00:01:
00:03: Hi, everyone, and thank you for joining on today's session.
00:06: We are going to be covering billing,
00:10: and we do have a little bit of new billing features in CARET Legal, so I want to
00:14: point those out.
00:16: We will also talk about some of the electronic payment capabilities within CARET
00:21: Legal.
00:23: So, to begin, we are actually going to start by adding a time entry, a flat fee, and
00:29: some expenses.
00:31: And then we'll jump into generating the bill under
00:34: your time icon on the far left.
00:39: I am going to be demonstrating how to quickly add a time entry and review a time
00:43: entry.
00:44: So to start time entries,
00:47: I'm going to add a new time entries in the plus sign on the right.
00:51: Now, just note that there are many places in CARET legal that you can add time
00:55: entries.
00:56: You can add them at the matter level.
00:58: you can add them using the timers over on the right hand side that collapsible menu
01:04: so
01:06: once I save them it
01:09: will open up a time entry hit
01:13: save and close we'll
01:16: go for it and then it logs a time entry right that's your timers you
01:20: can also use the plus sign at the very top of the screen
01:25: new time entry.
01:27: Okay, and it'll open up a time entry.
01:28: You can log a time entry to whatever matter you need to and keep it moving.
01:33: But for demonstration purposes, I'm just going to go here on this time entry screen,
01:39: plus sign,
01:41: add a new time entry, and I'm going to add it for a particular case here.
01:45: Smith, Elizabeth.
01:48: There we go.
01:49: I'm going to put 1.32, to noting
01:52: that when I type in whatever duration I want to, this is how much actual time I
01:57: spent.
01:58: It will show up over here as this actual.
02:01: However, because of the agreement I have with this client, the increments are set to
02:06: six minutes billing
02:09: increments.
02:09: So in other words, even though I worked this, we agreed to the client that we bill
02:14: in to the tenth of an hour.
02:16: So we are going to actually bill them an hour and 24 minutes for this particular
02:20: item.
02:21: So with the rate that's already pulled in, that brings up their amount to $700 for
02:26: this time entry.
02:28: I can swap out my timekeepers on this matter here.
02:31: So who gets the credit for this time entry would be put there.
02:34: And then, of course, now I can go to the work type.
02:38: And your firm can set up as many work types as they want.
02:41: The client never sees the work type.
02:44: So you can use initials, abbreviations, et cetera, for
02:47: your work types.
02:50: but let's say I was doing a deposition.
02:54: Well, here it should populate what narrative the firm wants me to use on my bills
02:59: for that description.
03:01: Now, I may add a little more to
03:05: this, or I may even take
03:08: away from it,
03:10: but there should be a default, and this can be set up by the firm to just save you
03:13: time and make billing consistent for each one of the clients.
03:17: I
03:18: can also mark this as a no charge time entry
03:22: meaning it's still going to go to the bill we're
03:25: just not charging them for it
03:26: or I could say no charge don't show which means do not send it to billing it just
03:30: stays on this matter it
03:33: logs to that matter as kind of internal only focused time
03:39: so it never goes to the bill but if I don't click either no charges then it's going
03:43: to be a billable chargeable item to the client
03:47: And that's my plan.
03:49: So save and close.
03:51: It logs that time entry.
03:52: If for any reason, like, for instance, the one below it says zero, I see that I need
03:58: to edit a time entry.
03:59: I can click edit.
04:01: Go in.
04:03: I can update my.
04:06: Narrative for the client so that it reads better, I can add to it.
04:10: Maybe I like to keep all my things in one time entry.
04:13: I can add to it here.
04:14: and I can also update any other required items.
04:18: We can also duplicate,
04:20: make a copy of this entry if we needed another one.
04:24: Okay, there we go.
04:25: So now I have that time entry.
04:27: Let's go ahead and I can use flat fees here to
04:31: add a flat fee.
04:33: And if you're thinking we just click that plus sign on the right-hand side for a
04:37: time entry, why is it now pulling up flat fees?
04:40: whatever tab you're on when you go to the plus sign that's what it's going to be
04:45: bringing up so if I'm on flat fees it's going to bring up flat fees okay here I'll
04:50: tell it what matter and
04:53: I'm just going to use that same matter what
04:58: type of flat fee service is this for we
05:02: should already have these set up your firm can set these up the quantity on flat
05:07: fees is usually one whereas expenses it varies a little bit so I'm just going to
05:11: leave this one can I change it I sure can and if you notice the rate already
05:17: populated for me too so I can default all all of that at the firm settings level for
05:24: flat fees okay I can also update the description but I always like to have things
05:29: set up and ready to go that way that I'm not having to type anything in
05:32: I hit save and I keep it moving.
05:36: The expenses,
05:38: I can also use the plus sign on the right.
05:42: The only thing is, is you have options with expenses.
05:45: So let me quickly tell you
05:47: what these options are.
05:51: There are two hard cost options.
05:55: And these should only be used if you're using the accounting system really in CARET
06:02: legal.
06:03: So if you're planning on doing reconciliations and keeping your books in your banks
06:09: in CARET legal.
06:10: But specifically,
06:12: these hard cost options are saying new check hard cost is saying that you literally
06:17: spent money out of the firm operating account to pay for filing fees, for instance.
06:24: So when you click new check hard cost,
06:28: it's going to pull up what looks like you're writing out a check and you can very
06:32: well print a check from CARET legal.
06:34: You do have to have certain permissions, but you have that option.
06:38: So you can tell it which operating account if you have more than one.
06:41: Otherwise, just the one operating account.
06:44: Who is it payable to?
06:46: And you can go ahead and select who it's payable to.
06:49: If they don't exist, you can add them on the fly.
06:53: Remember or noting that the main difference between company and vendor in CARET
06:57: legal
06:58: is vendors allow you to capture 1099
07:02: data,
07:04: okay?
07:09: Whereas companies don't necessarily have that field, okay?
07:14: Okay, so you can say who it's payable to, and that should populate their address in
07:19: here if you did need to cut a check.
07:22: Again, that's tied to did
07:24: you have their address
07:27: and everything already in here.
07:29: If you didn't, like I do not, it's not going to populate it.
07:33: The memo would be whatever you put on your memos for your clients or for the
07:37: recipient of this payment.
07:42: And then anything that I put into this memo field when I'm actually spending money
07:46: on the matter's behalf, I like to take that and add it to the description down here.
