Tag Archives: Turn In

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.

Lesson #24

Production – Shipping function

When clients call to find out where their order is, you don’t have to leave RB9 to check the shipping status. Use the Shipping function to send products via FedEx or UPS, and you can quickly follow up an order’s current location from within RB9.

You can also use this function to keep track of when and via what other methods you sent jobs out, and update the job status of any shipped job or any other information about the shipping and its related job, case, and contacts.

Use Shipping to:

• Ship out produced service items.
• Print FedEx & UPS shipping labels that automatically include addresses from your RB9 database and your shipping preferences, and are tied to your FedEx/UPS account. If contact information is incorrect you can update it here and RB9 will update the contact’s listing.
• Track UPS & FedEx shipments from inside RB9.
• Note if you used another sending method such as via courier or email.
• Record notes about a shipment.
• Search for shipments using job or invoice number, shipping date(s), delivery method(s), and/or business unit(s) to quickly locate a shipment to track or to create a new shipment with the same job, case, and invoice information. You can sort your search results by one or more columns in ascending or descending order. {When you exit the function, RB will revert back to the default order.)
• Export the list of shipments to an Excel or CSV file to save, print, share, or use in other applications. (Similarly you can export the witness/service item list from any shipment.)
• Change a job’s status to Shipped. RB9 will automatically alert your billing department that the job is ready to be billed if they do not invoice a job until it has shipped.

Shipping is a stand alone function but you can also access it directly within Turn In when entering service items to be billed.

FedEx/UPS tracking in RB9

When you generate a FedEx or UPS shipping label in RB9, it automatically:

• Enters the receiver’s address, phone number, and email. It also will validate the address before generating the label unless you deselect that option.
• Sets the Ship From address, phone number, and email to the assigned business unit of your company. (You can select a different business unit.)
• Enters your shipping preferences. (You can set up multiple profiles with different preferences and the same or different business unit.)
• Enters the tracking number in the shipment’s record.
• Enters today as the ship date.
• Adds the estimated shipping cost to the shipment’s record in RB9. Estimated Shipping Cost appears in the Shipping function’s results grid and in individual shipping label windows.

When you click the tracking number in RB9 it opens the related delivery service website in your browser and shows the shipment’s current status.

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

TL;DR: Use the Shipping function to send products via FedEx or UPS, and track an order’s current location without leaving RB9.

RB concepts in this lesson

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately, such as branch offices, other companies you own, affiliates, and profit-sharing operations.

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

Job Status: Stage a job is in, e.g., New or Cancelled. You can designate your own job statuses in RB.

Concept #5

Prefill

When you prefill a job, case, or invoice, RB automatically adds related parties and/or service items — saving time and reducing the chance of incomplete invoices.

Without prefill, you have to enter parties and services one at a time every time. With prefill, you check first for previously entered choices — such as parties to a case or a client’s standing orders — and add some or all of them at once. Prefilling saves time and reduces the chance of overlooking something by automatically including related parties and/or services.

Standing orders

If your clients have certain services they always want — for example the original ASCII file and a condensed transcript — you can enter these standing orders in their profile. Both firms and contacts can have standing orders — which can be different if contacts at a firm have their own service requirements in addition to or in place of the firm’s requirements. You can add these standing orders when prefilling parties.

Prefill parties

Parties and their requested services can be entered at any time:

• In a case starting in the pre-trial discovery phase where you can prefill services from firms’ and contacts’ standing orders.
• To a job where you can prefill from a case.
• In Turn In when creating invoices where you can prefill from the job, case, and recent related turn-ins.
• If you have RB Connect, resources enter parties and services when turning in jobs online. You can give them the option to prefill parties from the job, case, or previous turn-ins.

The Recent Turn-ins option when creating invoices is useful because when parties are added to a case during pre-trial discovery, it’s usually so they can access the case calendar and repository files through RB Connect. They might not have any preferred services. However it’s highly likely that parties to a case that have ordered services on previous jobs in the case will order the same services for similar jobs on the same case, which would be included in Recent Turn-ins so you can easily add them to an invoice.

Prefill services

When you prefill parties in Turn In who have standing orders or previously ordered services, RB creates invoices that automatically include those service items. You can save time entering other service items in batches using Prefill Services.

Use Prefill Orders & Services to include service requests from:

• Billing Sets: Like a fast food combo meal, you can select a preset list of services commonly ordered together.
• Firm’s and/or contact’s preferred services: If you didn’t include them when prefilling parties, you can add them when prefilling services.
• Case’s preferred services: If the party to the case requested services for all jobs on a case.
• Job’s preferred services: If the party to the job requested services when scheduling the job.

