Tag Archives: RB Lite

Lesson #106

Entities – Firms function

Firms are businesses that schedule or pay for services — such as law firms or insurance agencies. If a client has multiple locations/branches, you can designate the company’s headquarters as a parent firm for the other branches so they are connected in your RB database.

Maintain a deep database of these client companies in RB in the Firms function. If there is something you want to remember about a firm — whether it’s contact info, their employees, financial history (including collections), or anything else — store it in their RB profile. 

Add firms to your database

You can enter firms from scratch in this function, import them from other applications, or add them on the fly within a case, job, or new contact (someone who works at the firm). If you have an existing database of firms in another application, you can import the data into RB from an Excel spreadsheet in the Bulk Import function.

Before entering a firm 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 firm. If there are duplicate entries, you can merge them — however not all data will carry over from the firm that is being merged. The only information that will be saved from the merged entry is from their jobs and contacts, and the Tags, Collection Notes, Repository, and Notes Log panes.

Search for firms

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

• Firm Name or a/k/a (Also Known As)
• City
• State (one, several, or all)
• Firm Type (one, several, or all)
• Parent Firm (which you can search for by name, number, or the name or number of a contact at the firm)
• 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
• Active firms only or all firms in your database
• Firm number

Each listing displayed in the results shows all of this info except any tags — and includes the firm’s main street address, zip code, and any warnings about the firm. With so much information displayed in the results you might find exactly what you need without having to drill down further.

Customize how you view firm listings

The grid in which you view firm 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 Firms results grid you can view and update any listed firm’s details by clicking its hyperlink in the grid, add new firms, 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 firm information

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

With 20 fields and options in the General information pane alone, it might seem overwhelming to enter firms into RB. However when entering a new firm, the only required information is the firm name. (If creating a new firm within a case, you will also be required to enter at least one contact for the firm.)

Other General information tips

If you commonly refer to the firm by another name or an abbreviation, include that alias in the a/k/a (Also Known As) field. When looking up the firm, you can search by the alias instead of the firm name. In search results, the alias will appear in parentheses after the firm name.

If you are entering the firm’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.

You can enter a second address for billing purposes if the firm wants invoices and statements sent to a different address.

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

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

If a firm 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 firm but they will no longer appear in searches for active firms anymore. You can also deactivate all their contacts at the same time, if desired.

Additional information

Store detailed billing information (including payment terms, fees/charges/rates, C.O.D status, and tax info), the client’s preferences for invoices (list services or not) and statements (consolidated or not and sending method) in the Additional pane. You can set defaults for some of this information to save time when entering new firms. Then change the settings for individual firms as needed. (When you change a firm’s Late Charge Rate or Finance Charge Rate, RB automatically records the change in the firm’s Notes Log so you have a paper trail.)

You can also enter unlimited notes about the firm here 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 this firm is a branch or subsidiary of another firm in your database, you can select that firm here as the parent firm/headquarters.

Marketing

Use the Marketing pane to specify what type of firm the entity is for marketing and billing purposes — including selecting default billing rates. You can also designate which resource is the sales representative/receives commissions (Client Of) on this client’s jobs.

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

Collections

When setting up a new firm, you can assign one of your resources to be responsible for your collections efforts with the client — and designate the firm’s credit status with your company, e.g., In Collection or COD (Cash on Delivery).

After initial setup, add more information

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

• Enter more information, including employees at the firm you have contact with.
• Update existing information.
• View the firm’s financial & job trends.
• Merge firms if you find duplicates.

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

Also if you have multiple firms 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.

Additional panes in saved firm listings include:

Notification Email

If a firm has more than one email address you can designate which one(s) to use for:

• Email notices from RB related to jobs they schedule
• Invoices and other accounting information

Tags

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

Preferred Services

Add your clients’ standing orders to their firm 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 firm’s standing orders, you can also include relevant details like 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.

Task Due Days

For clients who have their own turnaround deadlines for specific services provided by your resources — such as reporting or back orders — you can enter the number of days for each of those tasks in their firm profile. Then when scheduling jobs for contacts at the firm if they order a task that has a firm-defined turnaround, RB will automatically calculate the deadline for that task using the firm’s requirement. Otherwise if there is no firm-defined turnaround requirement, RB will use your assigned business unit’s turnaround specs.

