Tag Archives: RB Lite

Lesson #64

Payables – Override Resource Pay function

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

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

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

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

Correct the pay side of invoices

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pay overrides vs. pay adjustments

Use Override Resource Pay when you want to:

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

Use Pay Adjustments when you want to:

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

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

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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

Lesson #63

Manage & monitor accounts payables+

Use the Payables module to not only cut checks for resources, but to also manage and monitor payroll, sales tax obligations, and reward points for clients. In this module, you can:

• Perform payroll tasks.
• Audit pay statements.
• Adjust resource pay on an invoice or generally on payroll (such as a bonus or re-curring repayment of an advance).
• Adjust sales commissions on individual invoices.
• Close payroll and send resources pay statements via email or regular mail.
• Cut payroll checks, direct deposit paychecks, or export payroll to QuickBooks. 
• Review gross pay amounts and adjust as needed before printing 1099s from RB9.
• Generate forms and reports pertaining to payroll, including for sales commissions, miscellaneous pay not charged to invoices, and outstanding payables.
• Generate sales tax reports.
• Reward your best customers with points like airlines and credit cards do, based on the business generated by their calls to you. Monitor, adjust, transfer, and redeem points.

Payables functions by name

• Override Resource Pay
• Pay Adjustments
• Pay Resources
• Send Resources Pay Statements
• Print Checks – RB9-only function
• 1099 Pay Detail – RB9-only function
• Print 1099 Forms – RB9-only function
• Sales Commission Report – RB9-only function
• Override Sales Commission – RB9-only function
• Additional Resource Production Report – RB9-only function
• Total Payable Report
• Sales Tax – RB9-only function
• Liability Balance Log – RB9-only function
• Reward Points Summary – RB9-only function
• Reward Points History – RB9-only function
• Reward Points Analysis – RB9-only function

TL;DR: Perform payroll and other pay-related tasks.

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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

Lesson #56

Receivables – Send Statements function

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

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

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

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

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

Generate list of overdue clients

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

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

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

The results returned list all of the firms that meet the specified search condition(s) along with their outstanding amounts. You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, RB will revert back to the default order). Export the results list of clients with overdue invoices as an Excel or CSV file to archive, share, print, or use elsewhere.

Send statements

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

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

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

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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

Notes Logs: Un-editable internal-use only notes entered either by a user or automatically by RB appear in chronological logs in the database record where they occurred. More >

Parent Firm: Headquarters of a multi-branch corporation.

Lesson #55

Receivables – Aged A/R function

The first step in collecting a debt is finding out who owes you what and for how long. Aged A/R (Accounts Receivable) reports tell you which clients have unpaid invoices, how much they are in arrears, and for how long — but RB’s version is much more than that.

Multi-tasking tool

RB’s Aged A/R reports are interactive so after you compile a report you can click a firm name in the report to get all of their contact info — plus see the record of which collections actions you have already pursued with them. You don’t have to go to a separate function to do collections tasks. You can also click a monthly total to see which invoices are included and view their details.

In addition to viewing firm and invoice details, you can view relevant information directly from the Aged A/R report that you would otherwise go into separate functions to look up. Having this information at your fingertips in Aged A/R saves you time when researching outstanding invoices, making collection efforts, or talking with a client about their invoices.

While the default report ages invoices from today, you can use this function to generate Aged A/R reports for prior time periods too. You can export or print out the report if desired. You can even resend invoices without leaving the function.

Viewing aged accounts receivable

The default report lists clients with unpaid balances in descending order by the ones who have the largest amount outstanding in the oldest time period — the clients you want to go after first. However you can sort the grid by one or more of the columns — so you can view the list in ascending or descending order by any time period, grand total owed, firm name or number, assigned collector, and/or COD status. (When you exit the function RB will revert back to the default order.)

