The Bill4Time Blog

It’s finally here! Get paid faster with a “Pay Now” button attached to your online invoices. Not only will your clients receive their invoices by email, but they can immediately pay for it quickly and conveniently.

This is not a default setting, so you will have to activate it in your Bill4Time account. When you look under “Settings,” you will see an additional tab: Online Payments.

Below is a tutorial video which will show you step-by-step instructions on how to:

1. Enable PayPal online payments.
2. Invoice your clients with a PayPal payment option.

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Available now is the latest feature of Bill4Time as your time and project management software. Users can now upload multiple files at once for their clients and projects. As always, the system update is free for all users.

Files uploaded together are grouped but when you need to access any of them, just click on the individual link to download it. It’s never been easier to make the Internet your hard drive. Now with the new Batch File Uploading feature, you can save time uploading your relevant documents.

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Trust Accounting: Deleting Transactions

Now users can delete trust accounting transactions without contacting the Bill4Time staff. You must either be a System User or get permission from the System User.

Invoice Details: Labor or Expense Discount

When you look on your invoice details, you will see a link: Discount Options. This allows you to apply the invoice discount to either your labor, your expenses, or both.

Invoice Template: Hours Per User & Project

At the bottom of the invoice templates, you will see a little addition that does a big difference to your invoice. It groups the user hours by project.

This way, your user hours will change from this:

…….to this:

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New Report Templates

Bill4Time has offered just one more way to make this time billing software cater to your individual needs. With the new report templates, you can save any combination of filters and use them again at any time. There’s also a new export feature to the reports. Now you can print out your reports as a PDF or an excel file.

Budgeting Tool

Click on any client in the system and take a look at the client details page. Notice at the top right corner a new button:

Now you can establish a budget for your client and all associated projects for that client. Here’s a screenshot of the what you can do with the budgeting tool:

(Side note: Want to know how we got the firm’s logo on this screen shot? Find out here!)

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It’s finally here: billable rates per activity! Now you can assign a specific rate per activity and make your time tracking software experience even faster. This will override your default rate so the rate per activity will automatically be applied.

To get started with your billable rates per activity, just do the following:

1. Click on “Settings.”
2. Click the “Custom Lists” tab.
3. Click on “(edit)” next to “Billable Activity Types.”
4. Put a check next to “Rate.”
5. Put in the desired rate for the appropriate activity type.
6. Click on the “Save” button.
7. Close the window.
8. Refresh the main screen.

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The Bill4Time Referral Program is now here! Do you know of any friends or colleagues who could benefit from Bill4Time’s time and billing software? Let us reward you for your efforts to grow Bill4Time.

How It Works

Sign up for the Bill4Time Referral Program and when a customer subscribes to either the Bill4Time Lite or Bill4Time Pro, you are eligible to receive a commission. The referral has to either include your name in the “Referred By” section of the sign-up form, or email us that you referred them to us by emailing sales@Bill4Time.com.  The Bill4Time Referral Program applies to all new customers who subscribe on and after April 13, 2009.

What You Get

Commission is based on a percentage of what the referral is paying Bill4Time for the subscription. You will receive a monthly commission of 60% per charge of each user of the referral for the first 6 months, starting with the first month the referral pays for a Bill4Time subscription. Afterwards, you will receive a monthly commission of 35% per charge of each user of the referral for the next 30 months. That’s three years!

A Likely Scenario

Let’s imagine this: if you referred a company of over 4 users and they subscribed for the Pro subscription for an entire year, you can earn over $200 for each of the first three users, and over $100 for each user after that. For only the first four users, you’d be earning an extra $700 a year. And this is just for referring them to Bill4Time.

If the Bill4Time Referral Program appeals to you and you’d like further details, please contact Jessica Eballar at Jessica@Bill4Time.com.

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So much has been happening since the release of our new version in November: a lot more features and updates! We’re pretty excited about them. We invite you to try them out and see how it makes your time and billing tasks easier. Here are two more additional features to help you with invoicing.

Invoicing Software Update #1

Bill4Time users can now send out multiple invoices to a single client using only a single batch. This is especially useful if you have a lot of invoices to send out, and several clients with multiple projects open.
So when you create a new invoice batch, you will see two columns of check boxes. The ones on the left denote which projects you want included in the batch. The ones on the right denote which ones require a separate invoice. And as before, each client automatically has his/her own invoice.

