unit; then when a task is added to a job its due date will be automatically calculated based on this setting, excluding weekends and any designated holidays. (You can select which holidays your company observes in System Preferences.) This value will be overridden for jobs for firms that have their own deadlines for preferred services. And you can override it manually in individual jobs.

In addition to entering information in the new fields in the Task Due Days pane, you can:

• Export the Task Due Days pane listing as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV(comma-separated values) file to save, share, print, or use in other applications.
• Enter more information in other panes.
• Update existing information.
• Delete the BU if there are no jobs associated with the BU.
• Merge the BU into another BU. Merged BUs do not retain any information from the merged BU’s listing, but any jobs associated with the merged BU are carried over. And RB logs the date, which BU was merged, and the user responsible in the Remarks field of the merged-into BU.

BUs in RB

When entering a new job, assigning a business unit is required, because whichever BU you select here will follow the job through its entire process. Any revenue generated or any reports you run based on business units will have anything pertaining to this job tied to the BU you select here. You select a business unit in User Preferences to be your default for new jobs, but you can override the default when setting a new job.

You also select a default business unit to be displayed on report headers. Each report you print out in RB displays BU information from the default you select. You can select a different BU from your default BU.

Business units are used in many RB functions. Additional examples:

• When generating FedEx or UPS labels in Shipping, it defaults to your preferred business unit’s address and phone number, which can be changed for individual shipments.
• On RB-PDF Transcripts, the default merge data field for Author is the name of the business unit that handled the job.
• When setting up RB users, you can designate which unrestricted BUs they are associated with. You can add or remove individual users’ access to different BUs at any time.

Give others access to BUs

If you have RB Connect, you must give your contacts and resources access to your business units. Without access to a business unit, your contacts and resources can’t see jobs related to that BU in their RB Connect Calendar. RB9 doesn’t automatically grant RB Connect access because it doesn’t know which BUs should be visible to RB Connect users and which shouldn’t, so you have to denote that yourself in the general Connect preferences (don’t forget to do this when adding new BUs). You can have different BUs available to contacts and resources.

Business unit access in RB Connect is different from access in RB. Your contacts and resources don’t have the option to select business units; access here just means that they can see their jobs that are assigned to specific business units by your staff.

Since all jobs must have an associated business unit for billing and reporting purposes, we recommend setting up a restricted BU for RB Connect job requests as mentioned above and set it as the default BU for contacts in the general Connect preferences. That way you funnel all new online requests into one place, instead of having them mixed in with jobs set up in-house that default to your main BU. Then when you formally schedule a job from an online request, you can select the appropriate BU to assign to the job.

TL;DR: Set up business units to cover discrete areas of your business that you want to track performance and other metrics independently. You only need to set up one business unit to start using RB.

RB concepts in this lesson

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with, such as attorneys, paralegals, and secretaries.

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

RB-PDF Transcript: PDF version of a transcript with built-in transcript-specific features like hyperlinked exhibits, word lists/indexes, errata sheets, and enhanced headers/footers containing case and depo information.

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

Lesson #109

Entities – Locations function

Locations are places where depositions and other jobs occur. Enter locations into RB instead of re-keying location information each time. Automatically include driving directions in reporter worksheets, and store location-relevant files, like Patient Authorization Forms for doctor’s offices and hospitals, in their own repository.

When is a location not a ‘Location’

When entering locations into RB you don’t necessary enter all job locations into the Location database. There are some important exceptions:

• Law firms and courts should be entered in RB as firms, so you can maintain accurate profiles of them and use them in RB correctly.
• Your own conference rooms should be entered as resources, so that you can schedule them like you do reporters and other resources.
• One-off job locations that you know you won’t need again can be entered directly into jobs without setting them up as locations first.

When scheduling jobs, RB allows you to select job locations from a variety of sources, including your firms and resources tables, so you should only enter locations in the Locations function that do not fit the other categories. Use this function for other recurring locations, such as hospitals, private residences, doctors’ offices, or schools.

If there is something you want to remember about a location, whether it’s contact info, location directions, warnings, or anything else; store it in their RB listing.

Add locations to your database

You can enter locations from scratch in this function, or add them on the fly within a case or job.

