Tag Archives: Receivables

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, plus 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 #52

Receivables – Daily Balance Log function

Get an instant snapshot of accounts receivable, or reestablish a starting balance as of a certain date by using this audit function. You can view the report for your company as a whole, for a single business unit or for several BUs.

Daily Balance Log defaults to all transactions for your company in the current month to date. You can change the start date for reporting transactions to find previous starting balances.

The report lists all dates within your specified range on which transactions occurred that affected your accounts receivable and displays the day’s beginning balance, the amounts from transactions that increased and decreased A/R, and the day’s ending balance after the increases are added and the decreases are subtracted.

Daily Balance Log uses the entered date of a Receivables transaction instead of the post date (when it was closed out) to match the Aged A/R report.

You can view any listed day’s transactions broken out and grouped according to type (invoices, payments, debits, voids, write-offs, etc.). You can also sort these breakout lists by invoice number or date.

You can export the report and breakout lists as Excel or CSV files to save, share, print, or use in other applications.

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

TL;DR: Use this audit function to see accounts receivable balances for any date; for example, if you need to reestablish a starting balance as of a certain date.

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.

Lesson #51

Receivables – Daily Register function

Run the Daily Register function after posting transactions for a set period so you can review reports of transactions for the 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.

RB provides three types of daily registers: sales, cash receipts-payment, and cash receipts-other.

The Sales Register lists all invoices posted for the specified period, grouped and subtotaled by business unit. It shows you how much revenue you generated. Each business unit (BU) has its own page(s), and 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.

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), and 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.

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 posted 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.

Lesson #50

Receivables – Resource Billings Report function

If your firm currently provides resources copies of their invoices, you can provide this report instead. Resources can check that they are getting paid for their work that was billed without seeing all the details on the invoice to the client.

When an invoice is generated in RB9, resources’ earnings are created simultaneously. You can have an unlimited number of earnings per invoice. The Resource Billings Report lists each earning (i.e., a service item and its pay amount), grouped and subtotaled by resource, one resource per page. The report includes a grand total on the last page adding together all the resources’ earnings in the report.

The default report lists today’s earnings for all of your resources. You can generate these earnings reports for other time periods, for a single resource or all resources, and/or for one or more business units of your company. The report’s footer will display which search criteria you used to generate the report with the exception of blank search fields, ALL list selections, or if you are generating a report for a single resource.

You can search for a word or phrase in the 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.

Export the report as PDF (or one of the other 5 file formats) or print it to give each resource a copy of their own earnings.

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

TL;DR: Provide resources with their own reports of what work they completed has been posted and what amounts they can expect from that work. The report lists each service item and its pay amount, grouped and subtotaled by resource, one resource per page.

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.

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

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

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 or 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 include the entire balance, including late charges and finance charges, in a debit memo. You can also credit any commissions back to the related resource/sales rep. 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 customer or a 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 on any write-off to void its commission(s).

Entering ‘Other Transactions’

When you open this function any unposted transaction 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 (in 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. Plus 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.

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.

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.)

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.)

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 contact responsible for paying the invoice for a job.

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.

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: Contact that ordered the services on the invoice.

Sold To Firm: Firm 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.