Bill4Time Staff

Release Notes: March 2018

March 6, 2018 By Bill4Time Staff 1 Comment

The Bill4Time product team releases new and enhanced features, system improvements, and bug fixes several times per week. Organized by month, the Release Notes blog series will highlight all the changes we’ve implemented, so you can easily stay up-to-date on what’s new. If you have a question, feedback, or an idea – please leave a comment below!

Take a look at what we’ve released this March:

Updated 3/29/2018

Invoicing Dashboard – Bill4Time has redesigned our Invoicing Dashboard to improve organization and dramatically streamline how to search for a particular invoice. This updated dashboard assists in quickly identifying a single invoice, or batch, by its main attributes of Client, Project, Date, and Status. We’ve also baked-in tertiary filter options that supercharge the available search parameters. You’ll also notice new and user-configurable columns so each user can setup their own preferred view on their Invoicing Dashboard. Click here to read the full article!

Client List Optimization – Based on user feedback, our developers have optimized the Clients dropdown list found on the New/Edit Payment screens. This change was implemented to increase load speeds, especially for firms with a large number of clients populating the list.

Updated 3/23/2018

API Update – Our developers have implemented an additional item in the API that will allow you to utilize the Client Account Manager fields for both name and user ID. This change is available without regenerating your API key. We’ve also updated our documentation to reflect these changes.

View Documentation

Updated 3/15/2018

Optimized Payment Workflow – We’ve been hard at work designing and testing a new payment workflow that will streamline data entry of payment records. This updated workflow assists in quickly identifying the outstanding invoices that match your selections for Client, Project, and Date. The system can quickly calculate the payment total for you, based upon the invoices you’ve selected to pay. Click here to read the full article!

Updated 3/13/2018

Updated Client and Project Search Filters – Our developers have just released an update to the Search and filtering functionality on the Client and Project main pages. No major functionality changes, we’ve updated the style, streamlined your options, and added horsepower under-the-hood.

Updated 3/9/2018

User Project Report – Updated the formatting of this report so the entries would be grouped by-month and listed chronologically, now with the most recent months towards the top.

Monthly Productivity Report – We’ve adjusted the formatting for totals on this report – no functionality change – just display changes that enhance the readability of this report.

Updated 3/6/2018

Beta Access Program – We’ve implemented a new feature that allows each firm to enable new Beta features to be available in their account. This option is found under the System tab within Firm Settings. See here for full details about our current beta features!

Invoice Creation Checkboxes – Our developers have updated the behavior of the parent-child checkboxes found on the New Invoice screen. No functionality change here, we’ve simply enabled the client checkbox to appear checked whenever one or more project boxes are checked.

Click here to view February’s Release Notes

Question or comment about a change we’ve made?
Please contact Bill4Time Support by Email or phone: 877-245-5484

Optimized Payment Entry

February 16, 2018 By Bill4Time Staff 2 Comments

When considering features for your practice management platform, it’s easy to rank the creation of time & expense entries or concise invoices at the top of every ‘must-haves’ list – but what’s equally important is your ability to quickly and accurately record payments received from your clients. With Bill4Time, applying our new optimized payment entry workflow is straightforward and simple.

The newly redesigned payment workflow has streamlined data entry to allow a transaction be created by simply selecting a client and entering the amount – the system can take care of the rest!

This updated workflow assists in quickly identifying the outstanding invoices that match your selections for Client, Project, and Date. The system can quickly calculate the payment total for you, based upon the invoices you’ve selected to pay. In addition, the system can also calculate the amount applied to each invoice based on the amount remaining from the payment total.

Furthermore, Bill4Time automatically selects dates that assume the smallest span of time between the Invoice Date and the Applied Date. This setup intelligently minimizes any delay in payment, and therefore ensures accurate Late Fees are calculated, without the user having to review every date-field individually.

Finally, this update to the payment workflow allows you to pay invoices for different projects using a single transaction – and still observe your accounting isolation preferences. This way, you can pay all of a client’s projects at once, instead of creating separate payment records for each respective project.

LEDES XML Ebilling v2.1

February 7, 2018 By Bill4Time Staff 1 Comment

LEDES XML Ebilling v2.1 *BETA

LEDES (Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard) is a standardized ebilling format used in the legal industry for the electronic exchange of information. The LEDES XML v2.1 standard is an update to the LEDES 2000 ebilling format and is intended to be the future direction of the XML ebilling standard. Among other enhancements, the new standard restructures the manner in which taxes are handled, enhances the ability to bill alternate fee agreements, eliminates unused or non-mainstream ebilling data elements, and creates consistency in the use of terminology.

