00:00: In this video, I'm going to walk you through the billing, workflow, incurred, legal,
00:04: specifically, focusing on how things work when you're using retainers.
00:10:
00:11: We'll go step by step from creating billable activity to generating invoices all the
00:17: way through applying retainer funds and sending invoices out to clients.
00:20: Let's go ahead and get started.
00:23: At a high level,
00:25: the billing workflow in Carrot Legal includes creating billable activities,
00:29: generating and reviewing pre-bills,
00:32: finalizing invoices,
00:34: applying trust or retainer funds, sending invoices to clients, and receiving
00:39: payments.
00:39: When retainers are involved, the key difference is that payments often come from
00:44: trust funds that were deposited earlier, rather than being paid after invoicing.
00:51: Let's start with creating billable activity, specifically time entries, since that's
00:56: the foundation of most billing.
00:58: There are several ways to track time in Carrot Legal.
01:02: You can do it automatically by capturing time from emails, phone calls, or calendar
01:07: events.
01:07: You can also track time using the timer, the mobile app, tasks, or the Matter
01:14: Activity log.
01:16: You can enter time manually using the Quick Add menu and selecting New Time Entry by
01:22: heading over to Time section,
01:25: Time Entries tab and clicking the plus sign on the right side to to create new time
01:29: entry, or within the matter page from the time and expenses tab.
01:36: The key here is consistency, making sure all your billable time is captured
01:41: accurately before billing.
01:44: Next, let's talk about flat fees and expenses.
01:46: For flat fees, head to the time section, then the flat fee tab.
01:52: Click the plus sign on the right side of the green bar to add your entry.
01:57: You can also add flat fees directly inside the matter.
02:02: For expenses,
02:04: Carrot Legal supports soft costs, hard costs like checks or credit cards, vendor
02:10: bills, and even interest on overdue invoices.
02:15: You can enter expenses from the expenses tab in the time section, from
02:20: the matter view, the quick add menu by selecting new expense as a soft cost or new
02:26: check as a hard cost, or heading over to the accounting
02:32: section
02:33: under vendors and bills tab, where you can create a new vendor bill.
02:39: The goal is to make sure everything that is billable and not just time is included.
02:46: Once your activities are in place, it's time to generate a pre-bill.
02:51: To do this, go to the accounting, then open invoices and payments tab.
02:56: Click the plus sign on the right side and from here you can choose to invoice
03:01: unbilled activities or create an invoice from scratch.
03:05: If you're starting from scratch, you'll manually add items like time, flat fees, or
03:11: expenses.
03:12: In this video, we are going to build existing unbilled activities.
03:18: In the Generate Invoices screen, set your filters.
03:23: Set the date range,
03:25: select the matter if you are billing an individual matter,
03:29: and any other filters as needed.
03:32: Click Generate Invoice.
03:34: If you'd like to see the details of what is captured, click on Manual Select Items
03:40: and turn on the toggle Show Details.
03:43: By clicking the arrow next to the billable line item, you can now see the details of
03:50: captured activities such as flat fees, time, expenses,
03:56: or interest.
03:59: Select your matters that you'd like to create the invoices for,
04:03: or
04:07: switch back to Select all items to generate.
04:10: Then click Generate invoice.
04:13: Confirm the invoice date and due date, then click Generate.
04:19: The drafts will be created and you'll see the confirmation along with the invoice
04:23: numbers.
04:24: By design, the system is going to leave you here on this generation page so that you
04:30: can continue modifying filters, selecting additional matters individually, and
04:34: generating additional invoices.
04:37: If you're done here, click back to all invoices to return to the accounting module
04:43: into the invoices and payments tab.
04:47: And Garrett Legal prebills show up as draft invoices.
04:53: Here we will see all the invoices that we have, but by clicking on the draft filter,
04:58: we can narrow down our list to draft invoices only.
05:03: Again, you can find these drafts by heading over to the accounting section, invoices
05:07: and payments tab, or
05:10: directly inside the matter page.
05:13: In the matter page, click on the invoices tab where you will see all approved or any
05:19: invoices that are still in a draft mode pertaining to this particular matter.
05:26: If you wish to print the drafts, you can do so by selecting them
05:31: all and clicking multi-select options button, then selecting print selected
05:37: invoices.
05:39: Under multi-select options, you will also notice other commands.
05:42: such as approving the invoices in bulk or deleting them.
05:48: When deleting a bill, all activity captured in this draft will be returned with an
05:53: unbilled status.
05:56: If you would like to make any changes to the invoice,
06:01: you can do so by clicking the three-dot menu on the right
06:05: and select edit.
06:07: You can also click on the invoice number
06:12: In this draft preview screen, we can edit each individual line item by clicking the
06:18: edit button or delete them by clicking this trash can icon.