Before entering a location into RB, check to see if they are already there to avoid duplicate entries. RB does not prevent you from adding multiple instances of the same location. If there are duplicate entries, you can merge them, however, not all data will carry over from the location that is being merged. The only information that will be saved from the merged entry is from the Tags, Repository, and Notes Log panes.

Search for locations

To find locations in your RB database, you can use the search criteria, singly or in combination:

• Location Name or a/k/a (also known as)
• City
• State (one, several, or all)
• Zip code
• Location Type (one, several, or all)
• Tag
• Active locations only or all

Each listing displayed in the Locations results shows all of this info except any tags; and includes the location’s street address and any warnings about the location. 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).

From the Locations results grid, you can view and update any listed location’s details, add new locations, and export the grid as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

Basic location information

Whether you are viewing an existing location listing or adding a new location, the detail window is broken up into a series of panes that contain related fields. The first pane, General, contains the location’s contact information, directions to the location, other basic information, and any warnings. When entering a new location, the only required information is the location name.

Other General information tips

If you commonly refer to the location by another name, include that alias in the a/k/a (also known as) field. When looking up the location, you can search by the alias instead of the location name. In search results, the alias will appear in parentheses after the location name.

If you are entering the location’s street address or P.O. box number, skip the other address fields and enter the zip code. RB will fill in the city, state, and country for you.

If you have entered the location address, you can view maps and directions to the address in RB. You can also add your own directions to the location’s listing. Any instructions entered here will appear in the Directions field of a job when the job will be at this location.

If you have information about a location that users should know when scheduling jobs, enter those notes in the Warning field. This information appears in red under Location Warning in jobs.

If you are no longer scheduling jobs at a location and you do not need to contact them anymore, you can deactivate their listing instead of deleting it so you retain all of your historical data about the location but they will no longer appear in searches for active locations anymore.

After initial setup, add more information

Once you save a location in RB, additional panes, fields, and functions become available. You can:

• Enter more information.
• Update existing information.
• Merge locations if you find duplicates.

You don’t have to go into the Locations function to update a location listing. Most RB functions that include a location field allow you to directly access that location’s listing, which you can view and edit.

Also, if you have multiple locations that you need to update the location type for, you can use Bulk Update to change them all at once.

Additional panes in saved location listings include:

Tags

If you use tags (keywords or phrases) to monitor and send mass mailings to locations, you add tags to location listings, either by keying in tags or selecting them from the tag list you made in Lists. Each location can have an unlimited number of tags, and you can delete tags from a location when they no longer apply. (You can also use the Tag Manager to add or remove tags quickly from multiple locations at once.)

Repository

Keep files related to the location in your RB database. When viewing an individual location, you can see the description of any uploaded files in the repository panel without having to click into each file’s details. You can upload, download, or delete files here, and update file information, such as file type and description.

Notes Log

The system enters some notes about locations automatically in their individual Notes Logs, and you can also enter notes yourself about a location in their Notes Log for internal purposes. When you add a note to the Notes Log, you can include what type of note it is, how you communicated with the location, details about what occurred, and if needed, designate who should follow up and set a date and time for a reminder to be sent to them via RB’s message system.

Export location data for other uses

In these additional panes, you can export the information as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV(comma-separated values) file to save, share, print, or use in other applications.

TL;DR: Maintain a database of job locations in RB, including contact, and marketing information, files related to the location, notes about the location, and more.

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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, videographers, interpreters, scopists, account executives, other agencies that cover jobs for you, or a conference room.

Lesson #108

Entities – Resources function

Resources provide your business with a service or support. For example reporters, videographers, interpreters, transcriptionists, scopists, and account executives (sales reps) are resources. Basically any independent contractors you hire are resources in RB.

Resources do not have to be individuals. They can also be other reporting agencies that cover jobs for your firm or your conference rooms. You add your conference rooms to RB as resources so that you can schedule them like you do reporters and other resources.

Maintain a deep database of all of these assets in RB in the Resource function. If there is something you want to remember about a resource — whether it’s contact info, financial history, professional details, availability, or anything else — chances are there is a slot for it in their RB profile.

Add resources to your database

You can enter resources from scratch in this function, import them from other applications, or add them on the fly during turn-in. If you have an existing database of resources in another application you can import the data into RB from an Excel spreadsheet in the Bulk Import function.

