Tag Archives: Service Item Master

Set up billable services

Customize lists of your billable services so staff, resources, and clients all have the same options when billing/turning in jobs/requesting services …

Lesson #116
Setup – Service Item Master function

Regular charges that you bill to your clients are called service items in RB. 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.

You store and organize all the service items you bill to clients in the Service Item Master. Then during Turn In you select services from lists instead of entering items by hand. If you have RB Connect your clients and resources also select services from lists, eliminating longhand requests from clients and an assortment of descriptions in turned-in jobs. Instead service item descriptions are consistent throughout your system.

Service Item Master set-up

There are 9 main categories in the Service Items Master List, called Service Groups, which represent the most commonly used billable items for court reporters. These main categories are preset by the system and cannot be modified by the user.

Within these main groups are subgroups that further organize your services so you do not have to scroll through your entire list of billable items to find a service to add to an invoice.  You can add/edit/remove subgroups that organize your miscellaneous services in the Service Item Subgroups function. After setting up your subgroups enter your company’s billable services with their details into these subgroups in the Service Item Master. You will use these items for setting billing rates.

Customize the defaults

The Service Item Master comes with a set of default service items already organized into subgroups. You can:

  • Add/edit/merge/delete/de-activate service items in Misc. Charge subgroups.
  • Edit the name of service items in the Attendance Service Group.
  • Set default billing and pay information for all individual service items.
  • If you have clients who require that invoices be submitted electronically, you can enter LEDES codes in your service items.

Once you have set up your service items with their defaults, you can set up multiple billing rate and pay rate tables with custom rates for service items to cover different invoicing and resource pay scenarios. The options that you set in each service item copy to the billing and pay rates tables you create, saving time because you only have to update the defaults that need changing.

At any time, you can update service item rates and options. The default view in the Service Item Master lists all active service items within their service groups and subgroups to make it easy to locate an item. You can restrict the view to a single service group, a single subgroup, or service item name. You can also view all items, not only active items, that fit your search criteria.

You can:

  • Add new service items
  • Delete service items that are not needed.
  • Merge service items into other service items.
  • If you do not want to delete or merge an item you can de-activate it. (Deactivated service items do not appear as a choice when billing.)
  • If you have multiple billing or pay rate tables that need the same rate or option changed (including LEDES codes), you can update them all at once within Service Item Master with the Mass Update feature.

Information you can include in each service item:

  • Service item Subgroup
  • Service item name (the only required field). The name is important because it is how the service will appear in Turn-In, on invoices, and in RB Connect.
  • Unit type, such as pages, miles, or hours. RB prints the unit type on detailed invoices next to the number of units so your clients have a better idea of what they are being billed for. You can set up your own unit types in Lists.
  • Account number of the related revenue account. You can customize your accounts in Chart of Accounts.
  • Whether the item is active (will appear as an option when billing) or not
  • Default billing rate (amount you charge per unit for the service item) and minimum billing amount, if applicable
  • Whether you pay resources a flat amount ($) or a percentage of what’s billed (%) for this service item
  • Default pay rate (amount/percentage you pay per unit) and minimum pay amount, if applicable
  • If the billing rate or pay rate increases when an order containing this service item is expedited
  • If the service item is a taxable court cost or sales taxable
  • If the service item is discountable (if you offer a negotiated discount on a firms’ invoices, what’s discountable is specified at the service item level, and the discount percentage the client will receive is entered in their Firms setup.)
  • If you award clients points for ordering services, and the service item should be included in the revenue calculation to accumulate points
  • If you have sales representatives or pay incentive commissions to resources who bring in their own clients, and the service item should be included in the calculation of commissions
  • If you want to include the service item name and/or amount when an invoice is printed with “no details”
  • If you want to make the service item available for clients to request when they are scheduling online, or for resources to select when they are turning in jobs online using RB Connect
  • If you want to include the service item on production sheets
  • If you want RB to calculate charges for this service item based on the number of pages in the transcript and pages to deduct like Original/Copy service items do
  • UTBMS codes (if you want invoices to be LEDES compliant). If an insurance company requires different codes than the standard, you can update their billing rate tables only without modifying the service item master list.

The list of service items in the Service Item Master displays all of this information for each item listed, so you can see it upfront. You do not need to go into individual service items unless you want to edit/delete/merge/mass update rate tables. You can sort the list 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.

TL;DR: Set up service items, including default billing and pay info. Group related service items so you can locate them quickly in their subgroups when billing, instead of scrolling through a long, undifferentiated list of all miscellaneous service items. If you have RB Connect, your clients and resources will be able to select service items the same way.

RB concepts in this lesson

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

Firm: Companies you do business with.

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

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

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Setup

Contains functions for customizing RB …

Lesson #110
Customize your RB setup

You can run your business using the setup defaults that RB includes. Or use this module to edit them, delete any you don’t need, and add your own options to tailor RB to your work processes. You can update any Setup function at any time. In this module, you can:

  • Customize lists by adding, editing, merging, and deleting list entries. Set the default entry that appears in any field tied to a list.
  • Set up users, store work-related and personal information about them, and give them user names and passwords to access RB. Group them according to their access levels and job functions, so they can perform their jobs and receive internal messages. 
  • Customize the default Chart of Accounts to match your general ledger or accounting software.
  • Set up service items and group related service items so you can locate them quickly in their subgroups when billing, instead of scrolling through a long, undifferentiated list of all miscellaneous service items.
  • Enter billing, pay, and rush rates for services, including e-billing information.
  • Set up billing rate groups for different categories of clients so you don’t have to scroll through all of your billing rate tables each time you invoice a client. Set up pay rate groups for resources too.
  • Group service items into billing sets to speed up billable services selection because you only have to choose the set, not each of the items individually.
  • Set the year’s pay dates and their corresponding cutoff dates for each pay period. 
  • Create your own invoice headers and messages for different circumstances.
  • Set up tracking items to match your production workflow, then define the steps each item goes through in your process.
  • Define preferences for how your RB-PDF transcripts will appear and what options they will include. Create multiple transcript preference profiles to cover different transcript requirements.
  • Create stamps like “Original” or ”Certified Copy” to apply to transcripts.
  • If exhibit file names and exhibit references in transcripts follow a pattern, for example they are numbered consecutively, save production time by setting up those patterns before producing hyperlinked transcripts.
  • Set up exhibit stamp templates that will automatically include RB job information and number PDF exhibits sequentially.
  • Set global preferences for difference features in RB.

Setup functions by name

TL;DR: Customize RB to match your business better.

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 >

RB-PDF Transcript: PDF version of a transcript with built-in transcript-specific features like hyperlinked exhibits, word lists/indexes, errata sheets, and enhanced headers/footers containing case and depo information.

Service items: Regular charges that you bill to your clients are called service items in RB.

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