PC Law 7

L Entering Time & Expense Recovery

L Running Month-End Bills
L Changing Finalized Bills
L Creating a New Matter
L Basic Reports
L Customizing Reports
L Requesting a Check
L Using the Register
L Matter Manager
L Split Billing
Heckman Consulting
201 792-0022
heckman@heckmanco.com
heckman consulting page 1 of 14 December 2004
When you click on the Time Entry button (under Time/Fees or Favorites) you see
the following screen (Note: depending on your anti-virus setting, you may get a message
saying that an index needs to be rebuilt. Just click OK):
Most of these items are pretty self-evident:
If you click on the picture of the stop-watch under timer it starts a timer
(Clicking again turns it off). This will automatically track the time you spend
doing a particular task. When the timer is going, the clock is
green. When the timer has been stopped, the clock is Red.
This defaults to the current date. Otherwise, click to bring up a
calendar and select the desired date.
Click on the little down arrow for a list of clients. You can choose
to have this list sorted by the name of the client or the client number.
Click here to pick your name.
For most clients, this will default to BW (Billable Work). If you need another
task, click to select (for example for contingency work or non-billable items).
The appropriate rate will be selected for the given client. You should not have to
change this.
If you use the timer, this will be filled in automatically. Otherwise, type in the time
spent. The billable amount will be calculated automatically.
You can use this as a starter for filling in the Explanation field. See
attached sheet for a list of current explanation codes. Otherwise, you can jump
directly to the Explanation field. This is description of the work done as it will
appear on the bill.
hit T to proceed to the next
one. hitting R will enter your time and close
the Time Entry window. To keep your time available so that
you can modify it at a later point or the end of the day, click
the Delay Post button at the lower right of the screen. If you
wish to keep the timer running, you must PC Law. Clicking Delay Post
stops the timer.
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Fee Entry works exactly like Time Entry, except that it is for a flat fee (with no time
attached).
If you wish to edit a time entry description or change the time, click the Register
button. You can review all your time for a specific client or all your time for a specific
date range for all clients. To review time for a specific client, select that client under
matter. Enter the appropriate dates to select a date range. To review only your time,
select Lawyer and enter your name. When you have made the desired selections, click
Select and the time will appear (see Using the Register)..
To edit a given entry, simply double-click on it and the Correct Time Entry screen will
appear (exactly like the original Time Entry screen). Make changes as needed.
To enter Disbursements for photocopies, courier, registration fees, click the Expense
Recovery button. The following screen appears:
By default the To
line says Expense
Recovery. You do not
need to change this.
Click on Explanation
for a list of possible
charges.
Click on Date to get
a calendar from which you can pick the date of the charge.
Click on Matter to select the client. Click on Explanation Code
to select the code. Fill in the explanation as needed (this is what
will appear on the bill). For certain items such as photocopies,
when you click Amount a screen appears with a preset charge
all you have to do is fill in the number of photocopies (or
whatever). The amount will be calculated for you. If you do not
want the number of copies etc. to appear on the bill, uncheck the box that says: Show
Quantity x Rate in explanation. Note that this is automatically assigned to the bill and
general ledger.
Press T to proceed to the next disbursement. You can enter multiple disbursements
for the same client or different clients at the same time. When you press R, the
disbursements are entered into PC Law and the screen disappears.
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The process of getting out bills at the end of the month involves a number of steps, each of which
is not difficult, but which must be done in the correct order in order to minimize error.
In PC Law, unlike some competing programs, it is possible to print either a Pre-Bill or
a Bill using any format available. Thus, you can print a Pre-Bill using a Final Bill format. You can
also have specific formats to meet the requirements of specific clients.
1. Select Create Pre-Bills in the Billing section or
on your Favorites menu.
2. Click the black down arrow in the Template
box and select the Pre-Bill template. Make sure
Printer is checked so that the bills print.
3. Select the date range for billable hours to go in
this set of bills, depending on your billing
cycle..
4. Click in the Matter box if you only want to print a single bill. Otherwise, click the Matter
to select which matters to print.