Before entering a resource into RB check to see if they are already there to avoid duplicate entries. RB does not prevent you from adding multiple instances of the same resource. If there are duplicate entries, you can merge them — however not all data will carry over from the resource that is being merged. The only information that will be saved from the merged entry is from the Notification Email, Tags, Specialties, Certifications, Repository, and Notes Log panes, plus their assignment availability.

Search for resources

To find resources in your RB database you can use the search criteria singly or in combination:

• Full Name, First Name, Last Name, or a/k/a (their preferred nickname or business name if they are independent contractors)
• City
• State (single, several, or all)
• Zip code
• Resource Type (single, several, or all)
• Specialty (single, several, or all)
• Priority Level (single, several, or all)
• Pay Rate Group (single, several, or all)
• Tag
• Active resources only or all resources
• Email address
• Resource number
• Mobile phone number

Each listing displayed in the results shows all of this info — except any specialties or tags — and includes the resource’s street address, zip code, main phone number, and any warnings about the resource.

Customize how you view resource listings

The grid in which you view resource listings 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.

From the Resource results grid you can view and update any listed resource’s details, add new resources, and export the grid as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV(comma-separated values) file to save, share, print, or use in other applications.

Basic resource information

Whether you are viewing an existing resource listing or adding a new resource, the detail window is broken up into a series of panes that contain related fields. The first pane, General, contains contact information, other basic information, and any warnings.

With 25 fields and options in the General information pane alone, it might seem overwhelming to enter resources into RB. However when entering a new resource, the only required information is their full name. We recommend when entering individuals’ names that instead of entering the name in the Full Name field, you enter names in the separate first and last name fields, then select which order you want the names (first name first, or last name, then first) to appear in the Full Name field. This way you can use the First Name/Last Name filters when searching for resources in the main Resources window.

You can save time entering resources’ full names by setting up Autofill in System Preferences. You select which name parts are included (first name, last name, salutation, middle initial) and in what order. RB will automatically fill out the Full Name field for you as you enter the individual name fields.

You can also enter resources’ nicknames or business names if they are independent contractors in the a/k/a field. This information will appear in parenthesis after the resources’ full names in fields and lists, and is searchable.

We recommend entering resources’ email addresses so you can email resources directly from within RB. And we recommend designating the Resource Type so when assigning tasks, you assign reporters to reporting tasks, interpreters to interpreting tasks, etc.

Other General information tips

After entering the resource’s street address or P.O. box number, skip the other fields and enter the zip code. RB will fill in the city, state, and country for you.

If a resource has a different business address from their home address you can include both addresses in their listing.

If you have entered resource addresses you can view maps and directions to those addresses in RB. You can also add your own directions to the resource’s listing. Any instructions entered here will appear in the Directions field of a job if the job will be at the resource’s location.

If you have information about a resource that users should know when scheduling jobs enter those notes in the Warning field. They will appear when assigning resources to assist the user in assigning the correct resource.

If a resource is no longer active you can deactivate their listing instead of deleting it so you retain all of your historical data about the resource but they will no longer appear as available for assignments anymore.

Additional information

In the Additional pane you can enter dates related to the resource — such as date of birth (only month and day are required) and date of employment — and credentials for RB Connect, ReporterBase Digital Signature Proxy (RB-DSP), and Certified Shorthand Reporters.

Your resources’ RB Connect login names and passwords are stored here. Resources can reset their password any time in RB Connect and you can also reset their login name and password here. This is also where you can unlock their account if they tried to log in too many times with the incorrect credentials and RB Connect locked them out.

If you use RB-DSP to apply reporters’ digital signatures to RB-PDF Transcripts this is where you store their reporterbase.com credentials so you can use their digital signatures.

If you store resources’ Certified Shorthand Reporter certification numbers here you can include their certification on RB-PDF Transcripts by customizing transcript templates to include this number in headers or footers.

Pay information

Important pay information to include are the resource’s:

• Priority Level which gives you an order of preference when assigning tasks, such as staff and overflow.
• Pay Group which designates how often the resource is paid, e.g., weekly, monthly, bi-weekly.