07:51: This is what actually gets put on the client's bill, the description field down
07:55: here.
07:56: So I like to add that.
07:57: I like for it to match.
07:59: That way, if I ever need to research it, what's on my bank register in CARET Legal
08:04: matches what's on the client's invoice.
08:08: Okay.
08:09: Now, anyhow, so I put the memo here.
08:11: And on the hand side, the check number will be there.
08:15: The date and then I can say how much the amount is.
08:18: Right.
08:19: So two fifty five.
08:22: There we go.
08:23: Here is the check at the top that we would be paying out of our operating account.
08:28: Now, if you paid this online, some of you may remember this from other softwares,
08:33: but you can put ACH.
08:35: right because you paid it online we
08:38: don't want to leave the check number in there if we didn't truly have
08:43: a check number because then the person doing the bank reconciliations will not love
08:47: us so
08:48: just make sure that you put that correct information in there was it ACH was it
08:53: online was it a check and if it was it will actually produce the next check number
08:58: in line for you okay
09:01: down here you
09:03: will tell it that you're advancing money on
09:06: behalf of the client so advanced client cost is the default account that we have in
09:11: CARET legal for this note
09:13: it is an asset account because
09:16: when we charge the client for this 255 of filing fees we're paying it out of our
09:23: bank account so we need to see that money can it get deducted out of our bank
09:27: account 255 so we can account for that.
09:30: And in addition,
09:32: we also need to see this put on the client's bill for
09:38: 255.
09:38: So it's doing two things.
09:41: And when this client gets the bill and they pay it back, it will actually go
09:45: directly back into the account that it was loaned out of, if you will.
09:49: So it came out of advanced client costs.
09:51: And when they pay it back, CARET Legal knows to pay it back to this advanced client
09:55: costs netting zero right and that way that you can truly always see exactly how much
10:01: you are owed as a firm that you've advanced for clients okay it's
10:08: not looking like necessarily
10:10: how some other folks do it which is or other softwares do it which is you have to
10:15: log an expense and then turn around and separately log revenue for it this hard cost
10:21: is meant to be log to this
10:23: account.
10:25: If you are going to use a different method, we highly recommend that you talk with
10:28: your CPA about what GL account they want you using.
10:34: Okay, moving right along.
10:35: So in this case, I've selected that we're advancing this money for the matter.
10:40: I put the description in there and it always defaults to my user.
10:44: I can swap out the user if this is for somebody else.
10:47: there's
10:48: the amount pulling down here's where I'll tell it what matter I'm advancing this
10:52: money for so
10:54: I spent this money on behalf of this matter and then it'll ask me do I intend to
10:59: bill it so it defaults to yes we want to bill them back for this and I would
11:03: absolutely say anytime that you're advancing with this account that you do want to
11:08: bill it back if you're not going to bill it back to the client you technically
11:12: shouldn't use this account again deferring to your CPA your accountant for the if
11:18: and and buts with that.
11:21: So there we go.
11:22: I'm going to log this to the matter while simultaneously logging it to my register.
11:27: I can actually print the check here on the fly.
11:30: So I can hit save and print.
11:32: Printing a check.
11:35: And then if I put my stock paper in the printer,
11:38: here's my check.
11:39: It is not customizable.
11:41: It's a three-part check.
11:42: So I got one,
11:44: two, three different parts of the check that are going to print on that one page.
11:49: If you have questions about what check to use, we do have a great help article menu
11:53: on that.
11:54: And you can also reach out to your onboarding
11:57: manager.
12:01: All right.
12:01: So that is a hard cost team.
12:03: That is if you are spending money directly out of your firm's operating account,
12:07: you'll use this new check hard cost.
12:10: If you are spending money on your firm credit card, not individual user's credit
12:14: card, your firm credit card, you can use this one, new credit card.
12:18: And you can select your
12:21: credit card from the dropdown, just like we selected which operating account.
12:25: Again, if you only have one operating account, then it would be that one operating
12:29: account.
12:30: It wouldn't be an option here.
12:32: Same thing for credit card.
12:33: If you only have the one credit card, then it's just that one credit card.
12:37: payable to is going to be whoever you're paying so again we could be paying the
12:41: clerk memo
12:44: here
12:46: the date how much the
12:50: reference number if you have a credit card transaction id some
12:54: people like to put those in there sometimes they don't give you one it just varies
12:58: like right away so you can put whatever you feel is best just make sure that we're
13:04: touching base with the person who reconciles this credit card or plans to reconcile
13:09: this credit card and carry it legal so that they know exactly what's being used.
13:12: Down here on the bottom, again, if we're advancing stuff, we want to make sure we
13:17: use that advanced client cost account,
13:19: paste the description that's going to go on the client's bill, select the matter,
13:30: and then mark it billable, right? Save and close.
13:35: Again, each expense doesn't matter what type of expense it is.
13:38: If it belongs to a matter, it's going to show up by going to this time icon.
13:43: So if you ever want to see what expenses have been logged or if you need to make
13:47: sure that everybody's logging them or that you log them, you can go to this time
13:50: icon, go to expenses and the most recent expenses will be here at the top.
13:56: You'll see.
13:56: Was it a credit card? Was it that operating account? or the last one that we're
14:01: going to point out here,
14:03: one of the last, is the soft cost.
14:04: So if I go back up to the top right-hand side here,
14:08: let me get my verbiage right today,
14:11: go to this plus sign, new expense.
14:16: And this is for items that are not a hard cost, so they didn't get directly paid out
14:21: of your operating account.
14:22: You're not cutting a check for this.
14:23: You're not paying online directly for this.
14:26: You are not
14:28: using a firm credit card.
14:29: This is literally for costs that maybe you as a firm have already incurred, such as
14:34: you already bought copy paper a while ago.
14:36: And now you want to charge the client for the 300 copies that you're about to make
14:41: for them.
14:42: So go to the matter, select the matter.
14:49: And then here you would say photocopies.
14:53: This can be set up in the firm settings.
14:56: How many photocopies? 350.
14:57: It
14:59: already knows that they're 10 cents a pop, so now you're going to bill the
15:02: client $35 for the 350 copies that you made them.
15:06: Which user, the date, is it billable or not? You can do that here.
15:10: Of course, I didn't mention this earlier, but you can have attachments just for
15:15: research purposes.