Bill4Time enables firms to generate their invoices in LEDES 1998b/i and XML format as a text file. This LEDES export fully supports UTBMS (Uniform Task Based Management System) codes. This streamlines data entry and ensures the format comports with the billing standard. The LEDES XML Ebilling Ver 2.1 format includes 191 data elements within 16 segments. Click here to view the full documentation.

If you need to export to LEDES, click here to follow the steps to turn this feature on if you have not already.

Once the setup is completed you can then create a LEDES file for any invoice you create. Once on the Invoice Details page you will see an Export button at the top. This will open the option to choose what export you need, then click the Export button at the bottom right.

Have questions or comments about how your business can start ebilling? Drop a comment in the section below or contact Support and we’ll be happy to assist you!

Release Notes: February 2018

February 1, 2018 By Bill4Time Staff 7 Comments

Take a look at what we’ve released this February:

Updated 2/27/2018

Payments Received Report Groupings – Our developers have identified and resolved a bug with this report that was causing Check-type payments that did not have a check number, to become split off into the own grouping. This is now resolved, and all check transactions will appear grouped together.

User Efficiency Report Links – We have resolved an issue with this report that was preventing the User Summary report from populating with the correct dates when generating that report from a link within the User Efficiency report. This fix applies to both the single day and weekly summary links within the User Efficiency report.

Updated 2/20/2018

Disabled Users in Reports – We have resolved an issue where when a Disabled User was selected in a Report this selection was dropped upon making additional filter selections.

Favorite Reports – Our developers have identified and resolved a bug affecting the Favorite Reports setup. This bug was blocking the favorite report filters from loading, preventing them from populating. This issue has been resolved for all accounts and all users.

Updated 2/17/2018

LEDES Classifications – Our developers have resolved a bug that caused the Timekeeper Classification (type: Paralegal) to not populate accurately within a LEDES invoice. This issue is now resolved for all accounts.

Time Entries Widget Date Picker – We have identified and resolved a bug where the date picker found above the Time Entries widget could not be opened when using a certain browser. This issue is now resolved and the feature is functional in every browser.

Updated 2/13/2018

Invoice Batch Description – Our developers have identified and resolved a display-only bug where the Invoice Descriptions found under the Accounting tab for a Client or Project was displaying the Batch Description rather than the individual description for a single invoice. This is now resolved for all accounts.

Deleting Entry Forces Invoice Reload – We’ve implemented a change to force the Invoice Details page to refresh/reload whenever an entry is deleted from that pre-bill. Previously, certain users’ browsers were blocking this automatic update – so we’ve changed the app to force the page to reload and show the updated invoice total.

Credit Limit Save Button – We have updated the location of the ‘Save’ button for the Credit Limit field found under the Accounting Tab within a client. No functionality change, we’ve just moved this save button to appear just to the right of its corresponding field.

Task Summary Report Update – We have removed the Expense Type filter from the Task Summary Report. This report does not pull data on expenses, and this filter should not have been included; no overall functionality change to this report – just streamlining your filter options.

Balance Adjustments under Closed Projects – Our developers have identified and resolved a but that allowed a Balance Adjustment recorded under a Closed Project to be edited and reassigned/saved to a different project.

Setup Wizard – We have updated our Setup Wizard to allow new firms to add even more information to their account upon creating their free trial.

Updated 2/7/2018

LEDES XML Ebilling v2.1 – The LEDES XML v2.1 standard is an update to the LEDES 2000 ebilling format and is intended to be the future direction of the XML ebilling standard. Among other enhancements, the new standard restructures the manner in which taxes are handled, enhances the ability to bill alternate fee agreements, eliminates unused or non-mainstream ebilling data elements, and creates consistency in the use of terminology. Click here to view the full blog!

Updated 2/6/2018

Case Closing Settlement – Our developers have identified and resolved a bug where when “Case Closing Settlement” was selected as the Entry Type, the “Billable” box was remaining unchecked. We’ve restored the default so that the Billable box is always checked for this type of entry.

Internal Time Types List Update – We’ve patched a bug that was preventing the Internal Time Types list from re-populating automatically upon creating a new type for that list. This issue is now resolved so newly created types appear immediately upon saving.

Updated 2/1/2018

Project Contacts – We’ve made some minor adjustments to the views for associating a client’s contact with a project. No functionality change here, just tweaks we hope improve readability.