5. To print all bills, click the All button. To print
selected matters, click the Selected Matters
button, then Select. Then select the matters
you wish to print by clicking to the left of the
matter. A check mark will appear. When you
have finished click the Main tab again and click
OK to print.
At this point the Pre-Bills can be reviewed.
To correct pre-bills, run the register for each client to be corrected. Select the desired matter, the
date range, and click Select. To edit an entry, double-click on it, or click on it and click
Change. When you have made the changes, click OK, then Cancel to return to the register. To
see the changes in the register, you must click on Select again.
At this point you should reprint the pre-bills to verify that all changes are correct. However,
instead of selecting the prebill format, select the final format (you can print pre-bills in the
heckman consulting page 4 of 14 December 2004
Final format) to verify that all changes are correct and that the final bills will print as desired. If
you still have mistakes when the final bills are printed, you must go through the Undo Bill
process, which can be cumbersome.
To print final bills, select Create Bill and proceed as for pre-bills, using the final format. If you
need to re-print a bill, select Recreate Bill, then select and print the desired invoice.
It is possible (with some important restrictions) to
skip bills that have no billable amounts due.
First, when logged in as Administrator, got to Options |
System | Billing. Make sure the billing options are set as
follows:
When you run the bills or pre-bills, in the billing screen, go to the Options tab and make sure
these same settings exist.
Second: You must print bills in order to skip zero balance bills. If you print selected bills only
the function is omitted.
Third: While this will not print zero-balance bills, it print bills for which no time is due this
month, but still have a balance due from the client.
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When you run pre-bills, the PC Law does not record that the client has actually been billed.
However, once you run Create Bill, the client is registered as having been billed in terms of
Accounts Receivable, General Ledger, Time Entries and other information. This also means that
the time entries that appear on the bill can no longer be edited. In order to change a time entry
that has already been billed, you have to Undo a bill.
Note that you can re-print an existing bill by selecting Recreate Bill, then selecting the client
and invoice number desired.
Invoice numbers in PC Law are sequential across the program, not for a particular client.
Thus a client might have invoice numbers 85, 111, and 144 in successive months (See graphic)
To change a bill, click on the Undo Bill button.
Then select the matter. When you click on the
Invoice box, a list of invoices for that matter
appears, as well as the amount of each invoice (not
shown here). This lets you identify the bill to be
changed.
Select the Bill to be undone. The fees and other
information for that bill will appear so that you can
verify that it is the correct bill. Click OK to undo the
bill.
Once a bill has been undone you can edit time entries or make other changes. To redo the bill
again, go through the bill creation process outlined above. when you do this, the new bill
will receive a invoice number from the original bill (cf. invoice numbers 46 and 50 in the
graphic above, both on the same date).
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Opening a new Matter is a straightforward process,
although it does require attention to detail and that a number
of steps be completed accurately. If this is not done, time may be
entered incorrectly, or information may be incorrect on bills.
To open a new matter, click on the left-most
yellow folder on the button bar, or select File |
Matter | New Matter, or press C-N. The following
screen appears:
1. Assign the new client number, 0830. Note
that a matter number of 0830-001 is automatically
created.
2. Select the type of law from a list of the type of
cases the firm handles.
3. The default task will be either BW (Billable
Work) or NBW (Non-Billable Work)
4. Select the Default Billing rate from the pop-up list.
5. Select the Introducing and other lawyers.
6. Under description fill in what should go in the Re: line of the bill and cover letters.
7. Enter the name of the client and the Company Name in the appropriate fields. Be sure to
check whether the client is to be displayed as a Person (i.e., Last Name) or a Corporation
(Company Name). If necessary, enter an Attention line.
Click OK to create the client.
At this point, all other
configuration for the client is
done from the Matter
Manager. Click on the Matter
Manager button at the bottom
of the PC Law window. The
following screen appears:
Enter information as
appropriate.
If the bill is supposed to go to
an address different from the
clients address, enter that
information on the Billing
Address tab. There is also
provision for a Second Billing
heckman consulting page 7 of 14 December 2004
Address (in cases where a copy of the bill is supposed to go to a Trustee or Guardian, etc.).
