Tag Archives: RB9

Lesson #40

Inquiry – Client Analysis function

Use Client Analysis to get a snapshot of a client’s billing activity via what services they purchased. Compare totals by period to track your most important customers.

Client Analysis is similar to Client Activity, except in Client Activity you see information about a client’s invoices that fit your search criteria. In Client Analysis you see information about service items billed to the client.

You can view billed service item amounts for:

• Firms that scheduled the jobs that included the billed services or by the firms responsible for paying the invoices for the services (since they are not always the same firm).
• A firm’s parent company, not just the individual firm if they are part of a larger organization.
• All of the contacts at the firm, or a specific contact.

You can further refine your results by including a date or date range for the invoice(s), the job(s), or when the invoice(s) posted in RB9. You can view billed service items for paid or unpaid invoices, or all invoices that match the other search criteria.

You can find billed service item amounts for a single case. And you can view billed services by all, some, or a single business unitof your company.

If you don’t use any of the search filters, Client Analysis will list all of the selected client’s billed services with your company since their first invoice.

Interactive snapshot of billed services

Client Analysis displays a snapshot of billed service item amounts that meet the specified search condition(s), with each category broken down into number of units sold, billed rush charges, and total billed amounts’ year-to-date and all-time totals. It includes sales and court taxes as separate line items so amounts match Client Activity reports.

The results returned in Client Analysis are interactive, so you can drill down in the information by clicking on dates or service line items. You can see monthly and quarterly amounts for the main service categories, for subgroups within the main categories, and for individual service items. Category totals and subtotals appear on gray backgrounds with bold headers to differentiate them from individual line items. You can also see the details of all of the results at once with a click.

You can export the report in Excel format to save, share, use in other applications, or print.

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

TL;DR: This interactive report summarizes a client’s billed activity, broken down by service item. Compare totals by period to track your most important customers.

RB concepts in this lesson

Bill To Firm: Firm 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.

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

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

Parent Firm: Headquarters of a multi-branch corporation.

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

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

Lesson #39

Inquiry – Client Activity function

Look up a single client’s invoices using filters to focus your search so you can, for example search the client’s invoices by case to come up with a settlement amount for a particular case in seconds, no matter how long the case has been going on.

And if the client requests a copy of all the invoices for that case you can email them all of those invoices as a single PDF file with the click of a button.

Finding invoices

You can find invoices for a firm that scheduled the jobs billed or the firm responsible for paying the invoices (since they are not always the same firm). You can find invoices for a firm’s parent company — not just the individual firm if they are part of a larger organization. You can find invoices for all of the contacts at the firm, or a specific contact.

You can further refine your results by filtering for the date or date range of the invoice(s), the job(s), or when the invoice(s) posted in RB. You can find a firm’s invoices for all jobs or a single case. And you can find firms invoices billed by all, some, or a single business unit of your company.

The search results include all of the search categories (except the post date) plus invoice number and amount, balance, payment date, job number, and date voided. You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function RB will revert back to the default order).

You can export the results to save, share, use in other applications, or print as a report.

Email multiple invoices as single PDF

You can view all invoices or only paid or unpaid invoices — which is handy when you are looking for a client’s outstanding invoices. If viewing unpaid invoices you can email a single PDF of the invoices with “Past Due” automatically stamped on them.

If you don’t use any of the search filters RB will list all of the selected client’s financial activity with your company.

If you don’t want to send all the invoices listed in your search results you can select only the ones you want to include in the compiled PDF. You can also include other attachments with the email if desired. When you send invoices from Client Activity RB logs the event in the invoice’s Notes Log.

You can view any invoice’s details from the search results and see the same level of detail as in Invoice Inquiry.

Embedded in Aged A/R report

While you can access Client Activity from the main menu in RB, you can also access individual client’s activity directly from the interactive Aged A/R report in Receivables — saving you time when working on collections or just looking for answers about the client’s outstanding invoice amounts displayed in the Aged A/R report.

TL;DR: One use of Client Activity is to generate a settlement amount for a particular case in seconds — no matter how long the case has been going on. Plus you can send the client a single PDF of their related invoices. 

RB concepts in this lesson

Bill To Firm: Firm 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.

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

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 Log: 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.

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

Lesson #38

Inquiry – Invoice Inquiry function

Search for posted invoices using a variety of criteria, such as invoice number, type, amount(s) and/or date(s). Find invoices for a particular job, location, case, claim number and/or client matter number. Limit your search to open or paid invoices. Send original or current invoices to clients. Export or print the results as a report. Get detailed information about the invoices including payment history.