You can also choose how many time periods to review. Amounts due from the past to the present are grouped in 30-day increments with the default view being 6 of these time periods in columns — plus 1 column for all outstanding amounts beyond 6 months. You can extend the report up to 12 months plus the extra column for older outstanding balances.

A final column in the report lists the grand total outstanding amount for each firm. The last row in the report displays grand totals in each column of outstanding amounts for all clients.

In addition to changing the number of the periods displayed, you can further customize the report to:

• Age receivables from an an earlier date.
• List firms by who ordered services instead of who was billed for services (if you want to contact the law firms who bought services instead of the insurance companies who will pay the invoices, for example).
• Group all of a parent firms’ subsidiaries’ amounts into the parent firm’s total, instead of listing all firms separately.
• Show the invoices for a single firm or a parent firm and its subsidiaries.
• Show invoices assigned to a single collector in your office.
• Display only invoices in one or more categories (such as affiliate invoices).
• Display invoices for one or more business units in your company.

Printing Aged A/R reports

If you want a static report to work with or for your records, you can export it. Aged A/R reports can be exported as an Excel spreadsheet with each client’s overdue amounts broken down by age plus a list of all of their overdue invoices with their basic details. The exported report also includes the grand totals column and row.

If you want an exported Aged A/R report without invoices, you can export it as an Excel spreadsheet or generic file the same way you export other results grids in RB. Once exported with or without invoices, you can print the report.

Viewing client details

You can drill down in an Aged A/R report to see details about a client, their outstanding invoices, and your collection efforts with them to date.

Firm names in RB’s Aged A/R report are hyperlinked to their profiles in your system so with one click you can pull up all of a client’s contact information — plus the rest of their details instantly including your collections notes to review.

After accessing a firm from the Aged A/R report, you can easily:

• Contact the firm.
• Record your current collections action.
• Enter any notes about the situation.
• Set a reminder date/time for follow-up.
• Designate a follow-up person to receive the reminder.
• Update any other information about the firm such as an address change.

Viewing invoice details

In addition to the hyperlinked firms, firms’ outstanding balances for each time period are hyperlinked too. Clicking an outstanding balance brings up a list of the client’s unpaid invoices included in that time period’s total — along with basic contact and invoice information so you can easily refer to specific invoices while on the phone with the client.

Plus the outstanding invoices in this list are all hyperlinked to their details. So you have ALL the facts when talking to the client about getting paid.

When looking at the list of invoices in a client’s Aged A/R detail window, you can:

• See the client’s basic contact information such as the firm’s main phone number.
• View basic invoice information at a glance including each invoice’s balance due and how many days old it is.
• Drill down to view/update detailed information about the firm and the collector assigned to the account.
• Drill down to view an invoice’s details. In addition to listing the services provided and other invoice details, you can use information from an invoice details window to  provide clients with details about the specific invoice’s overdue amounts and any payments or other transactions credited to the invoice. You can also update Bill To and Sold To client information.
• Resend invoices directly from the client’s Aged A/R detail window.

Shortcuts to other functions

Aged A/R interacts with other RB functions eliminating the need to set search filters to find the relevant client information in those other functions.

You can directly access a Bill To client’s current 90-day payment history from Aged A/R instead of going into the Receivable Transaction Inquiry function and compiling that history yourself.

You can also directly access all of a Bill To or Sold To client’s financial activity with your company from within Aged A/R instead of going to the Client Activity function.

And you can compile and send collection letters for any or all of a client’s outstanding invoices without leaving Aged A/R.

TL;DR: Aged A/R summarizes each client’s unpaid invoices, grouped by when the invoice was due (aging period). It is interactive so you have your complete set of collection tools and invoice information linked into the report to maximize your collection efforts.

RB concepts in this lesson

Bill To Firm: The firm responsible for paying the invoice for a job — usually the firm that scheduled the job — but also could be a third-party firm such as an insurance agency.

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

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

Sold To Firm: Usually the firm that ordered a job.