These readymade lists might include services that were not ordered for the job being billed. That’s okay: After prefilling you can remove any services not ordered for this invoice.

TL;DR: Instead of entering parties and services one at a time every time, use Prefill to automatically add parties and/or services to a job, case, or invoice.

Related RB concepts

Billing Sets: Like a fast food combo meal, RB Billing Sets are preset groups of service items. Selecting billable services by set, instead of individually, speeds up the billing process.

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with, such as attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, legal assistants, claim adjusters, and court clerks.

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

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 >

RB Connect: Online repository, calendar, and access to your office for clients and resources, including interactive transcripts, downloadable invoices and e-commerce for clients, and online turn-in, one-touch job acknowledgements, and downloadable pay statements for resources.

Lesson #20

Production – Turn In function

RB Turn In is a 2-part process. First, production staff compiles invoices for all parties ordering services on a job. Then billing staff fills in the financials and finalizes the invoices.

In Turn-in, you:

• Enter information about witnesses (witness records), attending parties, firms to bill, and services ordered. If resources submit billing sheets through RB Connect this information is entered into RB9 automatically. You can have multiple witnesses on the same invoice.
• Upload files, such as exhibits, to the repository. When uploading exhibits you can have RB automatically number them with stamps that include RB job information. (You create your own exhibit stamp templates.) If you have RB Connect resources can upload files to the repository (and stamp exhibits too), and clients can download them.
• Generate RB-PDF Transcripts. (You can also generate transcripts in the PDF Transcripts function.)
• Grant clients and resources access to transcripts, related files (like exhibits), and invoices online through RB Connect. You can control which contact can access which file. Send contacts email alerts that files are ready for download. RB9 records the emails sent in the Email Log function in Tools, so you can refer back to them later.
• Access the Shipping function to generate FedEx & UPS labels, then track shipments.
• Add explanations about specific services that will appear on the related invoice.
• Correspond with witnesses. Email transcripts and related files to witnesses and attorneys. Apply Read & Sign requirements to transcripts. Attach affidavits and errata sheets. Track original transcript location.
• Generate invoices with custom headers and messages you select from a list or create on the fly.
• After your production staff produces all service items requested finalize invoices by applying billing rates, pay rates, and rush charges, then calculate and post invoices.

While turn in is a complex process RB makes it easy with powerful search tools, guided turn-in and other time-saving features.

Powerful search tools

There is no default search in Turn In. You choose your search criteria including:

• Job number
• Job date or date range
• One or more job statuses
• A single case
• A single resource
• One or more of your business units

Search results are color coded by job status and display their information that matches the search categories (except resource). They also show the job type, date and time the job status changed, and ordering client to help you identify the correct job to turn in. 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.

Guided turn-in

After selecting a job in the results grid the turn-in process starts with the essentials, then reveals additional steps as you progress. This means:

• Less errors: You won’t overlook important steps in turn-in due to information overload.
• Quicker turn-in: Less second-guessing the process since you are lead through it automatically.
• Easier training: Process is easy to understand and master.

Time-saving features

In addition to guiding you through the turn-in process RB Turn In includes other features to make it more convenient and faster.

The first step, adding witnesses, includes these time-saving features:

• You don’t have to be in Turn In to start turn-in: If you handle both job scheduling and turn in you can turn in a job from its job window in Calendar functions.
• You don’t have to know the job number to start turn-in: You can search Turn In by job date(s), job status, associated case, resource turning in the job, and/or the associated business unit(s).
• Jobs are color coded by status: When searching for jobs, results are color coded so you can quickly see which jobs in the list have already been turned in, billed, shipped, canceled, etc. You can export the list if desired as an Excel or CSV file to save, share, print, or use in other applications.
• Case & job information accessible in screen: If you want to view or edit the related case or job information it is all accessible from the Turn In window. You do not have to go into separate functions to look up or update related info. Similarly Remarks are included in the Witness grid so you do not have to go into a witness record to see notes about the witness.
• Witness email field: You do not have to go into a separate function to send witnesses their transcripts to read and sign.
• Create RB-PDF Transcripts: After uploading an ASCII file of a transcript to the Witness repository in Turn In you can generate a PDF transcript without having to go to the separate PDF Transcripts function.
• Look up resources by task: One job can have multiple tasks with different resources. You can easily find assigned resources for all the parts of a job tied to a single witness (for example reporter, videographer, and scopist) within the witness.
• Enter attorneys and services with one click: Instead of adding attorneys or services one at a time to invoices, add an entire group at once with RB’s Prefill concept. Ordering parties can be added from the case, job, or recent turn-ins. When prefilling parties you can have the services they ordered previously included too. Additionally services can be added from clients’ standing orders, case or job requests, or set menus of frequently billed together items (Billing Sets). When prefilling, you can also choose to consolidate invoices for the parties so that each firm’s orders on a job will be billed on a single invoice.
• Remove tasks from To-Do lists: When you create an invoice, RB will prompt you to check off which tasks have been completed and it will update the Tasks in Progress list for you.
• Uniform list of services customizable to your unique business offerings: Clients’ online requests, reporters’ job turn-ins (both through RB Connect) and in-house production and billing are all consistent because users choose items from lists, not type in information.
• Customizable witness list: If you have multiple witnesses/tasks for a job, you can enter the information in any order that’s convenient. Then you can easily shuffle the order of the witness list to change how it will appear on the invoice. You can export the witness list if desired as an Excel or CSV file to save, share, print, or use in other applications.
• Other invoice options: You can create multiple invoice messages in addition to a default message to select from for different occasions such as a holiday greeting. You can edit the chosen message on individual invoices and write something from scratch too. You can also have additional information appear on invoices to third party payers — such as insurance companies — that will appear along with the claim number, name of insured, and date of loss. The contents of both the invoice message and additional billing information can be as long as you want and you can style the texts’ appearance.