15:17: So you can attach things for research if you ever needed to see what the receipt
15:21: was.
15:22: This does not automatically attach it to the bill.
15:26: Save and close.
15:28: There's your expense.
15:30: If you do not use CARET legal for accounting purposes, so you all do not do your
15:35: banks or books in CARET legal, you may end up having everything set up as a soft
15:41: cost just as a regular expense.
15:43: Right.
15:43: But if you are cutting checks, paying online, then you probably and you're using
15:50: CARET to reconcile your books and your banks, then you'll make sure that those hard
15:55: cost options are also being used and set up.
15:58: The last one you'll see here in the list of types is a vendor bill.
16:02: That's if your firm
16:05: does,
16:06: somebody sends them a bill, maybe for multiple matters,
16:10: and you want to be able to pay that vendor right away,
16:14: but you want to be able to break out their bill to each one of the applicable
16:18: matters.
16:18: you can use that vendor bill option and we cover that on our accounting our accounts
16:23: payable training
16:24: so just kind of note that, that you'll be able to do that, and that's why it's
16:28: showing up as a vendor bill here.
16:29: But you cannot do that from this page.
16:32: You actually have to be in the accounts payable vendors and bills portion of CARET
16:38: Legal to do that.
16:39: Okay, and we'll talk about interest on a separate training call.
16:42: But for right now, I've logged time entries, flat fees, and expenses.
16:46: I'm ready to do some billing.
16:48: So to start the billing process,
16:51: you can be really anywhere in CARET legal as long as you have billing access.
16:57: OK.
16:57: And honestly, it also varies on if you're a contingency or a settlement based firm.
17:05: So you work off of contingency or you handle a lot of settlements, real estate
17:11: transactions, etc.
17:13: Then you may just go directly to the matter.
17:17: So let's just do that.
17:19: I'm going to use the shortcut.
17:20: I'm going to use my fly out menu on the right and go to this matter that we've been
17:24: working with.
17:25: So if you are a firm that just bills one matter at a time and this isn't on a
17:30: monthly basis, it's just as they close or a settlement happens, whatever the case
17:34: is.
17:35: The first thing you want to do is go to that matter and make sure under time and
17:40: expenses.
17:41: I'm going to close that menu under time and expenses here that you have all of your
17:46: time entries logged.
17:49: and edited in advance.
17:50: That's just best practice to edit before they go on the bill.
17:53: Can you edit once it's on the bill? Absolutely.
17:56: But the best practice is to edit ahead of time.
17:59: It's more efficient.
18:02: Flat fees, same thing.
18:04: You can check to make sure all the flat fees are added.
18:08: Expenses, same thing.
18:09: You can make sure that all of your expenses are here.
18:13: This is a really good practice to just make sure everything is logged to the matter
18:17: that needs to be logged to the matter before you process any type of bill for that
18:23: matter.
18:24: So if I was to go ahead and want to bill this one-off matter, I could be on the time
18:30: entries icon here.
18:31: Go to the far right-hand side.
18:34: I'm sorry, on the time entries tab.
18:37: Go to the far right-hand side.
18:39: And depending on how big your screen is, you may just see this little arrow.
18:43: If you hover over it, it says invoice unbilled activities.
18:47: Okay.
18:48: If you have a larger screen like me, it will say invoice unbilled activities spelled
18:54: out for you.
18:54: OK.
18:56: So that is only going to be on the matter under time entries.
19:01: Invoice unbilled activities or the little arrow.
19:05: There are two arrows to make sure it's the little one.
19:08: When I click on that.
19:10: It takes me to the pre-bill step.
19:14: And team, this is how you generate draft invoices in CARET Legal.
19:20: Draft invoices in CARET Legal is the same thing as a pre-bill.
19:23: OK, we just use different verbiage.
19:26: Draft invoice is a pre-bill.
19:29: So here.
19:31: You can go ahead and tell it,
19:34: especially if you're doing a settlement situation or contingency that you want to
19:38: generate the invoice.
19:41: And when you do that, it's going to ask for what invoice date you want on it and
19:46: what due date.
19:48: And then you can click generate.
19:54: And it's only going to generate that one invoice for that one matter, 1-1-5-5-7.
20:01: So if I want to see that invoice, I don't need to stay on the pre-bill step.
20:06: I can actually just go to accounting.
20:10: or,
20:13: and by the way, if you go into the accounting, the first page that opens up is
20:17: invoice and payments, right? This is all about invoicing,
20:20: billing,
20:22: receiving payments, whether it's a payment for trust or a payment for the invoices
20:27: directly.
20:29: Everything that's accounts receivable is going to be under this tab.
20:33: And then from here, we can go and see that the most recent invoice that was
20:38: generated was
20:40: this draft invoice for that matter.
20:44: Right.
20:45: Now, if you're used to working on the matter, you can stay on the matter.
20:49: So as soon as you generate that invoice, you can go back to the matter.
21:00: and right here on
21:03: the matter,
21:04: remember that we have the time and expenses,
21:07: but we don't need to go into that anymore.
21:09: We now have invoices, right? We generated an invoice.
21:12: So if we go to this tab to the right of it, we should see all of the invoices for
21:17: this matter, whether paid or unpaid, or maybe this is your only invoice because it's
21:21: a settlement.
21:23: So here I
21:25: can see the matter number and
21:28: that it's a draft, what's the balance, et cetera.
21:32: How do I actually take a look at this matter in like a PDF view?
21:36: The easiest way to review your invoices is click on the invoice number and
21:42: that will open up this
21:45: electronic view of the invoice.
21:47: And if you're thinking, wow, this looks completely different than what I'm used to.
21:51: I'm used to an actual PDF.
21:53: That's okay.
21:54: We have that option too.
21:56: If you just click on the print button,
22:03: here we go.
22:04: It opens up a separate tab here.
22:06: And this varies how your Adobe opens, but
22:10: mine opens in a separate tab here and I can see my invoice in a PDF view.
22:15: And
22:17: yes, it's in real time.
22:19: So if I close out of this view and
22:22: I go over here and I make an edit, right? I fix something.
22:30: I don't want to do that.
22:32: If I fix anything,
22:34: if I go down here to the line items and I make edits
22:38: or I get rid of something using
22:42: the trash can, right? Or if I add something,
22:46: When I hit save at the top, I can hit print again.