Other info to enter here includes:

• Pay rate — if you pay this resource the same rate for all jobs, select that here instead of having to do it every time you bill a job they worked on.
• Federal tax ID number if this is a resource that you will issue 1099s for. You can also indicate that you will print their 1099s from within RB9.
• Number of days until you pay this resource for originals and copies. These default to your system-wide preferences, but you can change them here for a resource that you pay differently.
• Commission rates if you pay this resource commissions. If the resource is a reporter with their own clients, you can set different commissions for their clients’ jobs they work and for their clients’ jobs that other reporters cover.
• Resource’s banking information if you do direct deposit from RB9.
• Any recurring payments or deductions (for example the resource is paying back an advance in installments).

You can set a resource as “do not pay” if they are a conference room or an owner of your business who does not receive a paycheck — so they won’t appear in your pay process.

Work schedule

Resources’ availability for assignments is generated by the system using the work schedule set up for each resource. When assigning resources to tasks only resources who are available during the scheduled time will appear in the list of resources.

You can customize individual resources’ work schedules from the default schedule of Monday–Friday, 9am–6pm to match their actual availability. Setting an individual’s schedule is simple: You click and drag the beginning and end marks on each day-of-the-week to change the resource’s default availability for that day.

You can override resources’ availabilities manually to handle exceptions in other functions — for example if you want to assign a resource to a job outside their normal work hours, or to give a resource additional time off for a vacation, doctor’s appointment, or other exception. (Tasks and Resource Availability)

But wait, there’s more

Once you save a resource in RB, you can:

• Enter more information.
• Update existing information.
• View the resource’s financial & job trends.
• Merge resources if you find duplicates using RB’s Merge To sub-function to save some of the resource’s historical data from the duplicate listing.

You don’t have to go into the Resources function to update a resource. Most RB functions that include a Resource field allow you to directly access that resource’s listing to view and edit.

Also if you have multiple resources that you need to update the same information for — such as their commission rates or original and copy terms — you can use Bulk Update to change them all at once.

Additional panes in saved resource listings include:

Notification email

If a resource has more than one email address you can designate which one(s) should receive email notices from RB related to jobs they are involved with and which one(s) to use for payroll information.

Tags

If you use tags (keywords or phrases) to monitor and choose resources to bulk email or snail mail letters and packages you add tags to resource listings — either by keying in tags or selecting them from the tag list you made in Lists. Each resource can have an unlimited number of tags and you can delete tags from a resource when they no longer apply. (You can also use the Tag Manager to add or remove tags quickly from multiple resources at once.)

Specialties

If a resource has specific expertise add that specialty to their RB listing. Then when you have a task that requires that specialty, the resource will be included in the list of available resources so you can assign resources more accurately.

Certifications

If a resource has been certified for a particular skill/knowledge add that certification, when it was achieved, and if it is still active to their RB listing as reference for evaluating resources. You can also include certification expiration dates and set reminders so resources don’t let their certifications lapse.

Repository

Keep files related to a resource in their RB listing. When viewing the resource’s listing you can see information about uploaded files including their description in the Repository pane without having to click into each file’s details. You can upload, download, or delete files here, and update file information — such as which groups can access the file.

If you have RB Connect you can give resources access to specific files in their repository. You can also view the download history of each file in the repository — including when it was downloaded and by who.

Notes Log

The system enters some notes about resources automatically in their individual Notes Logs and you can also enter notes yourself about a resource in their Notes Log for internal purposes. An example of automatic Notes Log entries would be what changed when the resource’s information was updated using the Bulk Update tool.

When you add a note to the Notes Log you can include what type of note it is, how you communicated with the resource, details about what occurred, and if needed, designate who should follow up and set a date/time for a reminder to be sent to them via RB’s message system.

Export resource data for other uses

In these additional panes you can export the information as Excel spreadsheets or CSV(comma-separated values) files to save, share, print, or use in other applications.

View financial/job trends

In a resource’s Account Overview, highlights of their financial and job activity history, future projections, and trends are displayed visually. A table displays the resource’s total outstanding payables, upcoming tasks, and tasks not turned in yet. A line graph displays monthly earnings and a second line graph displays the resource’s assigned and canceled tasks.