Lesson #54

Receivables – Monthly Journals function

Monthly Journals are static monthly reports that break down all sales and cash receipts posted during the selected month into debits and credits. Your accountant uses these reports to prepare your company’s financials.

The Sales Journal lists all posted daily credit sales totals for the selected month, grouped and subtotaled by business unit (BU). It shows you how much you billed. Each BU has its own page(s) — and in addition to listing the BU’s sales as debits in Accounts Receivable and credits in Revenue at the end, it lists the number of jobs and invoices included in that amount.

The Cash Receipts Journal lists all posted daily cash inflows for the selected month, grouped and subtotaled by BU. It shows you how much money you received. Each BU has its own page(s) — and includes the total amount for each applicable account per BU, crediting sales and debiting cash and other transactions.

The last page of each journal is a grand totals page for your entire company that includes the totals of all of your BUs.

Report options

The journals default to the current month displaying revenue from all BU accounts and subtotals by date posted for all of your company’s BUs. You can view information from other months broken down by service item, in summary form, and/or for one or several of your BUs.

Daily financial transactions are temporary until they are posted (i.e., closed out). Once posted they cannot be modified nor deleted. Monthly Journals use the post date — not the transaction date — to select and group transactions on the report.

Monthly Journals compile posted transactions that meet your criteria as 2 separate reports which each group their entries under one BU per page and includes a Grand Total page. Each report is shown as a tab above the report pane so you can quickly access either one.

You can search for a word or phrase in the onscreen report. RB will highlight all instances of your searched word/phrase in the report and list them in a scroll box along with the page number where they occur. You can print or export monthly journal reports in a variety of formats — PDF, CSV, Excel, Rich Text, TIFF, or web archive — to email to your accountant.

TL;DR: A summary recap of daily sales and cash receipts registers. Your accountant uses this report to prepare your company’s financials.

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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

Lesson #53

Receivables – Finance Charges function

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

Generate finance charges automatically

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

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

Generate finance charges manually

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

View history & clear charges

You can also use this function to clear finance charges and to look up the history of finance charges applied and cleared. You can view a list of all generated and cleared charges, or use filters to view charges within a date range, for a specific firm or invoice, and/or for one, several, or all of your company’s business units.

If you want to clear finance charges, use the filters to search for the invoice(s) you want to clear of finance charges. You can clear charges for a single invoice, selected invoices, or all invoices in your results at once.

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

You can sort your finance charge results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, RB will revert back to the default order). Export results as an Excel or CSV file to save, use in other applications, share, or print if you want a hard copy record of finance charges you generated and cleared.

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

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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

Lesson #51

Receivables – Daily Register function

Run the Daily Register function so you can review reports of transactions for a specific day or other time period. Generally you run daily registers at the end of the day after posting. You can also generate the reports for unposted transactions to review them.

All daily transactions — such as invoices, payments, credit memos, etc. — are temporary until they are posted (i.e., closed out). Once posted they cannot be modified nor deleted so daily registers use the post date — not the transaction date — to select and group posted transactions on the report. If you use Daily Register to monitor unposted transactions, it uses the invoice number or date of the transaction to order the list of results returned.

Types of daily registers included

RB provides three types of daily registers:

1. The Sales Register lists all invoices posted for the specified period, grouped and subtotaled by business unit (BU). It shows you how much revenue you generated. Each BU has its own page(s). In addition to listing the BU’s total billed amount at the end of its invoices, it lists the number of jobs and invoices included in that amount.
2. The Cash Receipts Register-Payment lists all payments posted for the specified period, grouped and subtotaled by BU. It shows how much money you received. Each payment lists its total amount and breaks down how it was applied to the invoice balance (credit), discount, overpayment, late charge, finance charge, processing fee, and net cash. Each BU has its own page(s). In addition to listing the BU’s totals at the end of its transactions, it breaks out the total amounts for invoices over 90 days old.
3. The Cash Receipts Register-Other lists credit memos, debit memos, duplicate payments, miscellaneous receipts, refunds, voids, and write-offs posted for the specified period, grouped and subtotaled by BU. It shows amounts for all transaction types that are not payments. Each BU has its own page(s), and includes the total amount for each transaction type.

