Tag Archives: RB9

Lesson #62

Receivables – Collection Forecast function

When a client promises to make a payment at a future date on an outstanding invoice, record it in their RB9 records. Then you can project increases in your cash flow based on the promised payment dates and amounts of outstanding invoices.

The Collection Forecast lists all of the clients with payment-promised dates and amounts for a specified period so you can forecast cash inflow to your business.

Customize your forecast

The promised date defaults to today but you can select any date range to view. You can also narrow results to clients tied to a single collector in charge of collecting their overdue payments — for example if you want to see only those accounts that are your responsibility. Based on the amounts and dates promised by clients for outstanding invoices, you can forecast cash inflow to your business.

Listings in the results display the firm name, the promised date and amount, and the collector. A total amount of all the listed amounts is included at the bottom.  You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, RB9 will revert back to the default order). Export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

View & update individual collection activity

You can also monitor your collection progress with clients, document new attempts, and view graphs of clients’ account activity by clicking a hyperlinked firm in the Collection Forecast results to view the firm’s collection history and account overview.

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

TL;DR: Project changes in your cash flow based on the promised payment dates and amounts of outstanding invoices listed in this function.

RB concepts in this lesson

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

Lesson #61

Receivables – Collection Follow-up function

After running the Aged A/R report to find clients who owe you money and contacting them, start tracking your collections actions and your client’s responses in their records in your RB9 database. Use this function to pull up a list of past actions and reminders to keep collections tasks on track. You can go directly into individual firms from this function to get contact information, record their responses and promises, make notes, and set reminders for further follow up.

Instead of trying to remember who needs to be followed up with about an overdue invoice and when — or writing reminders in a separate calendar — use RB9’s collection tools including the Collection Follow-up function. Collection Follow-up lists all previous collections actions recorded in RB9 for all clients with overdue invoices within a specified date range.

You can see at a glance:

• Which firms with overdue invoices you have contacted/taken action on.
• What kind of action was taken and when.
• Who on your staff should be reminded to follow up with the client and when.
• Your designated collector on the account.
• Any notes about the action taken.

You can search Collection Follow-up by:

• Dates actions were taken
• Dates someone in your company was/will be reminded to take action by the internal notification system
• Types of action taken (such as call made or statement sent)
• Assigned collector

Listings in the results display the firm name followed by:

• Info from the search categories above
• Person responsible for following up
• Any notes made about the collection attempts

You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, RB9 will revert back to the default order). Export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

You can click any listed firm to view their collection history and other client information, such as their phone number. And you can:

• Record your current collections effort.
• Set a reminder date and time.
• Designate which staff to remind.
• Enter notes about the action/reminder.

At the designated time, RB9 will send the staffer an automated message through Notifications and Messages with a link to the firm’s records, so they can quickly take action.

Periodically review Collection Follow-up to see what progress is being made with overdue clients and if anything is falling through the cracks.

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

TL;DR: Keep your collection efforts on track by contacting overdue clients as scheduled, tracking responses and promises, and setting reminders.

RB concepts in this lesson

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

Lesson #60

Receivables – Collection Letters function

If you want to send collection letters instead of or in addition to calling clients, RB9 includes a set of customizable collection letters. You can print and mail them traditionally — or email them directly from within RB9.

Collection letters are part of RB9’s collection toolbox making collections easier and more productive. After running the Aged A/R report to find clients who owe you money use collection letters are part of your efforts to contact them. RB9’s collection form letters automatically include client and invoice details from your RB database. RB9’s collection form letters are fully customizable — and you can create new ones to cover all of your collections’ situations in the Form Templates function.

You can access the Collection Letters function from RB9’s main menu or within the Aged A/R function — which gives you a head start by selecting all of a client’s outstanding invoices for you.

Target your letters

You generate collection letters for one client firm at a time. You can choose to send letters to either the firm that is responsible for paying for the invoice(s) or the firm that scheduled the job(s) the invoice(s) are billing.

After selecting the firm, you can choose to generate letters regarding invoices for:

• A single contact
• All of the contacts at the firm
• All overdue invoices
• A particular date range
• A single case
• One, some, or all of your company’s business units

Search results listings include all of the search categories plus the invoice number, amount, and balance. You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function RB9 will revert back to the default order). Export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to edit, share, archive, or print.

Customize letters

When contacting a client regarding multiple overdue invoices, you can send one letter to the client that compiles information about all of the selected invoices — or send multiple letters with each letter including information about a single invoice. Whether you are sending letters regarding one invoice or multiple invoices you choose which collection letter template you want to use and whether you are sending the collection letter(s) via email or print.

Whether emailing or printing collection letters, you can review and edit the contents generated by RB9 before emailing/printing the letter.

When emailing collection letters you enter a custom Subject line. Optionally you can include the related invoices. Even add other files from your desktop as attachments. RB9 records the email sent in the Email Log function in Tools so you can refer back to it later. (When emailing collection letters for multiple invoices we do not recommend using the send one collection letter per invoice option because it will embed multiple collection letters in one email body.)