The line graphs are interactive. Hovering over a point in a line on a graph displays that month’s total $ amount or number. The line graphs default to the resource’s trends over the last six months. You can also view the resource’s trends over a year or 2.

TL;DR: Maintain a deep database of your resources in RB including contact, pay, personal, and business/professional information, files related to the resource, notes about the resource, their work schedule, and more. View interactive graphs of their earnings and assignments.

RB concepts in this lesson

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition. More >

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 >

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

RB-PDF Transcript: Customizable PDF version of a transcript with built-in transcript-specific features like hyperlinked exhibits, word lists/indexes, errata sheets, and headers/footers that automatically contain case and depo information from your RB database. More >

ReporterBase Digital Signature Proxy (RB-DSP): Free digital signatures for reporters and agencies that agencies apply to RB-PDF Transcripts. Reporters retain control of their signatures while agencies are able to apply the signatures through their normal production process. More >

Repository: Where you store files in RB for safekeeping and quick retrieval.

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

Lesson #107

Entities – Contacts function

Contacts are people who work for firms you do business with. Examples of contacts are attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, legal assistants, claim adjusters, and court clerks.

Maintain a deep database of your contacts in RB in the Contacts function. If there is something you want to remember about a contact — whether it’s their contact info, standing orders, anniversaries, or anything else — store it in their RB profile. 

Add contacts to your database

You can:

• Enter contacts from scratch in this function.
• Copy an existing contact at a firm and update only the new contact info.
• Add them on the fly within a firm, case, job, or invoice.
• If you have an existing database of contacts in another application, you can import the data into RB from an Excel spreadsheet in the Bulk Import function.

Before entering a contact into RB, check to see if they are already there to avoid duplicate entries. RB does not prevent you from adding multiple instances of the same contact. If there are duplicate entries, you can merge them — however not all data will carry over from the contact that is being merged. The only information that will be saved from the merged entry is from the Notification Email, Tags, Preferred Services, Anniversaries, Award Points, Repository, and Notes Log panes.

Search for contacts

To find contacts in your RB database you can use the search criteria, singly or in combination:

• Full Name, First Name, or Last Name
• Firm — which you can search for by name, number, or the name or number of a contact at the firm
• Contact Type — single, several, or all
• Email address
• Client Of — which you can search for by first name, last name, full name, or number
• Sales Rep — which you can search for by first name, last name, full name, or number
• Tag
• Phone number
• Active contacts only or all
• Contact number

Each listing displayed in the results shows all of this info except any tags — and includes the main address of the contact’s firm, the type of firm, whether the firm is currently active, and any warnings about the contact and firm.

Customize how you view contact listings

The grid in which you view contact listings 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.

From the Contacts results grid you can view and update any listed contact’s details, add new contacts, and export the grid as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV(comma-separated values) file to save, share, print, or use in other applications.

Contacts are tied to firms

When entering a contact in RB, the first, most important information is their firm. If you are entering a new contact without starting from their firm, RB will automatically open the firm panel so you can select the firm before entering other contact information. If the contact’s firm is not in your RB database, you can add it here on the fly.

Once you have designated which firm the contact belongs to, you can proceed to enter the contact’s information. Some fields will auto-fill with the firm’s information — such as phone numbers and billing information — which you can override in the contact listing. Until you save the contact you can change which firm the contact is tied to. After saving a new contact you can view maps of the firm’s location, get directions to the location, and view/update firm details from the contact’s detail screen.

Basic contact information

In addition to which firm the contact works for, the only other required information about a contact is their full name. When entering the contact’s name we recommend that instead of entering the name in the Full Name field, you enter names in the separate first and last name fields, then select which order you want the names (first name first or last name then first) to appear in the Full Name field. (You can also select options that include their preferred salutation and middle initial.) This way you can use the First Name/Last Name filters when searching for contacts in the main Contacts window.

You can save time entering contacts’ full names by setting up Autofill in System Preferences. You select which name parts are included — first name, last name, salutation, middle initial — and in what order. RB will automatically fill out the Full Name field for you as you enter the individual name fields.

In addition to the contact’s name the General pane of their listing contains their contact information, other basic information, and any warnings.

Other General information tips

If you enter the contact’s primary email address in the General pane, you can email the contact directly from within their RB listing by clicking the button next to the email field.