The next step, calculating invoices, speeds up your work process even more:

• Set rates directly: Within an invoice you can select billing and pay rates plus select rush types in a fly-out panel — instead of opening additional windows on top of the invoice that obscure the invoice’s details. And if you already defined billing rates for your clients in their accounts RB will select those for you.
• Customizable service list: Just like with the witness list, if you have multiple service items for a job you can enter them in any order, then shuffle their order to appear differently on the invoice. You can also provide explanations on invoices about specific service items if you think something requires more detail.
• Locate invoices in a job easily: It is not uncommon to have multiple invoices for the same job (original and copy clients). Since each invoice listed also lists the services being billed, the background color for the invoice line is yellow while witness and service line items have white backgrounds so it is easier to scroll to each invoice. (You can also “collapse” an invoice to hide the services so the list is shorter.) Also the invoice line text color indicates invoice status: black for invoices in progress, green for posted invoices, and red for voided invoices to quickly differentiate them from each other. You can export the invoice list if desired as an Excel or CSV file to save, share, print, or use in other applications.
• Adjust pay on invoices: You can add pay for miscellaneous charges you are not billing to the client but want tied to an invoice — such as the resource’s mileage or parking fees — and add pay for other resources for miscellaneous charges you are not billing to the client without going to the separate Override Resource Pay function.
• Send invoices immediately: When posting invoices from Turn In, RB will ask if you want to send the invoices to the clients now. If you do, RB will open the Send Invoices function with the posted invoices already selected so you only have to choose whether to email from within RB or print them out for regular mail. If emailing you can also attach other related files from your Repository.

TL;DR:  A 2-part process where your production staff compiles invoices for all parties ordering services on a job. Then after producing service items ordered, billing staff fills in the financials and finalizes the invoices.

RB concepts in this lesson

Billing Sets: Like a fast food combo meal, RB9 Billing Sets are preset groups of service items. Selecting billable services by set, instead of individually, speeds up the billing process.

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 >

Job Status: Stage a job is in, e.g., New or Cancelled.

Prefill: Save time when invoicing by having RB enter parties to a job and entering services billed from set menus of frequently billed together items.

RB Connect: Online repository, calendar, and access to your office for clients and resources, including interactive transcripts, downloadable invoices and e-commerce for clients, and online turn-in, one-touch job acknowledgements, and downloadable pay statements for 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.

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

Task: Service requested with a job, such as reporting, interpreting, or video, that require a separate resource (person, company, thing) to accomplish. More >

Witness Record: Deponent, proceeding, conference, or video/audio recording. Each witness record is associated with a task and the resource who performed the task.

Lesson #19

Producing transcripts & more

In the Production module, you turn in jobs, prepare transcripts and invoices, send out and track your products, and correspond with depo parties, witnesses, and 3rd parties.

Production is where you:

• Turn in jobs: Enter information about witnesses, attending parties, firms to bill, and services ordered. If your resources turn in jobs online through RB Connect, this information is already entered.
• Create invoices and apply billing rates, pay rates, and rush charges, then calculate and post invoices.
• Fulfill client requests.
• Create PDF transcripts (including condensed versions) & apply digital signatures.
• Create Master Word Lists for multiple jobs on a case.
• Ship out produced service items. Track UPS & FedEx shipments.
• Upload finished transcripts and related files, like exhibits, to the repository.
• Alert clients to files uploaded to their repository on RB Connect.
• Restrict individual parties from accessing specific files in their online repository in RB Connect.
• Generate production sheets to tell staff what service items are needed and how many units to produce.
• Email transcripts to witnesses and attorneys. Apply Read & Sign requirements to transcripts. Attach affidavits and errata sheets. Track original transcript location.
• Track production items as they progress through your company. Track electronic and physical files. Track finished transcripts, exhibits, video, and archived files as they move through your production workflow, so you always know their location and current status. Produce tracking reports.
• Produce labels, envelopes, and form letters with information from your RB database automatically merged in.
• Archive and manage files in the central repository.