Preferred Resources

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

Blocked Resources

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

Collections

(After saving a new firm its Collections pane expands to allow you to enter more information.)

If a client is in arrears you can record your collection efforts here — including when you made an effort, what type of effort (such as Call Made — you can create your own set of collection actions in Lists), and results or other notes about the effort. If you want to be reminded on a certain date to follow up on the progress of your efforts, you can set a date and time — plus the staff member to be reminded. (This information is used in Collection Follow-up.)

If a client pays you an upfront deposit — i.e., a retainer — you can enter and track it in the Collections pane. You can view when retainers were entered in the system along with other details about the retainers — such as any notes made about a retainer and when retainers were applied to which invoices.

Repository

Keep files related to a firm in their RB listing. When viewing the firm’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 (office staff only, office and contacts, or office and resources).

If you have RB Connect, you can give contacts who work at the firm 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 firms automatically in their individual Notes Logs and you can also enter notes yourself about a firm 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 firm, 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 firm data for other uses

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

View financial/job trends

In a firm’s Account Overview, highlights of their financial and job activity history, future projections, and trends are displayed visually. A table displays the firm’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 firm’s trends over the last six months. You can also view the firm’s trends over a year or 2 years.

Manage firm’s contacts

From the firm’s profile you can view the contacts who work for the firm (including inactive contacts if desired), update any contact’s details, add new contacts, and add or delete notification email addresses for individual contacts at the firm.

TL;DR: Maintain a deep database of client companies in RB including contact, billing, and marketing information, collections history, files related to the firm, notes about the firm, and more. View interactive graphs of their financial and job activity trends.

RB concepts in this lesson

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately — such as branch offices, other companies you own, affiliates, and profit-sharing operations.

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 — such as attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, legal assistants, claim adjusters, and court clerks.

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

Parent Firm: Headquarters of a multi-branch corporation.

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.

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

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

Lesson #105

Everything you want to know about clients, resources, places, & your company

Maintain a deep database of entities in RB:

• Clients (firms, contacts, and parent firms, i.e., company headquarters)
• Resources (reporters, scopists, videographers, other independent contractors, and non-people entities such as conference rooms)
• Job locations
• Business units (your company’s revenue centers or parts you want to track separately)

In addition to storing all information about entities, in this module you can:

• View maps and driving directions to entities’ addresses.
• View month-to-month financial and job activity for a firm, contact, or resource in interactive graphs.
• 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.
• Set up RB Connect log-in credentials for contacts and resources.
• Include detailed billing, job, and production information for firms and contacts. Include detailed pay information for resources.
• Designate different email addresses to receive specific types of email for a single contact, firm, or resource.
• Maintain lists of clients’ standing requests.
• Designate and monitor senior contacts, such as lead attorneys, who can have access to other contact’s activities in RB Connect.
• Enter client retainers and view history of their application. Record collection efforts.
• Enter resources’ digital signature proxy information for applying their digital IDs to RB-PDF Transcripts.
• Set up resources’ individual work schedules for RB to use when suggesting resources for tasks. You can override a resource’s availability when scheduling a job.
• Maintain lists of resources’ specialties to help in assigning resources. 
• Maintain lists of resources’ certifications as reference for evaluating resources. Include certification expiration dates and set reminders.
• Set preferences for your business units. Upload company logos for invoices and transcripts.

Entities functions by name

• Firms
• Contacts
• Resources
• Locations
• Business Units

TL;DR: Maintain a deep database of your clients, resources, job locations, and business units.

RB concepts in this lesson

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately, such as branch offices, other companies you own, affiliates, and profit-sharing operations.

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.

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

Parent Firm: Headquarters of a multi-branch corporation.

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

RB-PDF Transcript: PDF version of a transcript with built-in transcript-specific features.

ReporterBase Digital Signature Proxy (RB-DSP): Free digital signatures for reporters and agencies that agencies apply to RB-PDF Transcripts.

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 #97

Tools – Form Templates function

Some RB emails are form letters or include attachments that automatically contain RB information. You can customize the content of these forms — even add new forms — in Form Templates.