In addition to grouping transactions onto separate pages for each of your company’s BUs, the last page of each register lists grand totals combining the activities of all of your BUs.

Generate targeted registers

The function defaults to today because it’s a good practice to review posted transactions daily so you stay on top of things and catch any issues quickly. You can also run daily registers for any date or date range.

You can limit which categories of invoices to search if you want to focus on a particular type of invoice — such as ones for your affiliates. You can also choose to run reports for a single BU, several selected BUs, or all BUs.

Daily Register compiles transactions that meet your criteria as 3 separate reports — which each group their entries under one BU per page — plus a Grand Total page. Each report is shown as a tab above the report pane so you can quickly access each one.

You can search for a word or phrase in each of the 3 reports. RB will highlight all instances of your searched word/phrase in the current report and list them in a scroll box along with the page number where they occur.

Each report’s footer will display which search criteria you used to generate the report with the exception of blank search fields and ALL list selections. You can export any of these 3 reports to save and/or edit it in another application, or print it.

TL;DR: Monitor your posted transactions daily or for any other time period with these 3 reports: Sales, Cash Receipts-Payment, and Cash Receipts-Other. You can also monitor unposted transactions separately.

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.

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

Lesson #49

Receivables – Enter Other Transactions function

Financial transactions do not always entail client payments for invoices. Use this function to deal with bounced checks, incorrect invoice charges, misapplied payments, duplicate payments, refunds, miscellaneous income, and uncollectible bad debts.

Enter these types of non-cash transactions into RB to keep your RB ledger accurate. Balance the transactions and post them.

‘Other Transactions’ in RB include:

• Credit Memos
• Debit Memos
• Duplicate Payments
• Refunds
• Miscellaneous Receipts
• Voids
• Write-offs

Credit Memos

Use a credit memo to reduce the balance of an invoice — for example when a client returns a product or was charged for a service they didn’t ask for. A credit memo can be for the full amount or part of the amount of an invoice. If a commission was earned on the sale you can choose to decrease the sale rep’s/Client Of resource’s commission or honor it.

Debit Memos

If a client bounces a check or you applied a payment to the wrong invoice, use a debit memo to increase the invoice balance. You can use the entire balance — including late charges and finance charges — in a debit memo. You can also credit any commissions back to the related sale rep/Client Of resource. After posting the debit memo you can enter the payment again with the correct invoice.

Duplicate Payments

If you receive a check for an invoice that has been paid already and you want to deposit the check (rather than return it) enter it as a duplicate payment in RB to record the payment.

Miscellaneous Receipts

If you receive a check from a client or resource that does not reference an invoice — such as the check for a retainer (upfront deposit) — you can record it as a miscellaneous receipt for tracking purposes.

Refunds

If a client sent you an overpayment or a duplicate payment for an invoice reimburse them through your accounting system such as QuickBooks, then enter the refund in RB so that the Payment Transactions log is complete.

Voids

Posted invoices cannot be canceled or deleted. So if a client returns a product, its invoice must be voided. Or if a job was billed incorrectly the invoice(s) should be voided before the job is billed again. By default, pay and commissions are voided when an invoice is voided and if the resource/sales rep has already been paid you must adjust (reduce) their pay (in Payables) to deduct the amount paid from the next payroll. Or you can choose on a case by case basis to pay the resource’s fee and/or commission in spite of the voided invoice.

Write-offs

If an invoice becomes uncollectible, write it off as a bad debt. When you write off an invoice the resource’s regular pay is not affected and any commissions related to the invoice are not voided by default. However you can choose to void commission(s) on any write-off.