22:49: So I'll hit save,
22:53: print,
22:54: and then the updated version would
22:59: be shown to me on the PDF.
23:01: I keep the draft watermark here until I click approve.
23:06: Once the invoice is approved, that draft watermark will go away.
23:10: Similar, there is a pre-bill summary here in
23:15: the middle.
23:15: I'm trying to highlight just that section right here.
23:19: It says pre-bill summary.
23:20: Please note this is a preview.
23:22: These funds have not been applied yet.
23:25: Total amount outstanding is
23:27: here.
23:27: How much available funds do they have?
23:30: What would be left over on the bill for the outstanding amount after they apply the
23:36: available funds? Available funds can be a trust retainer, the settlement, right,
23:43: stuff in trust, or it can be funds available in the operating retainer.
23:47: It just varies firm to firm on your practice and your jurisdiction, right? Some
23:52: places you're only allowed to put stuff in the IOLTA and trust, whereas in other
23:55: locations you may be able to maintain in an operating retainer.
23:59: So I won't get caught up on that, but here with the total amount outstanding,
24:06: you'll have the $10,000 and $3550.
24:09: the available funds in one of their retainer accounts is $7,655.75,
24:16: and the amount outstanding after they apply it would be this.
24:20: Okay?
24:21: So it gives you kind of a summary here.
24:22: Once you click approve on this bill, this summary goes away.
24:26: So only the statement of account summary, detailed statement of account, any of
24:30: these other items would be remaining,
24:33: and then, of course, the top of the invoice.
24:36: If you look at this invoice and say, well, I don't want my invoice to look like
24:39: that, then you should be doing a billing settings
24:43: call.
24:45: Just make sure that you have completed that with your onboarding team member.
24:51: But this billing settings will allow you to customize your invoice.
24:56: And for those of you who may just need to make a few edits to an existing invoice
25:00: that you already have updated or create a new template maybe, you can do that in
25:04: firm settings under the
25:06: billing and accounting section.
25:08: There's an invoice customization there.
25:12: Okay, so back to the invoice.
25:14: So you can make any updates using the pencil on the right-hand side.
25:19: Here you go.
25:20: Make your update.
25:22: Maybe you need to update the description.
25:25: Here you go.
25:27: On the right-hand side, you can also update quantity and rates, et cetera.
25:31: You can add to, take away, change the user,
25:34: update the date, save and close, save and new.
25:38: But note, this is only updating the invoice.
25:42: If you want this entry to impact the original time entry, so let's say that we
25:49: updated a spelling error in the description.
25:53: We can go and click this and it'll update the original time entry once we hit save
25:57: and close.
25:58: but that
26:00: also means that if we update how much time was worked on here for whatever reason
26:07: or we update the rate then
26:10: that is also going to be reflective on the original time entry so it's going to
26:15: override the original time entry with whatever quantity and rate we've updated it
26:18: with
26:20: last but not least if you want to give a discount on this one line item you can do a
26:27: percentage discount or
26:30: a dollar amount discount.
26:32: Okay? So kind of keep that in mind that you can do either or at the line item.
26:40: Save and close.
26:43: And there we have it.
26:45: If you see a time entry that you don't want included, you can click the trash can.
26:51: And it gives you options.
26:51: You want to convert it to a no charge don't show.
26:55: So that means remove it from the bill and put it back on the matter,
26:59: but we never intend to bill it.
27:02: So no charge, don't show means don't ever put it on a bill, right? Don't show it on
27:06: a bill.
27:07: So you're converting it to that.
27:09: Move back to unbilled activities just means that you don't want it on this
27:13: particular bill, but you want to be able to generate it to another bill later on.
27:19: Permanently delete the time entry is exactly what it says.
27:22: You're literally deleting it.
27:24: Can't be undone.
27:27: If you forgot a flat fee, a time entry or a soft cost expense, you can use the plus
27:33: sign.
27:35: Select the type.
27:36: Flat fee is a service time entry or soft cost expense.
27:40: And you can add that expense here.
27:43: If
27:46: you trash can a soft cost, it doesn't have the same exact options that we saw with
27:50: the time entry.
27:52: all it's going to let you know is that it's going to be deleted but it actually puts
27:55: it back on the matter as
27:57: unbilled so if you needed to bill it later you could
28:01: whereas
28:02: with the hard cost similar concept where it just says expenses for hard cost it's
28:08: just going to put it back on the matter as unbilled and
28:12: then
28:14: of course for flat fees and expenses it
28:18: will just put it back on the matter as
28:20: unbilled Time entry is the only one that gives you options.
28:24: OK, we cannot add a payment yet until the bill is approved, which makes sense.
28:28: We haven't even sent it out yet.
28:30: If this particular matter,
28:33: once we approve it, has retainer funds, we can actually see that here at the top of
28:37: the matter.
28:39: OK, so I'm going to go to actions and
28:42: approve.
28:43: and
28:47: you'll
28:49: see that they have this in trust nothing in an operating retainer so really this is
28:53: a trust-based matter and I can go ahead while I'm here if I just want to quickly
28:59: apply their settlement funds I can use the plus sign at the top apply
29:05: their
29:07: trust retainer now of course that means that it has to be in there right first thing
29:11: you have to do is make sure that that
29:13: retainer or trust or that settlement is entered.
29:17: And then once it's in there, then you can apply it.
29:21: Note,
29:23: applying means that you are, here we go, put the date, the
29:30: matter, the bank account, and what it needs to be transferred to.
29:32: So let's talk about this real quick.
29:34: So the date is the date of the transfer.
29:39: When you apply a retainer in CARET Legal, you're saying that you're transferring it
29:46: from your trust to your operating, if it's a trust-based retainer, right? Because
29:51: you're paying yourself for the outstanding invoice.
29:55: And it's
29:57: going to ask you from what bank account to what bank account.
30:00: So you're transferring the money from this to this account in CARET legal only, not
30:04: at the bank.
30:05: It's only in CARET legal.
30:06: It doesn't go to the bank and do it for you.
30:08: and in addition if
30:12: you're doing an operating retainer and
30:14: you say hey on this date for this matter I want to move their operating retainer
30:18: funds against this invoice then you're not also transferring it to another bank
30:23: account when it's an operating retainer it stays in your operating account as it
30:27: always has it was first entered into it it's going to stay in there it's just going
30:31: from unearned to earned when you apply it to the invoice so that one there's no
30:35: transfer to account.