Form Templates is a word processor with mail merge, so you don’t need Microsoft Word to manage forms, letters, and other documents that use RB data. It’s a simpler word processor than Word but includes data merge fields and is designed to work with RB functions.

Complete set of forms included

RB comes with a starter set of form templates to cover a variety of needs — such as job confirmations, letters to witnesses, and collections letters. You can use the included templates as is, edit them to match your business better, import forms from other applications, create templates from scratch, and copy templates to create additional templates.

You can create form templates in RB for:

• Job confirmations & cancellations
• Assignment confirmations (AKA resource worksheets) & cancellations
• Letters to contacts, witnesses, & others related to a job
• Payment receipts
• RB-PDF Transcript cover pages & errata sheets
• Collections letters

Customize & create your own

Use RB’s Form Templates to create your own company-branded letters, notices, transcript cover pages, and errata sheets. You can include your own content, formatting, company logo, and merge data fields.

When editing templates or creating new ones, you can:

• Enter your own content, including images and simple graphics.
• Insert headers, footers, and tables.
• Add RB data fields.
• Format everything to match your needs and corporate culture.

Any edits you make to an existing form are saved system-wide in the form. And when you create a new form, it is saved on the RB server and is available to other RB registered users in your company.

RB’s Form Templates is easy to navigate and use, but powerful and full of options. All existing forms in your system are grouped by the functions they are used in, so you can find forms easily. You can also create your own subgroups to further organize your forms when the main groups are not enough. You can sort form lists by one or more columns in ascending or descending order to help you locate the form you want to edit/copy/delete (but when you exit the function, RB will revert back to the default order).

Full styling toolkit

The many tools in Form Templates are grouped into major categories on tabs, with each tab displaying all of its tools organized in subgroups so you minimize searching for a particular tool. And some tool groups have a popup option so you can change multiple related options at once.

This full-featured word processor with mail merge contains many controls and options in all aspects of form creation:

Text

Tools for styling your forms include most common text controls present in word processor applications, such as font types, sizes, colors, weights, and styling. You can style bulleted or numbered lists, and set text alignment, indents, tabs, borders, and backgrounds on paragraphs. You can choose different pagination options for multi-page forms, such as widow and orphan control, and set up re-usable character and paragraph styles.

Inserts

You can insert headers, footers, page numbers, images, graphics, blank pages, page breaks, tables, special symbols, hyperlinks, and text frames into forms. At a minimum, you can customize all of your forms by inserting your company logo. You can further customize the appearance of your logo or other graphics by setting text wrap options, positioning (including on the z axis), and size.

Tables

If you have a table in your form, you can customize it by adding or deleting rows/columns, and setting the properties of frame lines in the table, such as line colors, line widths, and cell background colors, or not having frame lines at all. You can also add custom formulas to your forms, such as sum totals.

Layout

Customize the layout of your template’s pages by setting margins, orientation, paper size, columns, content breaks, background color and borders, and paragraph spacing.

View

Form Templates has typical word processor View controls, so you can zoom in/out, or select a set view percentage. You can toggle rulers, status bar, table gridlines, control characters, and other guides on and off.

Lots of merge field options

Along with tools for styling your forms and adding boilerplate content, Form Templates includes several types of merge data fields:

• Contextual data fields – Only relevant RB data fields appear as options when inserting a merge data field in the form you are editing/creating, instead of listing every available RB data field for you to scroll through. When you insert a merge data field, RB only displays fields related to the category of form you are updating, logically grouped into sets, so you can quickly find a specific merge field.
• List data fields – You create tables of related merge fields that you select. You can re-arrange the order that the fields appear as columns in the table, or have the information display in paragraph format. For example, you can easily add a list of parties scheduled to appear to a Job Worksheet, that includes each party’s firm name, the party’s email address, party type, and services requested.
• Special fields – You customize their formatting, such as a Date field where you can select the order and appearance of day/month/year, and even include time stamps.

Merge fields are important because, when inserted into a form, real data from the job/client/resource/location you’re sending the form for will automatically merge into the place of the field, so you don’t have to manually re-key any of the information.

If you want a copy of a form template outside RB, you can print or export the form in a variety of formats, such as PDF, Word, HTML, or text.