Production functions by name

• Turn In
• Tracking – RB9-only function
• Production Sheets
• Envelopes and Labels – RB9-only function
• Shipping – RB9-only function
• Letters – RB9-only function
• Send Originals Out – RB9-only function
• Repository
• PDF Transcripts – RB9-only function
• Create Master Word List – RB9-only function
• Link Exhibits – RB9-only function

TL;DR: Production is where you turn in jobs, fulfill client requests, prepare invoices, ship products, and correspond with clients and others.

RB concepts in this lesson

RB Connect: Online repository, calendar, and access to your office for clients and resources, including interactive transcripts, downloadable invoices and e-commerce for clients, and online turn-in, one-touch job acknowledgements, and downloadable pay statements for resources

RB-PDF Transcript: Customizable PDF version of a transcript with built-in transcript-specific features.

Lesson #16

Calendar – Tasks in Progress function

The interactive Tasks in Progress report lists the backlog of tasks resources are working on, in chronological order with the oldest first. You can see all resources with outstanding tasks with one click or you can use the search filters to view a single resource’s workload, tasks outstanding on a case, or other criteria.

Search criteria includes:

• Ordered date and due date ranges
• Job type (all, some, or one)
• Task type (all, some, or one)
• Single resource
• Single firm
• Single contact
• Single case
• Outstanding only or include completed tasks
• Business Units (all, some, or one)

The resulting report includes all of those criteria as column heads, plus job number, job date, job status, task status, turned in date, how many days old, estimated pages, estimated delivery date, and witness so you can see task information without having to click into a job.

Customize how you view tasks in progress

Tasks are grouped by resource with each resource’s tasks’ average days old and total estimated pages listed in the footer of their outstanding tasks list. You can add additional grouping categories to the results, remove any grouping category, and re-arrange the grouping order.

For example if you add grouping by case to grouping by resource, tasks will be grouped by resource and subdivided under each resource into tasks related to cases they are assigned to. If you switch the order, tasks will be grouped by case and subdivided by each resource working on the case.

You can also:

• 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 personal grouping parameters and custom grid as your default. Your customizations do not affect other users, and you can restore the original RB grid layout anytime.

From the report, you can:

• See complete job and task details for outstanding tasks.
• Update tasks with benchmark dates and other information, such as task and job status, as they progress and are completed.
• Begin to turn in jobs.
• View completed tasks along with their completion date if the job has been turned in but not invoiced yet.
• Export the grid as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

Integrated with other functions

Tasks in Progress is a function in the Calendar module but it is a good example of RB9’s interrelated functions and modules. Some examples:

• Before assigning a resource to a task you can check their workload without leaving the job window. The selected resource’s Tasks in Progress appear in a panel within the job and includes estimated pages for each task the resource has yet to turn in, so you can get a better idea of the resource’s workload before assigning them to a new task.
• The Send Overdue Tasks Report emails each resource their own To-Do list from Tasks in Progress to remind them of their overdue work product.
• If you have RB Connect (and RB Connect Mobile), resources can view their own Tasks in Progress online (or on their mobile devices) in chronological order from the oldest to today.
• When you create an invoice in Turn In RB gives you the option to check off job-related assignments as completed. This keeps your Tasks in Progress reports accurate. (You can also update your resources’s To-Do lists manually by entering the completed dates and times in the Tasks in Progress function.)

TL;DR: Monitor & manage how busy resources are. Begin turning in jobs. View completed tasks that have not been invoiced.

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.

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with, such as attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, legal assistants, claim adjusters, and court clerks.

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

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

Job Type: Categories of jobs requested by clients, such as Deposition or Real-Time.

RB Connect: Online repository, calendar, and access to your office for clients and resources, including interactive transcripts, downloadable invoices and e-commerce for clients, and online turn-in, one-touch job acknowledgements, and downloadable pay statements for resources. More >

RB Connect Mobile: Clients and resources can access your RB Connect on their smart phones and tablets in an interface optimized for mobile devices. More >

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

Task: Service requested with a job, such as reporting, interpreting, or video, that require a separate resource (person, company, thing) to accomplish.