If you have information about a contact that your staff should know when scheduling or invoicing jobs, enter those notes in the Warning field. This information appears in red under Contact Warning in ordering clients and parties in jobs, cases, and in the Invoice panel in Turn In.

If a contact is no longer scheduling jobs with you and you do not need to contact them anymore, you can deactivate their listing instead of deleting it so you retain all of your historical data about the contact but they will no longer appear in searches for active contacts anymore.

Additional information

Store the client’s preferences for receiving invoices and statements (email, print, don’t send) in the Additional pane. You can also enter their federal ID number if it’s different from their firm’s, and unlimited notes about the contact for your calendaring and production/billing departments. Style the text with different options — such as bold face, italic, text sizes, and colors — to enhance the readability of your notes.

If you have RB Connect, this is where you set up the contact’s login credentials. After saving the new contact this is also where you:

• Reset their password.
• Unlock their account if they tried to log in too many times with the incorrect credentials, and RB Connect locked them out.

Marketing

Use the Marketing pane to specify what type of contact the entity is for marketing and billing purposes plus enter personal information about the contact, including their home address. Some of the billing information will automatically populate from the contact’s firm listing — such as default billing rates — but you can change it for the contact.

You can also designate which resource receives commissions on this client’s jobs. If a reporter brought in this contact set them as the Client Of. If an account manager or sales representative got this client for you set them as the Sales Rep. This information will be used for allocating sales commissions and to generate Sales Commission Reports.

Use the Client Of feature in RB to attract and retain highly talented reporters who can bring attorney clients to your business. By designating resources responsible for clients you can track the amount of the business being generated from those attorneys — and pay incentive bonuses based on the new business generated, in addition to commissions on existing accounts.

After initial setup add more information

Once you save a contact in RB additional panes, fields, and functions become available. You can:

• Enter more information.
• Update existing information — including resetting the contact’s RB Connect password.
• View the contact’s financial & job trends.
• Copy the contact to create a new contact with the same firm information.
• Merge contacts if you find duplicates.

You don’t have to go into the Contacts function to update a contact. Most RB functions that include a Contact field allow you to directly access that contact’s listing to view and edit details.

Also if you have multiple contacts that you need to update the same information for — such as assigning a new sales rep or changing the billing rate — you can use Bulk Update to change them all at once.

If a contact moves to another firm you cannot change the firm in the contact’s listing. Instead you have to de-active the current listing and set up a new listing for the contact at their new firm. You can use RB’s Merge To sub-function to save some of the contact’s historical data from the original listing in the new contact listing.

Additional panes in saved contact listings include:

Notification Email

If a contact has more than one email address or has someone else on staff who should receive their emails, you can designate which one(s) to use for:

• Job confirmations and cancellations for jobs they schedule.
• Invoices and statements (if the contact’s firm does not request consolidated statements).
• Repository file upload alerts.

If you entered an email address in the General pane it will automatically populate each of these notification email slots. You can change, delete, and add email addresses for any of these email types.

Tags

If you use tags (keywords or phrases) to monitor and market to contacts, you add tags to contact listings, either by keying in tags or selecting them from the tag list you made in Lists. Each contact can have an unlimited number of tags, and you can delete tags from a contact when they no longer apply. (You can also use the Tag Manager to add or remove tags quickly from multiple contacts at once.) Label entities with tags (keywords or phrases) to mark them as part of specific groups, which you can use for different purposes, such as monitoring or marketing.

Grant Access To

In RB, jobs and invoices are tied to the Ordering Contact (attorney). So by default if you have RB Connect, related information is accessible by that contact only. But in real life the attorney isn’t the one who will be accessing RB Connect and scheduling jobs, paying invoices, or downloading the repository files. Instead it is paralegals or secretaries that take care of that work on behalf of the Ordering Contact.

In Grant Access To you select contacts at the same firm who can access this contact’s information on RB Connect. In addition to giving access to paralegals and secretaries who work for this contact and to the attorney’s senior(s) at the firm, you can also grant access to contacts at other firms.

Have Access To

Similar to Grant Access To use Have Access To to grant this contact access to other contacts’ RB Connect — including contacts at other firms. Use Have Access To when you want to give one contact access to multiple other contacts’ RB Connect accounts instead of going into each of the other contacts’ listings and granting access one by one.