TL;DR: Some RB functions include email-able/printable forms that automatically include RB information. These forms can be used as is or modified if needed in the Form Templates function. You can also import forms from other applications, and create your own forms.

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 >

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

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 #95

Tools – Bulk Update function

When something changes that affects a lot of jobs or entities — for example you have a new sales representative — save time by changing that particular setting (field) for a group of records —i.e., all of the affected contacts — at once. Use the Bulk Update function to update multiple jobs, firms, contacts, resources, or locations at the same time.

Depending on the information you want to change, you first select the group of records (jobs, firms, contacts, resources, or locations) where that information is stored. Then you can select the specific field in those records that you want to update. Depending on the field, you choose the value you want in that field — it might be a list option, a Yes/No choice, a lookup from the RB database, or a text entry of a number or percentage. Finally you choose which specific entries in the group of records to update.

Update contacts

For contacts, you can update:

• Billing rates
• Classification
• Whether or not to send them marketing materials
• Designated gender
• Credit rating
• Sales rep or resource they belong to (Client Of)
• What salutation to use in addressing them
• Preferred methods for receiving invoices and statements

You can choose to change every listing in Contacts, only those listings for contacts that are still doing business with you (active clients), or select a custom set of contacts to update, such as all the contacts at one firm. You can also search for all contacts assigned to a single sales rep if you are bulk updating those contacts to a new sales rep.

Update firms

For firms, you can update many more fields:

• Current account status
• Whether to show detailed breakdowns on their invoices
• Billing rates
• Your ranking of them (the type of firm they are or their value to you)
• Credit rating
• Whether they are COD (Cash on Delivery)
• Sales rep or resource they belong to (Client Of)
• Resource responsible for collecting payments from them
• Whether monthly statements are printed for each contact at this firm separately or combined and sent to “Accounts Payable”
• Percentage you deduct if you offer a negotiated discount on all the firms’ invoices
• Whether or not to send them marketing materials
• Percentage you charge the firms monthly on past-due invoices
• Type of firm (e.g., law firm, insurance company, corporation)
• Deadline in business days past the payment terms of invoices for the firms to render payment before RB notifies you to start collection efforts
• Percentage you charge the firms as a one-time account service fee on past-due invoices
• Firm designated as the firms’ headquarters (Parent Firm)
• Terms for payment that will appear on the firms’ invoices
• Percentage for the state sales tax for the firms
• Where the firms heard of you (source of initial contact)
• Method for receiving consolidated statements

Like contacts, you can choose to change every listing in Firms, only active firms, or a custom set of specific firms. You can also search for all firms assigned to a single sales rep if you are bulk updating those firms to a new sales rep.

Update resources

For resources, you can update:

• Percentages for extra commission pay Client Of resources receive for their clients’/cases’ jobs  when they cover the job or when someone else covers the job (can be 2 different percentages)
• Percentage for sales reps’ commissions
• Number of days from the invoice date before resources are paid on originals or copies (can be 2 different amounts)
• If they are excluded from the pay process (for example,  an owner or conference room would not earn pay on tasks assigned to them)
• Their Pay Group (e.g., Monthly, Weekly, On Demand)
• Whether you provide them with 1099 forms
• Order of preference for assigning tasks or their availability
• Profession or other resource type
• What salutation to use in addressing them
• If they do their own scoping

As with contacts and firms, you can choose to change every listing in Resources, only active resources, or a custom set of specific resources.

Update locations

For locations, there is only one field you can update: Location Type, i.e., the category of the facilities where jobs take place, e.g., hospital, courthouse, or school.

As with the other entities, you can choose to change every listing in Locations, only active locations, or a custom set of specific locations.

There is no Undo in Bulk Update

When you select Update All for firms, contacts, resources, or locations, RB9 warns you that you are about to update all the entities in the selected table and you must affirm that you want to change the entire table. The default reply is No to help minimize errors made with this irreversible command.

Update jobs

For jobs, you can update how you classify a group of jobs (such as depo, trial, or video conference) and which sales rep is responsible for the jobs.

You can choose to update every job within a specified date range; narrow which ones to update in that date range to those ordered by a specific firm, contact, or case; or select a custom set of jobs. You can also search for all jobs assigned to a single sales rep if you are bulk updating those jobs to a new sales rep.