Invoicing Software Update #2

Whenever you upload an image of a receipt for an expense, the image will be included in the invoice that lists that receipt. This adds further accountability to your professional activities. Just make sure you enable this feature on your invoice template. It is located near the Footer settings on the invoice template settings. Read more…

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We’re pleased to announce our latest accounting feature to our time billing software: project-level accounting. This is to compliment the accounting on the client level.

Accounting Organized Per Project

Now, on the project level, you go to the project’s details page and then click on the Accounting tab. There you can see all the cash in-flow (payments received, credit balances) and cash out-flow (invoices sent out, debit balances) exclusively for that project. This way you can keep track of what has been billed and what has been paid throughout the project. You can also receive payments and make balance adjustments on the same screen. Any accounting done throughout the system for any projects is reflected in the project’s details.

Receive Payments Per Project

When you receive a payment, you can allocate it for a certain project. This is particularly useful when a client has given you a down payment but only for a specific project. This way, you can make sure that amount is only used for that one project.

Assessing a Project’s Efficiency

This new feature also makes writing up or writing down invoices easier to use as an efficiency tool. If you charge a set total for labor and expenses, not only can you compare actual amount of labor and expenses to the set amounts on the client level, but now also on the project level. What does this mean? This means you can assess the efficiency and value of your labor/expenses per project. You can quickly go through one invoice after another for this project and easily get an idea of how well you are using your labor hours and sticking to the budget.

For more information on enabling project-level accounting for your subscription, just check out the Bill4Time Knowledge Base.

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What is it?

Project due dates enables you to set a specific date for a project to be done.

What does it do?

It helps you keep on schedule. This is particularly useful when you have multiple projects with different due dates. With its accompanying dashboard widget, you can see at a single glance the due dates for all open projects.

How do I use it?

To Enable the “Projects Due Dates” Feature:

1. Click on Settings at the top right corner of the screen.
2. Click on the System tab.
3. Click on the Edit Settings button.
4. Put a check next to Track Project Due Dates.
5. Click on the Save Changes button.

To Set a Due Date for a Project:

1. Click on the blue Project tab.
2. Click on the desired project.
3. Click the Edit Project button.
4. Click the calendar icon next to Project Due Date and choose the desired day.
5. Click the Save button.

To Have the Project Due Widget on the Dashboard:

1. Click on the blue Dashboard tab.
2. Click on the gear icon at the right of the screen.
3. Scroll down and look at the bottom of the left column.
4. Choose Projects Due at the pull down menu.
5. Click the Add button.
6. If you would like this widget to be at the top of the dashboard, just click and drag the title to the top of the column.
7. Click the gear icon again to finish.

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Bill4Time has released the latest updates and changes to the Bill4Time system. In addition to numerous fixes and improvements, here are some noteworthy additions.

New Dashboard Widget: The Time Entry Grid

Now you can quickly enter time entries right from the dashboard. Once you choose the client, project, and hours, a time entry will be created immediately. Any changes or additional information you include will be saved as soon as you finish typing. Click the “plus” icon to create another entry, or click the “clipboard” icon to bring up the detailed time entry screen.

Summary Invoices

If you prefer to create invoices with summary of services instead of showing detailed line items, is there is a new “Invoice Summary” tab when creating invoices. When creating an invoice, click the Summary Tab and check the “Use Summary” checkbox. Enter in your summary text below and click “Save.” This particular invoice will now appear in summary form.

Writing Up or Down an Invoice

This new feature allows you to have a set billable total for labor and expenses regardless of activity performed. This is for people who need accurate details of the hours worked and standard rates, but want to adjust the invoice total, usually to match a pre-arranged amount.

To write up or down an invoice, find the “Labor Total” and “Expense Total” edit boxes on the Invoice Details screen. Check the box to indicate you would like to adjust the total, and enter the adjusted amount. Bill4Time will automatically adjust all the records to match the set total. The amount prior to adjustment will not be displayed on the actual invoice.

Coming Soon: Project Accounting

We are putting the final touches on the ability to manage accounting per project, in addition to per client. Expect an announcement in the coming days.

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