06:23: Add new line item such as time entries, flat fees or expenses.
06:31: You can also change the
06:34: invoice date or the due date.
06:36: Add an invoice level discount.
06:39: Add notes that will be visible on the invoice or internal notes.
06:45: Reviewing the drafts is an important step.
06:47: Make sure everything looks accurate before finalizing.
06:53: Depending on your firm's setup, your prebills may need approval.
06:58: If approval is enabled, you can submit invoices for approval so another user can
07:03: review and approve individually or in bulk.
07:06: Alternatively, you can approve it directly from here.
07:10: Once the invoice is approved,
07:16: the status of the bill will change from draft to not paid,
07:20: and you can then return to the invoices list.
07:28: Let's approve the remaining drafts in bulk.
07:34: I'm going to select, use the multi-select option,
07:38: and select approve invoices.
07:43: Once all the drafts have been approved, we are ready
07:46: for the key step for this process, applying retainer or trust funds.
07:53: To apply retainer funds, go to invoices and payments tab in accounting or open the
07:59: matter
08:03: and go to the invoices tab.
08:05: In the matter, we're going to click the plus sign and
08:09: select apply trust retainers.
08:12: I'm going to head over to the accounting and
08:16: click the plus sign on the right side here.
08:18: And here in the trust column, you will see two options.
08:22: Apply trust retainer to apply trust individually,
08:26: matter by matter,
08:27: or apply trust retainer funds as a batch.
08:31: Let's look at both options.
08:33: Select Apply Trust Retainer.
08:37: Choose the matter.
08:41: Select the correct bank accounts from trust to operating in our case.
08:47: We're going to see what
08:49: is the trust balance on this matter
08:52: and select Appropriate Invoices.
08:55: Then click Apply Funds.
08:59: If you want to apply funds across multiple matters,
09:03: you can use Apply Trust Retainer as a batch.
09:09: In the Bulk Apply Trust Retainer screen,
09:11: select the bank account where the trust retainer funds are located, whether it's
09:16: trust or operating.
09:19: If it's trust, select the trust account.
09:22: Transfer to account will be our operating account.
09:25: verify the applied date,
09:28: and set any additional filters if needed.
09:33: Click Apply and Close to apply payments all at once.
09:37: Once Carried Legal completes the task, it will send you a confirmation email.
09:43: One important note.
09:45: Carried Legal tracks these transactions, but it does not physically move funds in
09:50: your bank account.
09:51: This step still needs to be handled separately by your firm.
09:58: Once your invoices are finalized and payments from trust are applied, the status of
10:02: those invoices will be changed to paid or partially paid.
10:07: And now it's time to send them out.
10:11: You have a few options here.
10:13: First, using Bulk Billing Center.
10:17: It allows you to send multiple invoices at once.
10:22: Set the date range of
10:28: the invoices that you'd like to email.
10:32: In the next screen, set additional filters if needed, such as attorney, practice
10:37: area, or particular matter or the client.
10:42: In the next screen, review the invoices where you'd have an opportunity to exclude
10:47: some invoices from the emailing.
10:52: And in the final screen, you can customize your message.
10:56: Click blast and close to send out all the invoices.
11:01: If you have carrot pay enabled, these invoices will go out with a pay now link.
11:07: This option is great for efficiency.
11:11: Another option is to send individual invoices by
11:16: clicking the three dot menu on the right side of the invoice line item and selecting
11:22: send payment link.
11:25: Each email will include a PDF and a payment link if Carat Pay is enabled.
11:34: Select the recipient and
11:40: click send.
11:46: And the third option is to share invoices securely via Caret Portal.
11:52: Click the three-dot menu and select Share via Portal.
11:57: Select the contact that you'd like to share the invoices with.
12:03: Clients get notified via email,
12:05: and they can view documents in their Portal account and pay online if Caret Pay is
12:10: enabled.
12:13: All of these options make it easy to communicate clearly with your clients.
12:18: Finally, let's talk about receiving payments.
12:22: Payments can be made directly to a single invoice by
12:26: clicking the three-dot menu on the right side of the invoice line item and select
12:31: Record Payment.
12:35: You can also apply a payment to multiple invoices by clicking the plus sign
12:41: on the right side of the green bar and select Apply Direct Payment.
12:47: This flexibility makes it easy for clients to pay and for your firm to record those
12:54: payments accurately.
12:56: And that's the full workflow.
12:59: We covered creating billable activity,
13:02: generating and reviewing invoices,
13:05: applying retainer funds,
13:07: sending invoices,
13:09: and receiving payments.
13:12: you
13:15: Here at legal provides a really comprehensive system to help you manage building
13:19: efficiently.
13:20: Especially when retainers are involved.
13:23: Thanks so much for watching and feel free to revisit this tutorial.
13:26: Anytime you need a refresher.