Any contact that you give access to this contact’s RB Connect will automatically list the contact in their Have Access To pane.

Preferred Services

Add your clients’ standing orders to their contact profiles. Then you can use Prefill Services on a case, job, or invoice to easily select all of the service items a client expects.

When listing which service items are included in a contact’s standing orders you can also include relevant details — such as how many units of an item they usually order, how many business days the order is due in (RB will calculate the due date for a specific job excluding weekends and holidays), the delivery method, their preference on rush deliveries, and any additional instructions for the service item. Any information entered here will appear as the default for jobs ordered by the contact and can be overridden in individual jobs.

Anniversaries

Add important personal dates to contact profiles and set reminders so you never forget those dates. Important anniversaries could be birthdays or the anniversary of when they became your client. When setting reminders you determine how many days and at what time of day to send an alert and which staff member(s) the alert should be sent to.

You can use Anniversary Inquiry to print labels for cards to send to clients celebrating upcoming anniversaries based on these saved dates.

Preferred Resources

If a contact has resources they prefer assigned to their jobs, you can keep a list of those resources in the contact’s listing. When assigning resources to tasks on jobs the contact scheduled or ordered, preferred resources will appear at the top of the list.

Blocked Resources

If there are resources a contact does not want assigned to their jobs, you can keep a list of those resources in the contact’s listing. When assigning resources to tasks on jobs the contact scheduled or ordered RB will alert you and not allow the assignment.

Award Points

Award Points are 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. You set up your own rewards —such as cash or gift certificates — plus designate what services earn points.

If your state does not allow reward programs, use points 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.

If you reward contacts with points, you can monitor a contact’s points in the Award Points pane plus view their points history — which includes which services earned how many points on which invoices, current status of those points, how they were redeemed, and any notes about the points.

You can also designate which contact(s) within a firm will receive points earned by this contact — and allow the contact to view and redeem their points online via RB Connect.

You can boost a contact’s points-earning ability by automatically multiplying their points. For example if this is one of your best clients, you might want to award them double-points for every point-eligible service you offer. Or award extra points for special promotions that are limited in time then revert back to the original point scheme afterwards.

Repository

Keep files related to a contact — such as signed contracts — in their RB listing. When viewing the contact’s listing you can see information about uploaded files — including their description — in the Repository pane without having to click into each file’s details. You can upload, download, or delete files here, and update file information — such as which groups can access the file.

If you have RB Connect you can give contacts access to specific files in their repository. You can also view the download history of each file in the repository — including when it was downloaded and by which contact at the firm.

Notes Log

The system enters some notes about contacts automatically in their individual Notes Logs, and you can also enter notes yourself about a contact in their Notes Log for internal purposes. Some examples of automatic Notes Log entries are notes recording when a sales rep has been assigned, when statements are sent to the client, and if the client information was updated using the Bulk Update tool.

When you add a note to the Notes Log you can include what type of note it is, how you communicated with the contact, details about what occurred — and if needed, designate who should follow up and set a date and time for a reminder to be sent to them via RB’s message system.

Export contact data for other uses

In these additional panes you can export the information as Excel spreadsheets or CSV(comma-separated values) files to save, share, print, or use in other applications.

View financial/job trends

In a contact’s Account Overview, highlights of their financial and job activity history, future projections, and trends are displayed visually. A table displays the contact’s total receivables since they became your client and upcoming scheduled jobs. One line graph displays revenue generated, a second line graph displays jobs scheduled/canceled, and a third line graph displays jobs that have occurred.

The line graphs are interactive. Hovering over a point in a line on a graph displays that month’s total $ amount or number. The line graphs default to the contact’s trends over the last six months. You can also view the contact’s trends over a year or 2 years.

TL;DR: Maintain a deep database of your contacts in RB, including contact, billing, and personal information, files related to the contact, notes about the contact, and more. View interactive graphs of their financial and job activity trends.

RB concepts in this lesson

Award Points: Used to encourage clients to book with your agency by rewarding them with points for different services.

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.

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

Ordering Contact: Contact at the firm that is responsible for a job with your company. Can be different from the contact who scheduled the job.

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.