Whether you are updating entities or jobs, you can sort your search 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.

NOTE: In addition to the stand-alone Bulk Update function, Billing Rates and Pay Rates have a Mass Update feature (in the Service Item Master), which you can use to update rates in multiple billing or pay rate tables at once. With these power-user features, you will be able to keep your RB database updated more easily.

TL;DR: If you have a number of entities or jobs that need the same information changed, save time by changing them all at once.

RB concepts in this lesson

Client Of: Resource that receives a commission for jobs their clients scheduled or that are part of a case the resource was designated as the Client Of resource. You can also give reporters right of first refusal on their clients/cases’ jobs by displaying unassigned jobs from their clients/cases in Resource-side online calendars in RB Connect.

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

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 >

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

Parent Firm: Headquarters of a multi-branch corporation.

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.

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.

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

Lesson #94

Tools – Bulk Import function

Data entry and getting RB populated is a time-consuming task. One of those long drawn-out processes is entering firms, contacts, and resources from scratch. If you have existing client and reporter/resource information, don’t re-key these entities into RB; instead export it to Microsoft Excel spreadsheets from your application, then import it into RB.

RB offers 3 import options:

• Firms
• Firms with Contacts
• Resources

If you’re new to RB and want to import your clients first, we recommend using Firms with Contacts so you import your client law firms and other entities, such as insurance companies, along with your contacts at those firms at the same time.

Preparation is key

Bringing your client and resource databases into RB using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets will save you a lot of time but there are a few things to note:

• To import your data into RB the Excel spreadsheet must have all of the same column headers in the same order as the Bulk Import headers. So we provide Excel templates to make it easy to set up your spreadsheet correctly. All you have to do is copy and paste your data into the template.
• While you must have the exact same column headers in the exact same order, you do not have to populate all the fields in the spreadsheet. Only required fields in each spreadsheet must have entries in each row in the spreadsheet. For example when importing Firms with Contacts, only the firm name and the contact’s name must be included in each row.
• If you are including an entity’s state you must use the 2-letter USPS abbreviation.
• If you are including email addresses for contacts or resources, each entity should have only one email address.
• When importing entities RB does not check the database for duplicate entries. If you discover duplicate entities after importing, you can either delete the duplicate or merge the entries.

Process is easy

After exporting your existing data to an Excel spreadsheet the import process is simple: Select the type of spreadsheet you are importing in Bulk Import and upload the spreadsheet’s .xlsx file.

If the spreadsheet was formatted correctly, the data will appear in the Bulk Import results grid. You can view your entries but not edit them. If you see any errors, you can edit your spreadsheet and re-upload the file or edit the entries in RB after importing. If the data looks ok, you can have RB import the entries to the appropriate Entity database automatically.

TL;DR: Import existing client and resource information from other applications via Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

RB concepts in this lesson

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

Entity: Individual, business, place, or discrete part of your company, such as revenue centers or branch offices. More >

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

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

Lesson #93

DIY in your RB

Import data, create forms and labels, perform custom data searches, and more in this versatile toolkit. In this module, you can:

• Import existing client and resource information from other applications into RB.
• Quickly update different clients, jobs, resources, and locations at the same time. 
• Use tags (keywords or phrases) to organize entities like clients or resources. Send emails or regular mail to all entities tagged the same. 
• Create forms and letters using the set of customizable templates in a word processor with mail merge that automatically incorporates your RB data. 
• Modify default label templates and create new ones.
• Search notes globally in RB Notes Logs.
• Monitor repository usage by in-house staff as well as by clients and resources via RB Connect as required by general security rules for business applications.
• Save copies of your RB database to your hard drive/server.
• View automatic emails sent from your RB.
• Perform custom searches of your RB data­base, and create your own reports from the results. (If you require more complex reports from RB, we offer a plug-in called Data Reader and custom programming if you would like OMTI to create something for you. )
• Import RB entities, invoices, paychecks, and payment transactions into QuickBooks. 
• Send invitations to reporters to join ReporterBase.com and grant you proxy to apply their digital signatures to RB-PDF Transcripts. Then monitor your use of their signatures.
• Find other court reporting agencies and related businesses to share work with.