30:36: We're going to just look at some examples here with this.
30:40: But I want to show you this and make sure you understand it before we move forward.
30:43: So I'm going to run through that one more time.
30:47: We approved this invoice and we possibly have settlement funds that need to be
30:51: applied to it.
30:53: We're looking at the invoice right now.
30:56: We could print it, but we have not applied those funds yet.
30:59: Okay.
30:59: So it's still unpaid.
31:01: There's still a balance.
31:02: How can we apply their
31:05: trust funds to that balance.
31:08: You're going to use the plus sign at the top.
31:11: There's a section that says trust and retainers.
31:14: Trust slash, key word there, trust slash retainers, because not every single
31:18: retainer for every firm is trust.
31:21: Could be operating.
31:22: Again, that varies firm to firm.
31:25: But it says trust slash retainers.
31:28: And once you go to this section,
31:30: we're not adding a new payment in for trust or retainer.
31:33: No, we're applying their existing payment to the invoice.
31:38: So we're applying their existing settlement to the invoice or we are applying their
31:43: existing retainer to their invoice.
31:46: That's what this option does.
31:48: And we're not doing it in a batch because this isn't our monthly billing, which
31:52: we'll point out in just a moment.
31:53: I'll show you how to do that one.
31:55: This is just a one off.
31:56: We want to take this particular matter settlement or funds and apply it to their
32:01: invoice.
32:02: So if I use this,
32:05: apply trust retainer, I'm going to tell it today's date and tell it which matter.
32:11: Very important.
32:13: When I tell it which matter,
32:16: it's going to automatically bring up the bank accounts that have funds.
32:22: Okay.
32:22: So if I use this dropdown,
32:24: it will show me the only bank account that has funds for this matter is this one.
32:30: Perfect.
32:30: and it's a trust account so
32:33: when we earn fees as a firm we're not going to leave it in trust it then becomes our
32:39: money so we need to have it and transfer to whatever operating account we have so
32:45: that's where I would select which one account it's going to.
32:49: Below, it tells me how much I've applied.
32:52: I haven't applied anything yet.
32:54: And how much is available to apply.
32:56: Well, I can see here a list of invoices that they owe me on and
33:03: the original balance and the new balance once it's applied.
33:07: So as I select the invoices, and I'm going to start with the older ones,
33:13: I can apply it to that.
33:15: And then it shows that the total applied is $325, taking away from this full
33:18: balance.
33:20: Where was it applied? Right here.
33:22: Now I'm going to click the next one.
33:24: Again, applying some of that funds, the total that's been applied, new available
33:30: balance.
33:33: Okay.
33:34: Total that's been applied so far, new available balance.
33:37: and then I don't have enough to completely pay this one,
33:41: but I'm going to pay off as much as I can.
33:45: Okay, so this is the total that's being transferred in CARET legal from
33:51: this bank in CARET legal to this bank in CARET legal.
33:55: And all of these invoices are going to be reflective of their new balances, which
34:01: is fully paid,
34:02: less the last one has a balance on it for $13.50, $25.
34:08: OK.
34:09: So it does all of this for you when you apply your retainers or your or your trust.
34:16: Now, if you are required to.
34:20: Go as soon as you're done applying these funds and transfer this at your bank, your
34:25: actual bank, you log into your bank and you're going to transfer from your trust to
34:29: your operating.
34:30: You would be transferring this total seven six five five point seven five.
34:35: Right.
34:36: for this matter on this date.
34:39: And that's so that the transactions at the bank match the transactions in CARET
34:43: legal and we can easily reconcile.
34:45: So just kind of note that.
34:47: Now, if you're like, oh, we don't transfer,
34:50: we're not allowed to, there are certain jurisdictions or just certain firms that I
34:54: work with that they're not allowed to use the transfer functionality.
34:59: They are required to cut out trust checks.
35:02: You would not use this option to cut out a trust check.
35:06: This does not cut a trust check for you.
35:08: This is literally a transfer, and it's going to be noted as a transfer, the same as
35:12: the bank would note it as a transfer, okay?
35:15: So you're paying for all of these invoices.
35:17: They will automatically be updated,
35:19: but it's going to transfer.
35:21: So let me just show you that.
35:25: The new balance on this particular invoice, once those funds are applied,
35:30: is $1,350.25.
35:32: And as you can see, there are no more funds left in their retainers.
35:37: There's nothing up here.
35:39: Just the original total for the invoice and now the balance.
35:43: If I needed to void or write off, I could go into actions and do that.
35:49: Okay.
35:51: If I needed to additionally go ahead and send the client the remaining balance,
35:58: this is what typically happens in our settlement situation, but just saying that,
36:02: then I could go ahead and click on send payment link and send them a link to pay
36:05: directly into their
36:08: invoice balance.
36:10: So just kind of note that that you do have some flexibility once you're done
36:14: applying the funds.
36:15: I'm going to jump over to accounting real quick, because for those of you who need
36:20: to see this under banks and registers.
36:24: I want to show you the transaction that happened when we applied the trust to the
36:28: operating to
36:30: pay for those invoices.
36:32: So from unearned to earned.
36:35: Right.
36:36: So here we would go to our operating account and we could see those funds coming in.
36:43: It would say transfer.
36:47: And it would say for what matter and how much.
36:48: So increasing our account balance.
36:51: OK.
36:53: All right.
36:54: And then in addition.
36:57: You see here under the invoices.
37:01: All of the invoices that were paid would be paid.
37:04: But this one, of course, wasn't paid in full, has that balance.
37:08: So it's partially paid.
37:09: If I click on this matter and go to the matter page.
37:16: Under invoices.
37:20: It should reflect the same exact thing.
37:22: But it's
37:24: only going to be for this matter.
37:27: This matter only has its invoices, where when we go to accounting, it's all
37:31: invoices, and we can narrow down what we're looking for.
37:35: There you go.
37:39: And if you needed to print three dots, you can print it to
37:45: mail it out, or three dots to send via the payment link.
37:51: You can email out the
37:53: bill,
37:55: especially using your APX links for them to pay.
37:59: So you can email them out the bill, and it will allow you to select the matter, the
38:03: person you're billing.
38:05: Hello, please proceed with the following payment request.
38:08: By the way, all of this verbiage can be updated.