Quickest way to find invoices

Invoice Inquiry will usually be the best function for finding invoices when you don’t have the invoice number because it has the most search filters. You can search for invoices using any one or combination of these filters:

• Invoice number
• Invoice date, job date, or invoice-posted date
• Date range
• Job number
• Open invoices, paid invoices, or both
• Case
• Claim number
• Client matter number
• Invoice total $ amount range
• Client’s reference number
• Resource’s reference number
• Type of invoice — such as its source, purpose, or function
• Job location city and/or state
• Business units

Invoice Inquiry lists posted invoices based on your set of search criteria as an exportable/printable report. The report includes information from the search categories as well as the amount outstanding, void date, Bill To client, and Sold To client so you can see most information about an invoice at a glance.

Invoice Inquiry displays an invoice’s original amount plus 2 current balance amounts:

1. The outstanding amount of the original invoice minus any payments appears in the Balance column.
2. The current balance for the invoice including all fees added since the original invoice was issued — such as late charges and finance charges — and minus any payments already made appears in the Balance+ column.

The report also includes a Totals line. You can export the grid as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV(comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

Customize how you view posted invoice lists

The grid in which you view posted invoices 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.

View, re-send, & edit any invoice listed

You can view, send, and update individual invoices listed. For example if you didn’t get a party’s e-billing information until you posted the invoice, you can enter it here. You can see information about the witness, service items, and billed amounts. Plus you can see what the resource was paid and when. You can also view an invoice’s detailed receivables transactions — including late fees, finance charges, and credit card processing fees — as well as download the invoice from the repository and read the invoice’s Notes Log.

You can email or print out the invoice you are viewing. You can choose the original or the current invoice that includes any finance or late charges added since the invoice was originally issued. If emailing you can include other attachments from your desktop or RB’s Witness-level Repository plus edit the email contents before sending. If you choose the print option, you can preview the invoice with details on or off, export the invoice in a variety of formats plus search for a word or phrase in the onscreen invoice. RB will highlight all instances of your searched word/phrase in the invoice and list them in a scroll box along with the page number where they occur.

NOTE: Because COD invoices are different from regular invoices and cannot be posted until paid, they are not included in Invoice Inquiry searches. To find COD invoices, use Billing > COD Invoices.

TL;DR: Search for posted invoices using a wide variety of criteria. Export or print your results as a report. Get detailed information about the invoices including payment history.

RB concepts in this lesson

Bill To client: Client 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.

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

Repository: RB has 9 repositories where you store files for safekeeping and quick retrieval, including a dedicated invoice repository.

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

Sold To client: Client responsible for a job with your company.

Lesson #37

Find targeted information fast

Need to find an invoice quickly? Want to know how much you billed a client last month? These questions and more can be answered in the Inquiry module. What you can do in this module includes:

• Instantly locate information about jobs, invoices, clients, resources, witnesses, payments and transcripts. 
• Generate a settlement amount for a particular case in seconds, no matter how long the case has been going on. Send a client a PDF of their invoices. 
• Analyze aspects of your business, such as clients’ billing activity and resources’ billing and pay amounts. Run monthly, yearly, and year-to-date total reports. 
• Audit resource pay overrides.
• Print labels for cards and gifts to send to clients celebrating upcoming birthdays and other anniversaries.
• Find who your best clients and resources are, and which clients are new or inactive.

Inquiry functions by name

• Invoice Inquiry
• Client Activity
• Client Analysis – RB9-only function
• Resource Activity
• Resource Analysis – RB9-only function
• Witness Inquiry
• Receivable Transaction Inquiry
• Override Resource Pay Inquiry
• Anniversary Inquiry – RB9-only function
• Marketing Inquiry – RB9-only function

TL;DR: Use Inquiry functions to quickly look up information about invoices, clients, resources, witnesses, and transactions.

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 >

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

Lesson #36

Billing – Export Invoices function

If you have clients that require LEDES-compliant electronic billing, first set up your RB9 LEDES preferences for service items and invoices. Then enter your clients’ codes — such as their Client Matter No. and Client ID — on the case party, job party, or invoice level. When you generate invoices for the related jobs, they will have the proper UTBMS codes and you can export them in LEDES 98B format, which is the most commonly used LEDES format, and email the text file to the client.

After posting invoices, search for a particular firm’s invoices in Export Invoices. The default is invoices generated yesterday but you can choose any date range. You can also search for a firm’s invoices by post date instead of invoice date. Restrict your search results further by filtering for a single case and/or your company’s business units.

Invoices in the results gird display their information in all of the search categories plus:

• Invoice number
• Invoice amount
• Bill To contacts and firms (clients)
• Sold To clients
• Job number
• Job date

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.

You can view any individual invoice’s details, edit some of its information, upload/download/email/manage its repository files, and make notes in its Notes Log.

Export any or all invoices listed in Export Invoices results in LEDES 1998B format to your device as a .txt file, which you can then validate and email to your client from your device.