Entering ‘Other Transactions’

When you open this function any unposted transactions are listed with their basic information:

• Transaction type, date, and amount
• Amount of any late charge or finance charge to be debited
• Applicable internal account number (from the Chart of Accounts)
• Invoice number
• Who created the transaction and when

You can view, edit, or delete any individual transaction in the list. Depending on the transaction you can view information about the invoice and its related client and update the client’s information, if desired. You can post transactions here singly or in batches. And you can enter new transactions by type.

Enter relevant information about the transaction including the date, amount, and account you want the transaction recorded in. Also enter any remarks about the reason for the transaction or other relevant information. Depending on the transaction you can also enter information such as the relevant check number and date, and how to handle commissions related to the transaction.

If you have multiple transactions of the same type, you can continuously add them in the same window to save time when processing transactions. When finished all transactions appear in a list along with any other unposted transactions. You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function RB will revert back to the default order). Export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, share, print, or use in other applications.

Don’t forget to post transactions

Finally you post the transactions to close them. You can post them singly, a select few, or all at once. When you run the daily registers, these transactions will appear on the Cash Receipts Register – Other Transactions page of the report. You can also use the Voided Invoices function to quickly review all invoices voided today or for any time period.

TL;DR: Keep your RB ledger accurate by including all types of transactions beyond payments — including credit memos to deal with returns or incorrect service item billing, debit memos for bounced checks or payments applied to the wrong invoices, duplicate payments, refunds, miscellaneous receipts such as retainers, voided invoices, and write-offs for bad debts.

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.

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

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

Lesson #48

Receivables – Receive Payments function

Enter a payment and apply it to outstanding invoices in this function — whether the payment is for a single invoice or multiple invoices. RB can handle an unlimited number of invoices paid by one check or other type of payment — such as credit card, electronic payment, or retainer.

Adjustments

You can make adjustments if needed when applying payments to invoices — such as when a client sends you a check that is slightly less than the current balance of an invoice and you don’t want to try to collect the difference. You can discount the difference on the posted invoice. Or if a client sends you a check for more than is owed, enter the excess as an overpayment. (RB tracks all overpayments so they can be refunded in the future.)

Fees & other charges

You can also enter late charges, finance charges, and credit card/PayPal processing fees. (If you receive a payment prior to when late charges would accrue, the Late Charges and Finance Charges fields in Receive Payments are grayed out and uneditable so you won’t accidentally penalize a client.)

Credit card payments

When processing credit card payments, you can break out the usage fees associated with them. 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 for your company. You have 2 options for handling credit card fees in RB: If you pay the processing fee, you use the Processing Fee option; if your client will pay the fee in addition to the balance of the invoice, you use the Surcharge option.

Retainers

If you are holding a retainer from a client, it will automatically appear when applying payments by that client so you don’t overlook it. If any money is left over, it remains in the client’s retainer account until you issue a refund check to the client.

Other payment info

Beyond payment types and adjustments, you can maintain a wealth of information about a payment from the check number and date to third-party payer to transaction date (when you entered the payment) and debited account.

Online payments

If clients pay online through RB Connect, you do not have to enter payment information manually. RB9 automatically enters the payment — including the processing fee if you have set up processing fees in RB9. You can review and edit the payment if needed, then post it like any other payment.

One Check One Invoice vs. Multiple Invoices

If a client is paying for a single invoice, you can use the streamlined One Check One Invoice sub-function to quickly enter the payment. If a client is paying for multiple invoices with one check or you don’t know what invoice they are paying, use the One Check Multiple Invoices sub-function which displays a client’s entire list of open invoices which you can search by job number, invoice number, or amount range. You can export the list as an Excel spreadsheet to save, print, or use in other applications.

Posting payments

After entering a payment and applying it to outstanding invoices, you can continue to add payments to other invoices or finish the payment process by posting the payment. If you have a lot of transactions to record — instead of posting payments as you go — enter them all first then select a batch to post all at once.