38:11: You can change what this default says.
38:14: I'm sorry, less the links.
38:15: You don't want to touch anything with the links down here because that's how they're
38:18: going to be able to click to pay, and we don't want to break that link.
38:20: But anything like here above, you can add in your own verbiage.
38:25: Okay, and you can set that up in the firm settings where you can do it on the fly
38:29: right here.
38:30: So you could just take that out.
38:32: All right.
38:33: And then they'll be able to click and pay very easily.
38:36: And they'll also see an attached invoice.
38:39: If they owe you for any other outstanding bills,
38:42: by the way, when a client clicks the pay now link, they'll be able to see any other
38:46: outstanding balances they owe to you.
38:48: Okay, click send, that sends it out the door, or again, you can print it.
38:53: All right, team, that is for those contingency slash settlement situations.
38:58: Let's jump into
39:00: the monthly billing.
39:02: Okay, so monthly billing is actually, in my opinion, going to be just a little bit
39:07: easier.
39:08: So on monthly billing,
39:10: we are going to be using
39:13: the plus sign at the top,
39:16: and then we are going to say new
39:19: invoice from unbilled activities.
39:22: This is how I will do it, new invoice from unbilled activities.
39:26: If you're thinking to yourself, I was taught to go to accounting,
39:30: and once in accounting, I
39:32: was taught to go to invoices and payments,
39:35: and to the plus sign,
39:37: invoice unbilled activities,
39:39: team, it takes you to the same place.
39:41: So whatever makes the most sense to you, like I showed earlier, some people are
39:45: going to be billing directly from a matter where the rest of us, if you do a monthly
39:49: billing cycle, you're going to go into invoices and payments and click it here.
39:55: Or you've just gotten used to using this quick menu at the top,
39:59: new invoice from unbilled activities.
40:01: Each one of these takes you to the same exact step.
40:03: It takes you to the pre-bill step here.
40:06: and by default,
40:10: all we need to do on this page is tell it how our monthly billing cycle is built.
40:15: So the first thing I'm going to do is tell it in the filter here that
40:18: I bill everything till
40:21: last month.
40:23: So everything that
40:25: was ever entered, especially if somebody accidentally typo would be included all the
40:29: way through June 30th, 2025.
40:32: OK,
40:33: now if I want to do a custom range on the date, I can select custom range and custom
40:39: range works best like this.
40:43: When you select this custom range, whether you're doing reporting or anything else,
40:47: you can either type it in two digits slash two digits slash four digits.
40:54: And then click the tab and do two digits slash two digits slash four digits apply.
41:00: OK, but you always want to select custom range when you're wanting to pick a custom
41:04: range and then hit apply.
41:07: Otherwise, if you click custom range.
41:10: The left calendar predates
41:13: a year.
41:15: So it's going to date back to a year.
41:18: You can change that.
41:19: You can flip through that left calendar is for the left field.
41:23: The right calendar, like travel calendars, is for the right field and then hit
41:27: apply.
41:28: I want you to know how to use this because in the beginning I did not and it threw
41:31: me off a little bit.
41:32: All right.
41:33: So most important thing when you come into pre-bill stage is tell it what you're
41:38: trying to bill for, like flat fees,
41:42: expenses,
41:43: time entries through what date.
41:46: OK, that's what I mean by bill, what you're billing for.
41:49: You want to tell it what date range to include in this billing cycle.
41:54: And I'm just going to say till last month.
41:57: By default, I can also see that it's selected all.
42:01: Everything that happened in this date range for any matter is going to be selected
42:04: and then I can click generate.
42:07: If I have I only want to do certain billing groups for,
42:12: you know, certain work types, whatever it is,
42:16: I can absolutely use any other filter and then select all and generate invoices.
42:21: If
42:23: you prefer to manually select,
42:27: you can go to manually select and
42:30: you can click on which
42:32: ones you're trying to do.
42:34: Just note the manual selection will
42:37: also have the
42:41: page filter at the bottom so that you can tell it more than this page, etc.
42:47: Go
42:48: to the next page, etc.
42:49: But by default now, the quickest way to do this is use your filters here at the top.
42:58: And then you're going to once you did that, you can go ahead and click generate
43:03: invoices.
43:05: So I'm going to actually just shorten this up.
43:11: See if I have anything for last year.
43:12: Generate and
43:14: confirm the invoice date and the due date.
43:19: do I want an email when it's completed generating this well sure so
43:24: it's generating that batch and
43:27: when it's done I'll be notified by email also
43:31: if it's still if I'm printing hundreds or I'm doing hundreds of invoices it'll
43:37: tell me if it's still processing them here but I'll get an email
43:42: even if it isn't or
43:44: it is either way okay that's all I have to do now where do all my invoices go when
43:50: they're done here they go over to accounting some people click on accounting some
43:54: click back to all invoices they both again take you to the same place it takes you
43:59: back here so you can see all the invoices you generated I
44:03: only generated three again some of you may be working with Hundreds.
44:09: So on your monthly billing,
44:11: again, you're going to go to plus
44:14: sign invoice and build activities.
44:17: You're going to start by telling it what you're trying to bill via
44:21: the filters.
44:22: So the filters at the top, just start with the first one and work your way through
44:26: them.
44:27: Try not to get out of order.
44:28: You're narrowing down what you're actually trying to bill for.
44:32: Once it's all there, click generate.
44:34: And then once it's done processing, you can go back to all invoices or into
44:39: accounting and you will see here
44:43: under draft don't just leave it on last 180 days because as you can see last 180
44:49: days isn't everything that I just generated it's all bills paid or unpaid right so I
44:54: want to go to draft bills here
44:58: selecting
44:59: draft and now I can see all my drafts what am I doing with these pre-bills well at
45:04: my firm I need to print them and distribute them to each responsible attorney or
45:09: each responsible attorney's paralegal.
45:12: And then we have our own process outside of paralegal,
45:15: where some firms
45:17: may say,
45:18: well, I'm the one who does the final review.
45:21: We have all of our team members review their time entries on the time entry screen,
45:26: and then I'm the person who actually reviews and makes any edits.
45:32: So they sometimes don't print them out.
45:34: So I'm going to show you both options.
45:36: OK, so if you're a firm who needs to print your pre-bills now that they're on the
45:41: draft page, all you have to do is select all.
45:46: Multi-select down here in the bottom right.