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

TL;DR: Export invoices in LEDES 98B format for clients who require electronic billing that complies with LEDES standards.

RB concepts in this lesson

Bill To Contact/Firm: The contact/firm 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.

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 >

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.

Service items: Regular charges that you bill to your clients. Service items are listed on your invoices to provide itemized details for your clients and third-party payers. In-house, they provide information to help you analyze your revenue streams.

Sold To Contact/Firm: Contact/Firm that ordered the services on the invoice.

Lesson #35

Billing – Transfer Invoice function

Transfer invoices between clients when there has been a mistake in addressing the invoice to a client, instead of voiding and re-billing.

Find the invoice you want to transfer to another client by its invoice number, date, job number, case, and/or your company’s business unit(s).

Invoices in the results gird display their information in all of the search categories plus:

• Invoice amount
• Balance
• Post date
• Sent date
• Bill To and Sold To clients
• Job date
• Void date

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.

Transfer options

You have several options for transferring invoices. You can change the:

• Firm responsible for paying the invoice (Bill To firm)
• Contact responsible for paying the invoice (Bill To contact)
• Firm which ordered the services billed on the invoice (Sold To firm)
• Contact who ordered the services billed on the invoice (Sold To contact)

You can transfer a posted invoice even if it has already been paid.

TL;DR: If you billed the wrong client, transfer the invoice to the correct client, instead of voiding the invoice and re-billing.

RB concepts in this lesson

Bill To Contact: The person responsible for paying the invoice for a job. This contact could be the same as the Sold To Contact, but also could be a different person at the same firm or a person at a third-party firm that is paying the invoice, such as an insurance agency.

Bill To Firm: The firm responsible for paying the invoice for a job. This firm could be the same as the Sold To Firm, 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.

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

Sold To Contact: Usually the person who ordered a job.

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

Lesson #34

Billing – Send Invoices function

After posting invoices to your RB ledger, send clients copies of their invoices and archive the invoices in the central repository.

You can access the Send Invoices function either directly from the main menu or when posting invoices. When you post invoices, RB gives you the choice to send/archive the invoices at the same time which automatically opens the Send Invoices window with the posted invoice(s) in the results pane.

In Send Invoices you have a lot of options for finding posted invoices  — and more options for what you want to do with them. You can find the invoice(s) for a single job or use other search filters to find invoices for a date/date range, a case, a Bill To firm, one or more invoice types, and/or one or more business units in your company.

Invoices in the results gird display their information in all of the search categories plus :

• Invoice amount
• Balance
• Date sent
• Method used to send the invoice
• Bill To clients
• Sold To clients
• Void date

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.

You can preview original and current versions of posted invoices with service items details visible or not. Then email either version to ordering clients or print them to send via traditional delivery methods. You do not have to choose which method to use for each client here. Contacts’ preferred method of receiving invoices — email, print, or none — is stored in their RB database entry. The Send Invoices function will automatically send invoices via each contacts’ preferred method, but you can override it for individual invoices when sending.

Emailing invoices

If you send invoices from RB9 via email and you have RB Connect, you can automatically include a Pay Invoice link in the invoice emails so when your clients click the link they will go directly to the invoice in their RB Connect office to pay the invoice online.

When emailing invoices you can attach files from your desktop or your RB Witness-level Repository.

If you email invoices, RB9 records the emails sent in the Email Log function in Tools, so you can refer back to them later. It also makes an entry that includes the receiver’s email address in the Notes Log of the sent invoices.

You can archive original invoices to the Invoice-level repository here. With all options — send, print, or archive — you can select any or all invoices to process at the same time.

TL;DR: Send clients copies of their original or current posted invoices and archive the invoices in the central repository.

RB concepts in this lesson

Bill To Contact/Firm: Contact/Firm 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.

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 >

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

Repository: RB has 9 repositories where you store files for safekeeping and quick retrieval. When you store files in a case, they are in RB’s Case Repository; when you store files in a job, they are in RB’s Job Repository; etc. If you have RB Connect, you can give clients and/or resources access to specific repository files.

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

Sold To Contact/Firm: Contact/Firm that ordered the services on the invoice.

Lesson #33

Billing – COD Invoices function

Cash on Delivery (COD) invoices require the Bill To Firm to pay the invoice when presented — instead of having a grace period before the invoice is due. COD invoices are not included in sales so RB does not allow them to be posted or archived to the central repository. CODs are handled differently than sales to avoid overstating revenue and to minimize the number of voids that would occur to clear uncollectible CODs from your accounts receivable.

You designate an invoice as COD when generating it in Turn In. If you have designated a firm as a COD client in the firm’s listing, their invoices will automatically be COD unless you turn off the COD designation in their invoices manually.

RB handles COD invoices separately

If after calculating an invoice in Turn In the Post Invoices button is grayed out, the invoice is a COD invoice. Use the COD Invoices function to manage and send these COD invoices.