Tools functions by name

• Bulk Import
• Bulk Update
• Tag Manager – RB9-only function
• Form Templates
• Label Templates – RB9-only function
• Notes Finder – RB9-only function
• Repository Download Log – RB9-only function
• Download Backup File – RB9-only function
• Email Log – RB9-only function
• Query Maker – RB9-only function
• QuickBooks Integrator – RB9-only function
• Send Invitations for Signature Proxy – RB9-only function
• Signature Proxy Usage – RB9-only function
• RB Network

TL;DR: Import data, update records, create forms and labels, and more in this versatile toolkit.

RB concepts in this lesson

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.

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 and customization options. More >

ReporterBase Digital Signature Proxy (RB-DSP): Free digital signatures for reporters and agencies that agencies apply to RB-PDF Transcripts. 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 #67

Payables – Send Resource Pay Statements function

After closing payroll archive a copy of the final version of the Resource Pay Statements report for your reference, then either email or print and mail resources their individual pages of the report.

This function looks like the Pay Resources function where you generate draft pay statements and close payroll. Here you select the current pay date that you closed in Pay Resources and the screen displays the Pay Group and cutoff date associated with the pay date selected — so you can double-check that you selected the correct pay date.

The results list all resources to be paid in the current payroll along with the amounts to be paid. You can deselect any resource listed whom you do not want to pay at this time. You can click any resource to view their details — for example to check that they have an email address in their listing.

You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function 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.

Generate a report for your records

After reviewing the on-screen results, you can generate the report for your records: The report lists each invoice (to be paid for the specified payroll) grouped and subtotaled by resource with each resource starting on a new page. The last page of the report lists the grand total amount for all resources included in the report.

You can search for a word or phrase in the onscreen report. RB will highlight all instances of your searched word/phrase in the report and list them in a scroll box along with the page number where they occur. Export the report in a variety of formats to save and/or edit in another application, or print it.

After making a final copy of the Resource Pay Statements report for the office, send resources their pay statements from the same results list.

Provide pay statements in the format resources want

You can email resources their pay statements or print and mail/hand out the statements along with their paychecks. If you will email some pay statements and print others, you will need to send pay statements in 2 separate batches. And you probably don’t have to produce pay statements for any resources that are not people — such as your conference rooms.

In addition to having the email/print option for pay statements you can also choose to send either summary or detailed pay statements. Summary statements only include invoice totals. Detailed pay statements break down invoice totals to include their service items’ details (number of units, pay rate, and subtotal).

Email

To email statements you select which resources will receive the emailed statements, then select which version — summary or detailed — the selected resources will receive. Before sending the statements you can preview and/or edit each pay statement email, change the sender, and attach additional files. Or if you want to make global changes to the pay statement email template update it in System Preferences.

When the statements have been emailed RB notes the outcome for each resource in the Result column. Any statement that failed to send displays the results in red so you can easily see what is wrong. RB also generates an automatic entry in each resource’s Notes Log recording the date, time, and user who sent the email. And RB9 records the emails sent in the Email Log function in Tools so you can refer back to them later.

Print

If you want to give resources their pay statements with their pay checks select which resources will receive the printed statements, then print out the static report in either summary or detailed form.

Online

Save time and money with online statements. If you have RB Connect, resources can view their pay statements (current and past) online — eliminating the need to print or email statements.

TL;DR: After closing payroll send resources their pay statements via email or by printing and handing out/sending as snail mail. Plus archive a final copy for your records.

RB concepts in this lesson

Cutoff Date: Last date for invoices to be included in a pay date. Default is the date of the invoice, but you can use the date invoices were paid for a single resource or all resources tied to a business unit/multiple BUs in your company.

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

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.

Lesson #66

Payables – Pay Resources function

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

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

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

Review current payroll

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

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

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

Modify payroll

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

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

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

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

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

Review payroll as a report

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

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

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

You can generate 3 versions of the draft pay statement:

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

Reset payroll when there are mistakes

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

Close payroll

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

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

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

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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

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

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

Lesson #65

Payables – Pay Adjustments function

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

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

Searching pay adjustments

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

Listings in the results grid display:

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

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

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

Adding pay adjustments

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

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

Pay adjustments vs. pay overrides

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

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

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

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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