45:50: Print selected invoices.
45:54: And if you just want to print them with the template that each matter is assigned
45:59: to, so each matter can be assigned to an invoice template.
46:03: Right.
46:03: That's how they're set up.
46:05: then you could just say use the matter template, whatever the matter is set to.
46:10: But if you have a process where you need them to review them in a different
46:14: template,
46:16: you can also tell it, print them in this template for review.
46:21: And then the next time when you actually print off the finalized version for the
46:24: client, you can use their typical matter default.
46:27: So just kind of note that there are some firms who need to review them in one way
46:32: versus how they look here.
46:37: And then it's going to say how many invoices are we trying to print? Just the 20 on
46:41: the first page on this page.
46:43: And I'm like, no, I want all of them.
46:45: So print all 93.
46:48: Right.
46:48: And when I select print all 93, then it's going to ask me, OK, how do you want those
46:52: printed or regrouped?
46:54: I want them by responsible attorney.
46:57: So I want each responsible attorney to have only their invoices in their stack.
47:00: and I want it by invoice number ascending,
47:04: or I can say client name or matter number.
47:07: Some people like them by client name.
47:09: They like responsible attorney and then to be able to see each of their clients
47:12: grouped together for
47:15: that responsible attorney.
47:17: So then we'll hit print and
47:19: it's going to let me know that they're being generated.
47:22: This can take five to 10 minutes for it to reorganize.
47:25: I mean, it really varies on how many pages
47:28: that
47:30: PDF is trying to reorganize.
47:33: But either way, if you want to check on the status of the batch, you can go right
47:39: here above the draft section to view batch invoices and
47:43: click there.
47:44: It will also email you when it's done.
47:47: So view batch invoices.
47:56: And here under view batch invoices, you'll see that mine is still generating, just
48:00: generated it.
48:01: But what would it look like once it's done? It'll look like this,
48:06: finished.
48:06: And then there will be the download error where you can actually download
48:11: that PDF packet, right? Mine goes up here to the far right.
48:17: And here we go.
48:18: I can see over here there's lots of bills, right?
48:22: And all I would do is actually click print.
48:26: All right, so we're going to run through that one more time, okay?
48:29: So first thing is when I'm generating my bills, I'm going to the plus sign, invoice
48:34: unbilled activities.
48:39: I'm going to tell it what date range I'm trying to bill for.
48:49: Use any other applicable filters.
48:51: I don't need to do one by one each responsible attorney here.
48:57: if my purpose is so that each responsible attorney only has their bills.
49:01: No, I can actually generate everybody's bills at the same time.
49:05: Again, as long as everybody's kind of previewed them and made sure they look good,
49:08: this process should be pretty quick and easy.
49:12: If you're waiting and letting them review them once they're actually printed, of
49:16: course that's going to slow you down a little bit,
49:18: but each firm does it a little bit differently.
49:21: But if everything's reviewed at this point, then I should be generating bills for
49:25: everyone and then printing them by their particular responsible attorney, right?
49:30: So here, put your applicable filters, hit generate,
49:33: confirm the date of
49:36: the invoice versus the due date.
49:38: Some of you don't even have your due dates displayed on your invoices, and that's
49:42: okay.
49:43: I click generate, and that's going to generate those pre-bills.
49:50: Once it's done, you'll see that that zeroes out.
49:53: But I can go over to accounting now and all of my draft invoices will be defaulted
49:59: here on the last 180 days.
50:00: But remember, I like to go over to draft.
50:04: Immediately, once it's done, select all.
50:07: So that makes sure I'm waiting for it to finish.
50:09: So all drafts are here.
50:11: And then once I select all, that's that top checkbox over here.
50:16: Doesn't actually say select all, by the way.
50:18: Print
50:20: selected invoices.
50:22: and I'll tell it all 109 instead of just that first 20 by responsible attorney, etc.
50:29: Hit print.
50:30: And it's going to give me a pop up that says, hey, it'll email you once it's
50:34: rebatched them, how you wanted them done.
50:37: And ultimately, when that email comes or if you just want to check it, it's under
50:42: view batch invoices.
50:43: That's where it's going to take you to when you click on the email.
50:47: and here I would be able to see my
50:50: batch invoice status and this one's already done so I can click on it now and
50:59: this is what I'm printing and as you can see when you do it by the responsible
51:03: attorney it'll have your attorney and how many invoices they have and then you'll
51:08: scroll through those invoices right and then it's going to come to the next cover
51:12: page it'll have the next attorney and how many invoices they have.
51:16: So when you're printing this off, you can literally distribute it by those cover
51:19: pages to each individual.
51:23: Now, what happens whenever they have edits or need to be able to fix something? This
51:28: is going to vary firm to firm,
51:30: but how you would edit an invoice is
51:34: you're just going to go in,
51:36: again, to the invoice number.
51:37: So if they're working through their drafts, They may go to draft funnel and
51:43: set their responsible attorney.
51:45: Right.
51:45: Because now.
51:49: Let me actually type this in.
52:00: Use Elizabeth.
52:02: OK,
52:04: if we type this in, hit search and close.
52:07: Now I can see only that particular responsible
52:11: attorney's invoices, which should match with what they have in their stack.
52:15: And from here, they can click on the invoice itself.
52:24: Make the individual edits.
52:28: So make the edits right here.
52:30: What do you need to edit? Like we talked about earlier, what do you need to add? and
52:34: then once they agree with it, if they're the ones clicking approve, they can either
52:38: approve or maybe you go through the approval process and you can submit it for
52:42: approval,
52:43: which will show as pending on the dashboard.
52:46: And a lot of times that's just an indication to the billing personnel that it's been
52:51: reviewed and it's ready for their next steps.
52:53: Okay, so if I click actions approve,
52:57: the invoice will just show it's not paid, it's ready to go.
53:00: It hasn't been paid yet.
53:01: Waiting for you to apply funds or send it to the client for payment.
53:07: The other one is submit
53:09: for approval, which will take it from the draft status for in to pending.
53:14: OK, so either way, you can do that.
53:16: They can print it.
53:17: They can save it.
53:18: Do anything that we talked about earlier.
53:21: Ultimately, once they're done.
53:25: Reviewing their drafts.