Because COD invoices are different from regular invoices and cannot be posted until paid, they are not included in Send Invoices or Invoice Inquiry searches. To find COD invoices use the COD Invoices function.

In the COD Invoices main window you can find all COD invoices at once — or restrict your results to a particular date range, case, Bill To Firm, job number, or selected business unit(s). You can also look up individual COD invoices.

Invoices in the results gird display their information in all of the search categories — plus invoice amount, when sent, Bill To Contacts and Sold To clients, and job date. 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.

From this list you can edit, calculate, preview, email, and print individual COD invoices.

Manage COD invoices

You can use this function in combination with other functions for applying payments, purging invoices, and sharing associated files online:

• When you receive a payment for a COD invoice, use this function to remove the invoice’s COD flag and post the invoice. Then apply the payment in Receivables. COD invoices will not appear in Receivables’ outstanding invoices until you post them here.
• Use this function to find COD invoices older than a set date — such as 90 days old — then delete them in Turn In. Do this on a monthly basis — or whatever schedule works best for your organization.
• In addition to emailing and printing COD invoices you can use COD invoices with RB Connect. Since COD invoices are not posted in RB they do not appear in clients’ RB Connect online offices unless you manually publish them to RB Connect. This is better than other COD payment methods because the client has to pay the COD invoice online first before they can download the associated transcript.

TL;DR: Because COD invoices are not treated as sales until paid use this function to manage and send COD invoices.

RB concepts in this lesson

Bill To Firm: The firm 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.

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

Sold To Contact/Firm: Person/company that ordered the services on the invoice.

Lesson #32

Billing – Post Invoices function

Instead of posting invoices one at a time in Turn In, you can save time by posting in batches in Post Invoices. You can also archive the invoices to your repository as you post them.

Finding & reviewing invoices

You can view all unposted invoices or restrict your list to invoices in a specific date range and/or for selected business units. You can include COD invoices in your search. You can also look up individual invoices by job or invoice number.

Invoices in the results are color coded by job status plus you can see at a glance if you didn’t calculate an invoice in Turn In in the unposted invoices list, then calculate it here with the click of a button before posting. You can preview invoices from the list. Other information in the results grid includes:

• Invoice number
• Invoice date
• Invoice and pay amounts
• If the invoice is for originals
• If the invoice is COD
• If the invoice needs calculation
• Date sent
• Job number
• Job date
• Job status
• Business unit
• Case
• Sold To firm and contact
• Bill To firm and contact

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.

Posting invoices

Post any or all invoices at the same time — and archive them in your repository in the same process if desired. When posting you have the option to send invoices to the clients at the same time. RB will automatically open the Send Invoices function with the posted invoices selected. You can choose to email the original or current invoices — or print them for sending via other methods.

To reduce errors you can turn on an RB option in System Preferences that will alert you when an invoice does not have a pay rate applied to it — or the total pay amount is 0 — and you attempt to post it.

Before posting, you can:

• Preview invoices. If you styled the text in invoice messages and third-party direct billing notes (such as bolding text or adding color), your styling will appear on the invoices.
• View any invoice’s details.
• Edit some invoice information, such as the date, message, and insurance/e-billing information.
• Upload/download/manage files in the invoice’s repository.
• Monitor repository activity. See which clients can access a file in the repository, who has downloaded it, and when.
• Look up and make notes in the invoice’s Notes Log.

After posting an invoice, it will appear in Receivables and RB financial reports. Once posted, an invoice cannot be deleted.

TL;DR: Save time by posting invoices in batches. You can archive and send them at the same time.

RB concepts in this lesson

Bill To Contact/Firm: The contact/firm 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.

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.

Sold To Contact/Firm: Contact/Firm that ordered the services on the invoice.

Lesson #31

Finish invoice process started in Turn In

The Billing module is one of the smallest modules in RB. Its focus is on managing and sending invoices prepared in Turn In. What you can do in this module includes:

• After preparing invoices in Turn In, you can finalize and post them from Turn In or in Billing. The main difference is that you can speed up the process by posting in batches in Billing.
• You can also batch email or print original and current invoices,  and archive original invoices in the repository.
• Billing is where you edit, preview, email, and print COD invoices.
• Transfer invoices between clients when there has been a mistake in addressing the invoice to a client, instead of voiding and re-billing.
• Export invoices in LEDES 98B format for clients who require electronic billing that complies with LEDES standards. 

Billing functions by name

• Post Invoices
• COD Invoices
• Send Invoices
• Transfer Invoices
• Export Invoices – RB9-only function

TL;DR: Use Billing to post and send invoices in batches, plus send COD invoices, correct billing mistakes, and prepare invoices in a LEDES format for electronic billing.