For new matters, you need to set the information on the Billing Tab.
The billing tab lets you
choose the default
template for bills to that
particular client. In
addition, note the
following:
If the bill should
not be run in every
billing cycle, click
the Frequency
box and select the
desired periodicity.
If this is a flat fee or
contingency matter, select the desired option from the Quoted Type field. This allows for
fixed fees, monthly fees and minimum monthly fees, in addition to contingency.
If you charge interest on overdue bills, this is the place to enter that information.
If you charge sales tax, enter this information in the lower right portion of the screen.
If you use split billing or split attorney fees among different partners, click those buttons for
details.
To apply an across the board percentage discount to a bill select Apply Discount to Fees.
for a one-time courtesy discount, create a time entry for Courtesy Discount (or
whatever your description may be), select 0 hours and a rate of 0. Then manually enter a
minus amount in the Amount field. Click OK (and ignore the warning).
Finally, if there is any opening balance for the new client, it should be entered on the
Opening Balance tab.
heckman consulting page 8 of 14 December 2004
While there are many of pre-set reports available in PC Law (see below), some frequently
requested information is available instantly. This includes the following:
. The Matter Manager gives you a
snapshot of the status of any given client, including
unbilled time, A/R amounts, Trust and Retainer
amounts, etc. Clicking on any specific item brings up
the detail of, unbilled fees or the history of A/R
payments. Simply select the matter desired and you
have an instant status of the client account. Clicking
on the Ledger or Time tabs let you see the client
ledger.
. The Register lets you review time and disbursements in a number of
combinations.
By leaving the Matter selection blank, you can see the current time for any given date
range. The detail is shown above, and totals below.
By leaving the Matter selection blank and selecting a specific attorney in the Lawyer
box, you can see all time for that particular attorney for the selected date range.
By selecting a Matter, you can see the time billed for that matter for a given date
range.
By clicking on the Expense tab of the register, you can view disbursements in a similar
way.
However, there are some overall reports that you may want to run monthly (or at other
intervals) to peruse as a whole. Note that if you run any of these reports to the screen,
you can drill down by double-clicking on any element to see the detail behind it. These
include:

Select Reports | GL Statements. To run income reports, deselect GL and select Income
Statement. Depending on the template you select, you see different information:
heckman consulting page 9 of 14 December 2004
Income gives you an income & expense statement broken down by Attorney for the
current month and Year To Date.
CompInc gives you a comparison with last years data. Note that this will not be
immediately useful as the data does not exist.
You can also select to see detail (which may be more than you want) and to see zero-
balance matters.
Accounts Receivable report. This lists Fees per attorney per client with 30, 60, 90, and
over 120 day aging. To get this report, select Report | Accounts Receivable | Receivables
by Client.
Select Reports | Journal | Billing(Fees). Note that this, and other, reports are
customizable. They can be streamlined if they appear too busy.
A large number of reports are available under Reports | Productivity. The most
immediately obvious ones are Billings by Lawyer, Daily Time Summary and Billable
Time Summary by Working Lawyer.
heckman consulting page 10 of 14 December 2004
Many reports in PC Law are very busy, that is, they contain a lot of information and can
be somewhat hard to follow.
It is relatively easy to customize any given report so that it contains only the information
you desire.
To do this, first select the report you wish. You will see a
screen similar to this one:
The key to customizing is the Layout tab. When you
click on this, you will see all the options available to the
report. You can deselect ones you do not wish and save the result as a template name
(such as basic).
You should also review the Other tab any time you run a
report, since these items are not saved with the template or
from time to time. For example, to run a clean check
register (such as you would see in QuickBooks or your
checkbook), select Reports | Journal | General Bank.
Under the Layout tab select options as in the graphic at
right:
In addition, on the other tab you should deselect daily
totals so that totals for each day are not printed.
This may take some experimentation until you get a
solution you are happy with. Once you have it, you can
save that format and reproduce the report at will.
heckman consulting page 11 of 14 December 2004

PC Law Pro allows you to request a check which can processed and written at a later time.
