The Bill4Time Blog

If take a look at your Bill4Time invoice templates, you’ll notice some new features at the bottom of the window. These add-ons consolidate the extra information that is usually attached to the invoice.

Attach Receipts

In the Bill4Time system, you’ve always been able to upload receipt images to your tracked expenses.  By including an image of the receipts themselves, there’s an extra element of check and balance. Now with the new feature of including it in your invoice, you reinforce your integrity as a professional with your client. In one invoice, all of your receipts are shown on one document. No extra attachments to the email – no little bits of paper stapled together.

Note: For best results, make sure you initially scan cash register receipts at 100 DPI. To adjust receipts already saved in the system, resize them to about 300 pixels in width and let the length automatically change in proportion to it.

Attach Trust Account Summary

When you include the Trust Account Summary to your invoice template, you have a current record of all of the trust accounting activity during the time span of the invoice for the client’s general trust account and trust account for the matter being invoiced.

Employee Hours Breakdown Summary

At the bottom of your invoice, your client can see the tracked time of all the people who were involved in the project. The rates and total amount billed for each employee is also included. You will see a breakdown of the employee hours per project invoiced and a total number of hours overall.

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Since the dawn of the Android, we’ve gotten requests for a mobile time tracking and billing app. We’re pretty excited about the workings in the Development department and it’s almost ready to be launched! Although it’s still in progress (and the development team is still a bit secretive about releasing all the details) here are a few things you can expect from the upcoming Bill4Time Android app:

• Timers –   track billable and internal time
• Entries –   see individual entries with a running daily total
• Clients –   access client descriptions and contact information
• Accounts –  monitor outstanding balances and payment history

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I just recently read “The Fear of Freelancing: Why You Could Be Hurting Yourself” by Amber Weinberg and it completely floored me. Wow. I could have just merely tweeted about it from the Bill4Time twitter account, but I believe it deserved more attention than just 140 characters.

I expect that those who visit the Bill4Time site are people who have overcome this fear. Chances are, you’ve decided to take that next step and look for powerful time billing software to move you ahead in your business.

But have you reached a cloud of doubt?  We all need some moments of clarity and validation that we’re heading in the right direction. We all would like a friendly (yet practical) reminder that everything is going to be all right. The answers are out there and opportunity is for the taking.

“I could never be poor if I truly didn’t want to be poor.”

This kind of mantra motivated Weinberg to keep on going. Freelancing isn’t the only solution to poverty, but it’s an option. With this Recession, thousands are unemployed for long stretches of time. If this applied to you, perhaps the only person around to hire you is YOU. You can either apply for jobs or get clients. Either way, you’re selling yourself.

It will only take six months to succeed

That’s a big guarantee! But Weinberg stands behind it. She started with the odds against her: no savings, no clients, and no degree in finance or marketing. She admits that the first two months are the hardest but she also gives an entire six month plan to become a freelancer for you to follow to keep you on track. It’s excellent for beginners, but I also see this plan to be for those already freelancing. There could be some things that you missed that could significantly improve your business.

What are your thoughts about it? Leave a comment.
Better yet, what’s your freelancing story? Email me at Jessica@Bill4Time.com and let’s share it on the site!

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Time is money. It’s a common belief. It makes sense. And for that, we use time tracking software or some other methods to make sure not a second of valuable billable time is missed. But what would our time tracker say if we tracked our time out of the office?

We can argue for the sake of recreation, but you know when you’re wasting time when you know you should be doing something else.

What kind of common time wasters are there? Here are a few stats:

• The average person spends 6.5 hours a week on Facebook. If you access Facebook on your mobile device, you’re probably averaging 13 hours a week.
• The average person spends 8 hours a week on video games. It includes those who do casual games like Bejewelled and Solitaire.
• In 2008, people spent about 2.75 hours a day watching TV. In 2009, it jumped to 5 hours. With the ongoing upward trend of TV watching, we can reasonably believe that now the average user spends more than 5 hours.

The Value of Time

So why care? Well, even though you are not working, you’re time is still valuable. But if you could put a monetary value on it, what would it be. It’s been known that:

• The average person waits about 30-45 minutes for a free ice cream cone (time valued at about $5/hr).
• The average car wash is about $10 for a 5 minute wash (time valued at $120/hr).
• The average time it takes to see a penny off the street and pick it up is 10 seconds (time valued at $3.60/hr).

So do you think it’s worth it to wash your car at home? Maybe it’s better to just buy the ice cream cone and go and spend your valuable time on other things. Perhaps you can leave that penny for someone else.

Some Things are Just Priceless

Time goes by but things add up. It can go both ways. The time wasters can slowly but surely destroy what you’ve worked so hard on. But things of higher value also add up. Try some of these time enrichers:

• Spend some extra time with your family. Something engaging and enjoyable where everyone participates. It could be as simple as baking, back-yard football, or even coloring with your little ones.
• Volunteer in your local community. There is always a non-profit organization that could use an extra pair of hands to help out others.
• Read up on your profession. There are a great many books, publications, and blogs out there than give you that extra edge at work.

Time is valuable. What will you do with yours?

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As an invoicing software company, more invoicing flexibility has been an in-demand feature that our development team has been working on for quite some time. Although they are still working on it, they’re soon coming to a point where you can already benefit from their ongoing development.

Extra Invoice Layouts

In a short time, you will see an extra feature in your invoice setup. You will have other invoice layouts to choose from. All layouts will contain the same information, including company logo and contact information. However, you can now choose which one best fits the needs of your company and your client. Any of the layouts can be applied to a specific client or used as the default.