If email isn’t appropriate for collections, you can have RB9 compose collection letters in a print-friendly format which you can review and edit in RB9’s word processing interface, then send via traditional methods.

Follow up letters

After sending a client a collection letter, make an entry in the firm’s Collections Notes Log to keep a record of your actions — and set a follow-up reminder date in Collections Follow-up to have RB9 remind you when you should check in with the client again.

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

TL;DR: Send clients collection letters via email or traditional mail with all relevant details automatically filled in.

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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

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

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

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

Lesson #59

Receivables – Voided Invoices function

Quickly see which invoices were voided today, or use search criteria to find all invoices voided within a specified period, from oldest invoice to most recent.

The default view is all invoices that were billed and voided today. To find other voided invoices you can use a different date range and search by:

• Invoice date
• Date the invoice was posted
• Date the related transaction was posted
• Date the invoice was voided

You can limit the results to those of one or several of your company’s business units.

See important details upfront

In the results returned, you can see at a glance:

• Invoice number
• Invoice date
• Invoice amount
• Resource pay (so you can void the resource’s pay if that is your policy)
• Any sales tax charged
• Void date
• Who in your company voided the invoice
• (If it was re-billed) the re-billed invoice number
• Firm billed
• Relevant contact at the firm
• Job number
• Job date
• Related case
• Your company’s assigned business unit

You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, RB9 will revert back to the default order).

View & edit individual invoices

You can drill down to see details about an individual invoice, such as:

• Services ordered
• Related resource pay
• Sales commissions
• Any payments or other receivable transactions
• When the void was made

You can edit some details, upload/download files, and makes notes in the log.

Export the list of voiced invoices as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications. You can also export individual invoices’ breakdowns of charges for service items ordered and what resources were paid for them, payments or other transactions to date, list of files in the invoice’s repository, and the notes log.

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

TL;DR: Lists all invoices voided within a specified period, from oldest invoice to most recent.

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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

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

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

Notes Logs: Un-editable internal-use only notes entered either by a user or automatically by RB. More >

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

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

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

Lesson #58

Receivables – Paid Invoices function

Quickly see which invoices were entered as paid today, or use search criteria to find all invoices paid within a specified period, grouped and sorted by the payment date or when the transaction was posted. You can also limit the results to those of one or several of your company’s business units.

In the results returned, you can see at a glance:

• invoice number
• Date
• Amount
• Payment date
• Payment amount
• Any balance remaining
• Firm billed
• Relevant contact at the firm billed
• Job number
• Job date
• Related case
• Your company’s assigned business unit

You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, RB9 will revert back to the default order). Export the list to edit, share, archive, or print.

You can drill down to see details about an individual invoice, such as the service items billed, related resource pay and sales commissions, and the breakdown of charges included in the payment. You can also download the related invoice PDF from the invoice repository or resend it to the client, and edit some invoice details.

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

TL;DR: Lists all invoices paid within the specified period, from first paid to latest paid.

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lesson #57

Receivables – Client Account Activity function

This report lists each client’s posted monthly activities, grouped by business unit, plus a grand total outstanding balance. Monthly activities include:

• Invoices
• Payments
• Credit memos
• Debit memos
• Duplicate payments
• Refunds
• Voids
• Write-offs

Invoices in the list include the remaining balance due, number of witnesses deposed, number of pages billed with the invoice, and if applicable, the associated case number and case name. Payments and other receivable transactions include the check number or notes about the transaction, such as the reason, payment method, and transaction fees.

Generate custom activity reports

The default report is for the previous month, but you can set any date range to generate a report for. You can generate reports that show activities by the ordering parties or the parties responsible for paying the invoices (such as insurance companies). You can generate reports for all firms, a single firm, or to see all activity across one multi-branch firm, broken down by branch office. You can limit results to one or more of your company’s billing rate groups and/or business units.

From your search criteria, RB9 generates a static monthly report listing all applicable transactions in chronological order grouped alphabetically by client on separate pages for each of your business units, plus a final page that lists the grand total balance, total number of witnesses, and total pages billed. The report’s footer will display which search criteria you used to generate the particular report with the exception of blank search fields or ALL list selections. If you select two or more items in a list, the report will display that as “(multiple values selected).”

You can search for a word or phrase in the onscreen report. RB9 will highlight all instances of your searched word/phrase in the report and list them in a scroll box along with the page number where they occur. Print the report or export it in a variety of formats to save, share, or edit in another application.

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

TL;DR: Lists all activities for the month, plus all unpaid invoices for each client.

RB concepts in this lesson

Billing Rate Groups: Umbrella structures that categorize your billing rates. Instead of one long list of billing rates, Billing Rate Groups create a series of shorter lists to search through.

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

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 >