This is useful for various fees or other payments.
To request a check:
Click the Request Checks (General) button on your Time sheets or Favorites page. Or,
select Data Entry | General Bank | Request Check.
You see a check screen:
If you have multiple bank accounts, be sure to select the appropriate one.
Fill in the check information: To, the date, the amount.
Click on Explanation and select an explanation. Type in the explanation. This is what
will appear on the memo field on the check.
Below the check area, fill in the matter if the check is for a client-related expense (will be
charged back to the client).
Fill in the explanation if needed. The amount will automatically be filled in.
If you are requesting a single check for multiple client-related expenses, fill out multiple
lines and indicate the amount that is to be assigned to each matter.
At the bottom of the screen click OK.
The check request will appear for the person responsible for writing check so that it can
be processed when required.
heckman consulting page 12 of 14 December 2004
The Register makes it extremely easy to review and modify Time Entries and other
information. When you click on the Register button, you see the following screen:
Depending on your security rights, you may or may not see all the tabs in the above
screen shot. To review Time or Expense entries, first click on the relevant tab.
By default, the time frame is set to the current month.
To see the time for a particular matter, click on the right corner of the Matter box
and select the matter.
To further restrict the entries to those by a specific lawyer, select the lawyer. If you
leave this blank, you will see information for all lawyers for a given matter/date range.
To see only items for a specific time frame, select the Start Date and End Date.
This makes it easy to review, for example, entries for a specific lawyer and matter during a
given month. Once you have made your selections, click the Select button. By default,
entries appear in date order. However, by clicking on the Matter column, you can sort
by matter.
To edit an item, simply double click on it and the edit
screen appears.
If you wish to see a specific Entry # (known in Timeslips
as a Slip), click the Filter box and enter the number.
Note that if you are correcting a number of items from a
pre-bill, it will be more efficient to see all the items and
select them as necessary.
To enter an entirely new item directly from this screen, click the down arrow on the New
Entries button, and select Time Entry or Client Expense / Expense Recovery to
enter expenses such as Federal Express or Sheriffs Expenses.
heckman consulting page 13 of 14 December 2004
The Matter Manager provides a powerful tool for instant reports. On an ongoing basis,
you will want to consult the Summary tab for a summary and history of the client:
The key here is that clicking on any item brings up a detailed listing of that item and
more. For example:
Click on A/R Bal or Last Billed to find the entire billing history of the client (i.e.,
every invoice), including a summary of total amounts billed to that client.
Click on Last Entry to show all General Ledger entries for that client,
Other buttons, such as Unbilled Disbursements, Unbilled Fees and Unbilled
Hours show the current status of unbilled times or disbursements.
The first three Tabs at the top (Main, Billing, Settings) indicate settings for that client
(e.g., billing template, frequency, type of billing, taxes, etc.)
Ledger and Time give you a history of Ledger or Time entries for that client.
If you are using the practice management features of PC Law, the other Tabs refer to
information in that area.
heckman consulting page 14 of 14 December 2004
PCLaw supports split billing, but it must be set up and data entered correctly. Here is how
you do it.
1. Set up the master client whose billing will be split (or use an existing one).
Say Master Client, matter no: 0333-001
2. Set up the subsidiaries (or whatever). Say
Subsidiary 1 0333-001a
Subsidiary 2 0333-001b
Subsidiary 3 0333-001c
3. Open the Master Client (in this example 0333-001)
Select the Split tab. You will see the following screen:
Select the matters among which the master client bills are to be split and the percentage
split (e.g., 33, 33 and 34, or 60, 20, 20). NOTE: the split MUST add up to 100% so you
may have to do a slight amount of rounding.
Save everything and exit.
When you enter time in Amicus for a client with split billing you enter it for the
master client. Any time entered for a sub client will be assigned 100% to that sub-client
and NOT split. (This is because you might conceivably have time that should be assigned
100% to a sub client - so you have that option).
Time entered in Amicus for the master client will be split correctly among the three sub-
clients. Note that NO time is allocated to the master client per se.