All daily transactions are temporary until they are posted (i.e., closed out). And once posted they cannot be modified nor deleted. Some RB reports — such as monthly journals — use the post date (not the transaction date) to select and group transactions on the report.

When you post a payment it must match the total amount of the invoice(s) you applied it to. If the payment is more than the invoice balance(s), RB will not allow you to post it until you balance it with credits (such as the overpayment credit). One exception: RB does not require payment of late fees or finance charges to post. So if a client sent a check for the original amount of the invoice only even though there have since been late fees and/or finance charges applied, you can post the invoice and RB will zero out the fees and remove the invoice from your outstanding receivables.

Audit trail

Unposted payments remain in Receive Payments until they are balanced. RB tracks who entered a payment and when, so you have an audit trail of who is responsible for crediting payments to invoices. You can use this feature to filter unposted payments to see only those you entered to get a total amount and reconcile.

Information on who entered payments and when appears in the results when you search for unposted payments in Receive Payments so you can see it at a glance. Listings also display the payment type, transaction date, payer and if it was a third party (for example if an insurance company paid for a bill their lawyer incurred for them), invoice amount, and its outstanding balance. Grand total and total outstanding balance amounts also appear in the results.

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 to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

You can pull up any unposted payment’s details from the results — either as a drop-down to quickly see all the invoices paid with one transaction, along with their fees breakdown and bill to/sold to information — or in a separate transaction screen.

TL;DR: Enter payments and apply them to one or more invoices — making adjustments as needed for overpayments, late charges, finance charges, and credit card processing fees. Maintain an audit trail of who entered which payments and when.

RB concepts in this lesson

Bill To Contact: The person responsible for paying the invoice for a job.

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

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

Processing Fee: If you pay the credit card processing fee when a client pays an invoice by credit card, you record it as a processing fee in RB.

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

Sold To Contact: Person who ordered the services on the invoice.

Sold To Firm: Company that ordered the services on the invoice.

Surcharge: If you pass along the credit card processing fee when a client pays an invoice by credit card to the client, you record it as a surcharge in RB.

Lesson #47

Manage accounts receivable

Receivables is another large module in RB with functions for accepting and crediting payments, assessing additional charges, correct invoices, monitor accounts receivable, and perform collections. In this module, you can:

• Credit and track client payments. Apply a payment to multiple invoices at once. Apply retainers and payments via checks, PayPal or credit cards.
• Keep track of retainers. If a client has a retainer, it automatically appears when crediting payments from that client so you can apply it.
• Enter credits, discounts, overpayments, and other adjustments.
• Balance transactions and post payments.
• Enter non-cash transactions, such as credit and debit memos, duplicate payments, refunds, miscellaneous income, voids, and write-offs.
• Acknowledge client payments with emailed receipts.
• Provide resources with billing reports instead of invoices to see what they can expect to be paid for work they have done.
• Assess finance charges.
• Include PayPal and credit card processing fees.
• Run daily register reports.
• Print or email monthly journal reports to your accountant. Get an instant snapshot of accounts receivable for any date.
• Send clients monthly statements via email or regular mail.
• View monthly client activity reports. View all paid or voided invoices for a set time period.
• Find overdue invoices.
• Send clients detailed collection letters.
• Monitor collection efforts using reports, follow-up alerts, collections notes log, and copies of disputed or unpaid bills you can pull up from the central repository and email to clients from within RB.

Receivables functions by name

• Receive Payments
• Enter Other Transactions
• Send Payment Receipts – RB9-only function
• Resource Billings Report – RB9-only function
• Daily Register
• Daily Balance Log – RB9-only function
• Finance Charges
• Monthly Journals
• Aged A/R
• Send Statements
• Client Account Activity – RB9-only function
• Paid Invoices – RB9-only function
• Voided Invoices – RB9-only function
• Collection Letters – RB9-only function
• Collection Follow-up – RB9-only function
• Collection Forecast – RB9-only function

TL;DR: Apply payments and perform other accounts receivable tasks, including collections.

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.