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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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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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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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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