53:28: they should not have anything left or if it's you the billing person reviewing the
53:32: drafts then you shouldn't have anything left in here, right? Because we've worked
53:35: through each one of these, either approving them,
53:39: editing and then approving them, or maybe we don't even need that bill.
53:43: So if you don't need the bill at all, the pre-bill, you can just delete it.
53:48: And that puts it back on the matter as unbilled.
53:51: Every single entry in there would be unbilled.
53:54: A little bit different than if you actually sent them the bill.
53:57: If you sent them a bill, you don't want to delete that bill like this one.
54:01: If I sent it to them, it wouldn't let me anyways because there's payment on it.
54:04: But you
54:06: don't want to delete a bill that's been sent to the client.
54:09: Instead, you would go in to that bill.
54:14: This one hasn't been paid.
54:14: And you would click the void button.
54:17: So under more actions,
54:23: void.
54:25: and void is just going to again delete this invoice and put all the entries back on
54:30: the matters unbilled but it's going to keep the record of
54:36: those invoices in a voided section so delete
54:40: you haven't sent it out you just want to get rid of the invoice you don't need it
54:43: delete it it puts everything back on the matter void also puts everything back on
54:48: the matter
54:49: as unbilled so you could rebuild it.
54:51: It's just there's going to be a record under voided here of any voided invoices.
54:55: Okay.
54:59: Okay, so now you've edited.
55:01: You've got everything in the approved status ready to go.
55:05: What happens next? Well, it really depends on the firm.
55:07: If you have trust applications,
55:11: so you need to apply trust or you need to cut trust checks,
55:15: It varies firm to firm again.
55:17: Then you would do that step at this point before you send out the bills.
55:21: Right.
55:21: And some firms are going to have it so that.
55:27: You know, they need to run a report and say who out of these parties has trust
55:32: checks that need cut.
55:34: They would go to their plus sign, cut their trust checks.
55:37: Right.
55:39: and then they would have to turn around, plus sign, and apply those
55:44: trust checks against the invoice.
55:46: That's a two-step process, but those are for firms that cannot do transfers.
55:51: So just kind of keep that in mind.
55:53: If you cannot transfer at the bank and you have to cut your trust checks, you have
55:58: to record each one one by one.
56:00: It doesn't do one big check.
56:02: And then you have to turn around and apply those
56:06: checks to the invoices.
56:08: But if you are a firm that transfers from trust to operating, then you have two
56:12: options.
56:12: You can apply each person's trust to their invoice one by one here, like we did
56:19: earlier with that settlement example.
56:21: Or you can do it as a whole using the batch option.
56:25: And this says, hey, take any of the money that's in trust, this trust account you
56:29: specify, and transfer it to this operating on this date.
56:34: and
56:36: the invoices I want you to take care of with this money is all, or you can even just
56:42: tell it the ones that you generated today for
56:45: this responsible attorney, apply and close, right? You can choose these filters to
56:50: narrow down which ones you're trying to apply it to.
56:52: Otherwise, it's going to say, hey, these are all outstanding invoices from trust to
56:57: operating, apply and close, and it's going to transfer for each invoice,
57:04: the applicable money, and it will be reflected right here under banks and registers.
57:08: You'll also get a report emailed to you.
57:10: The user that does the transaction will get a report that says what was transferred
57:13: for what matter.
57:15: That way you can match it at the bank, right? But under banks and registers,
57:19: you would also see from the trust account,
57:22: wherever it's at here, to the operating,
57:25: each matter and how much was transferred on behalf of that matter, right? So it
57:29: would say transfer like this right here.
57:33: and it would have each one of them listed out.
57:35: Okay, that's if you do that option.
57:38: Once monies are applied,
57:42: and also that includes if you have any payments, checks that are there at the office
57:45: that need to be applied to the client's account before you send them out their new
57:50: bill,
57:51: all of these invoices will be updated in real time.
57:54: As soon as you apply trust or you apply a payment, they're updated in real time.
57:58: So really, the next step would be
58:02: Apply a payment if you had one.
58:05: Right.
58:05: Select the client that you're applying it for.
58:09: Let's try one that actually may have a bill in here.
58:18: There we go.
58:19: And then how much are they paying?
58:23: So what bank account is this money being deposited to?
58:27: How are they paying you?
58:28: and if it was by credit card or check, you could add that.
58:33: Remember, APX is going to look a little bit different for those of you doing
58:35: electronic payments and you're processing it for the client.
58:39: You'll have a different method here, and we have a separate video for that.
58:42: You'll have your reference number in there, the date, and then apply it to whichever
58:47: bill is outstanding.
58:50: There
58:51: you go.
58:52: Apply and close.
58:55: That records as a payment.
58:57: the operating on the banks and registers page and then of course the invoice will
59:01: have that payment here too so that's applying payments before you send it out to
59:05: send out bills you can go individually to the right hand side and
59:11: send them their payment with the link to pay
59:14: like we demonstrated earlier or you can print the bill to send to them individually
59:21: make sure that you record your sent on dates if
59:25: you do bulk billing
59:28: You can email your invoices from
59:31: today.
59:33: I don't have any, so we'll go a little further.
59:35: And it says that I have 14 candidates for that.
59:39: I can use additional filters to narrow down who I'm trying to bill or send out bills
59:43: to.
59:44: And then here I can even uncheck on this step anybody I don't want the bill to go
59:49: out to.
59:50: Click next, blast and close, and that will email them all out as well as put the
59:54: sent on date here.
59:57: that has to be set up before you can use it okay but those are the different ways
01:00:01: you could also use bulk billing center to print invoices for anybody that's required
01:00:06: print how does it know who to print and who to email the delivery preference so each
01:00:11: matter in the matter settings you can tell it which matter um wants to be emailed or
01:00:17: snail
01:00:19: mail okay all right team That is it for getting bills out the door.
01:00:24: Hopefully you found this webinar helpful.
01:00:26: I look forward to having you on other trainings.
01:00:28: Thanks for your time.
01:00:29: Bye.
01:00:31: Learn to add billable items, generate and customize invoices, apply retainers, and
01:00:36: manage payments effectively using CARET Legal's billing and accounting features.
In addition to the video, I've included links to download our helpful Billing Workflow Guides with step-by-step instructions for creating, managing, and communicating invoices.
If you would like help with your first billing cycle, please schedule a call with one of our training specialists here.
If you would like to continue training, we would recommend completing the Document Automation or Accounting webinars next.