Click here to view January’s Release Notes

Question or comment about a change we’ve made?
Please contact Bill4Time Support by Email or phone: 877-245-5484

Release Notes: January 2018

January 9, 2018 By Bill4Time Staff 3 Comments

Take a look at what we’ve released this January:

Updated 1/30/2018

Trust Report Update – Our developers have identified and resolved an issue affecting some users where if they attempt to edit a transaction within the report and click Save the whole report closes. We’ve patched this bug so the report tab remains open after saving a change to a transaction.

Collections Report Group-by Project Type – We have released an update to the Collections report that allows grouping by Project-type. This grouping allows the user to generate data on their collections based on the type of project.

Trust Transfer Custom Project ID Display – We’ve released an update to the Trust Transfer transactions to include the custom project ID. Previously, this transaction was displaying the default internal ID number for the project.

Locked Project Rates Entries – Our developers have identified and resolved a display-only (i.e. does not affect underlying data) bug affecting the billed entries of projects that were subject to a rate lock. Now, when reopening an entry – the Billable Rate displayed will match that which appears on its invoice. Again, this is a display-only bug and did not affect underlying billing calculations or invoice totals.

Updated 1/18/2018

Mobile App Expenses – We’ve implemented a fix for a bug relating to the time zone of a user’s smartphone and the editing of an expense entry. If a user opened and edited the expense from a different time zone than the one it was created it – the timestamp was adjusting to reflect the date relative to the current time. This bug affected a very small number of entries and this has been fully resolved in all instances and for every account going forward.

Updated 1/17/2018

Invoice Status Report Update – Our developers have identified and resolved a display-bug where the outstanding balance amount in the Invoice Status Report was displaying as a negative amount instead of a positive outstanding balance. This issue is now resolved for all users and when using any browser.

Updated 1/16/2018

Alert Dialog Boxes – We’ve released an update to various alerts and dialog boxes within the system. This is part of an ongoing project to prevent these dialog boxes from being blocked by pop-up blocking software.

Updated 1/10/2018

Duplicating Expense Entries – Our developers have released a fix for a bug, which was preventing a user from Duplicating an Expense Entry if that entry included a receipt attachment file. This issue is now resolved for all users.

Updated 1/9/2018

Expense Entry Attachment Types – We’ve implemented a new notifying popup to better alert the user whenever they’ve attempted to upload a file type using a non-supported extension.

Updated 1/3/2018

Time Entries Dashboard Widget – Our developers have identified and resolved an issue where the Calendar Date-Picker tool in the Time Entries widget was not opening for a select number of users. This bug has been resolved and the feature restored for all users.

Click here to view December’s Release Notes

Question or comment about a change we’ve made?
Please contact Bill4Time Support by Email or phone: 877-245-5484

How to make custom user permissions in Bill4Time

December 21, 2017 By Bill4Time Staff Leave a Comment

You can easily create custom user permissions within in your Bill4Time account. You can grant a user as much access or as little as you want. For example, an Admin has access to view and create Clients, Projects, Users, Entries, Invoices and more. If you go to Settings and then Manage Users, you can add new users and edit existing users simply by clicking onto them.

Once on the User Details page, you have a Client Access and User Permissions tab to customize the user access in the system. Under User Permissions, you can go through and see exactly what the user can view in the system. You can check or uncheck any features, and click Save Changes when finished.

There are 5 different custom user permissions templates you can choose from when setting up your Users in the system:

System Admin: This user has access to ALL areas of the program.
Office Admin: This user has access to All areas of the program except for Firm Settings. This means the user can not access the firm setting features to turn on/off key functions of the software or edit/add new users in the program.
Standard User: This user is specific to someone who is signing in only to add time and expenses for themselves. They will have limited access to only view time/expenses they add but can access Clients and Projects.
Limited User: Most areas of the program for this user will be unavailable. They will be able to view and add time/expenses to your Clients/Projects and only be able to see their own entries in the system.
Financial User: This user will have just as much access as the Office Admin but is someone is mainly accessing Invoicing & Accounting and not a biller in the software (although they will have access to bill time/expenses if needed).

**Each of these types have default settings but keep in mind, once you choose a specific user type in the system you can always go through to the User Permissions tab after saving the user to customize these features even further.

The Client Access tab will allow you to remove access from certain clients so when a user signs in they can only access the clients they have access to.

At Bill4Time, we offer the features you need…and most of all, the features you use. Easy to use, dependable and designed with you in mind—that’s Bill4Time. If you haven’t tried us, register for a free 30-day trial and see for yourself.