Invoice Detail Columns on the Client Level

Just like in the Firm/System Settings’ Invoice Setup, you will be able to decide how detailed you want your invoice to report: date of service, hours, services by, rate, activity type, amount, service summary, and labor start/end time.  This is particularly useful when one client wants a more detailed invoice than another client.

Future Invoicing Software Features

There will be more invoicing features to come. This is just the first ones amongst many this year. Expect more invoice layouts, image options for the header/footer, and font styles. We’re looking forward to future ones and will keep you informed when they soon are ready for the public.

Your Feedback

We’re releasing the new invoice layouts in batches. If you would like to be in the first batches, just let us know in the comments. Have any layouts you’d like to see in the future? Let us know at ideas.bill4time.com or in the comments of this blog post.

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Bill4Time is proud to be part of the Kennedy & Mighell Report by Legal Talk Network. Here’s a little commentary to give you some insight into one of their podcasts.

Listening to the latest podcast by the Kennedy-Mighell Report, I realized the usefulness of lists. But more important is the usefulness of following. People can take this for granted, but if you think about it, it can save us a lot of time on the internet. One can easily be overwhelmed by the massive amounts of information on the internet. There are so many articles out there. And what about the amount of Twitter users?

• Who should you follow on Twitter?
• What articles should you read?
• What sites should you go to?

Try Following Others

Go to someone that you trust on the internet. Someone who knows what they’re talking about. Find those who have been on the internet long enough and have established themselves as an authority in their field.  Wouldn’t you want to just go to the place where they go? Wouldn’t you just want to read what they read and know what they know? Sure you can’t begin where they began, but what they value is what keeps them more informed and enriched in their profession, in the internet , and in the news.

That’s where you want to be.

Why Reinvent the Wheel?

For some it’s a fun journey to scour the internet, but for others, it’s not so fun of an exploration. Use your thought leaders as your guide. Who do you trust as a blogger, as an online writer, as an authority in your interests? Find out what they read, whom they look up to, whom they reference. It will save you a lot of time and you find the gold nuggets quicker that way.

When you go to Twitter, go to those that you follow the most and follow their Twitter lists. Check out their Follow Friday recommendations. Look into who they retweet. Maybe this is someone you should follow.

If you bookmark sites in Delicious or Digg, find those that bookmarked a lot of your same sites and then look through their bookmarks for anything interesting. One good indication of a thought leader is one who leaves an informative note/comment to a bookmark.

In the podcast, Kennedy and Mighell can give you more tips to following your thought leaders using lists. They will also show you how to get a group of relevant and useful information all at once. Even if you get one idea from this, it will save you a lot of time searching, and help you keep your thumb on the latest news and updates to what matters most to you on the internet.

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Easier on the Eye

The eye naturally moves left to right. It’s what’s most comfortable to us. That lead to the developer’s decision to move the navigation menu from the left side of the Dashboard to the top of every screen. There is nothing wrong with a vertical list, but when it comes to looking at organization, a horizontal layout is easier on the eyes.

Read more…

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Bill4Time is proud to be part of the Kennedy & Mighell Report by Legal Talk Network. Here’s a little commentary to give you some insight into one of their podcasts.

[wpaudio url="http://www.bill4time.com/assets/legaltalk-02.mp3" text="Click here to listen to the podcast!"]

The legal technology duo is at it again! In this podcast, they respond to the reality of how most lawyers are still not using computers for note-taking. The legal pad is still prominent in the court houses and conferences. Maybe touch screen technology is a good contender.

In Defense of the Computer

The greatest benefit to using a computer when taking notes is the fact that your notes are already digitalized. And this opens a flood of benefits:

• You don’t have to go back and retype your notes.
• You can quickly copy and paste little tidbits of the conference and Tweet them.
• You can quickly extract the most important parts of your notes.
• You have all your information condensed in a single place.
• You can transfer your notes quickly to a spreadsheet, a flash drive, email, etc.
• And if you’re tracking your time, you have it right there on your screen!

Read more…

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The creators and developers of Bill4Time’s time tracking software have been working feverously for many moons to bring you the 2.0. And it is almost here! Around the office, we are doing some internal beta testing – and that includes everybody! Now I’m not a web architect or a developer. I’m just a regular user who’s attention span is only so long (or short). If I find something beneficial, such as good time management, I will take the time to learn something. But after a while, I’d need a little rest. Sound familiar?

However, the new version of Bill4Time is pretty easy to navigate through! I actually had a bit of fun with it. A lot of it is pretty straight forward, though there will be upcoming video tutorials, articles, and tips to help everyone become familiar with it. With only one session with the beta version, I feel like I’ve had a deeper understanding of this time tracking software. It does more than just track your billable time, it’s a project management tool, an invoicing machine, and a valuable business efficiency assistant.

Mind you, this is only a peak into the 2.0. It’s not at its final stage but I’m far too excited not to let you in on the great things to come.

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Bill4Time is proud to be part of the Kennedy & Mighell Report by Legal Talk Network. Here’s a little commentary to give you some insight into one of their podcasts.

[wpaudio url="http://www.bill4time.com/assets/legaltalk-01.mp3" text="Click here to listen to the podcast!"]

Lawyers are pretty fearless. They do a lot of the dirty work that we find intimidating in the courtroom. It can be pretty cut-throat and ruthless out there. For the rest of us non-lawyers, those tough dramatic scenes you see in the movies is enough to make your blood pressure go up a few notches.

But there are only a few things lawyers find a bit intimidating. One of them is technology (so I’ve been told). It encompasses the complicated – such as HTML, C++ and JavaScript – to the very simple, namely social media. Or is it that simple? Not according to thousands of lawyers who have talked to Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell, legal technology experts from LegalTalkNetwork.com. Each social media site seems like a completely different social planet: you have different configurations, features, and communicating vehicles to new a few.

Read more…

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