Bill4Time

Legal Time Billing Software

New Feature: Improved Scheduler

New Feature: Improved Scheduler

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This latest system release gives your Scheduler a whole new look. All information in the old version is carried over to this new one. From here, you can still create a Scheduler Report and export your events to your other calendars (eg: Outlook, Google Calendar, iCal, etc).

See the Entire Month
The calendar is now expanded where you can see your entire schedule for the month. System Administrators will have further access to multiple users’ schedules. Although the calendar is refreshed regularly, a manual way to refresh the calendar is also available.

View Just the Week
The new Agenda view shows the weekly events. System Administrators will still be able to see multiple users’ schedules, and everyone can scroll to any week they want. This allows you to have a better idea of the week’s agenda. From here, you can print out the week’s events.

Create Events Faster
From the calendar, click on any day you want to schedule a new event. Just like in the older version, you can assign it to a client/project, or keep it as an internal event. You can also invite others to this event and it will show up on their Scheduler too. Set the event to “private” and only the attendees can view it.

Convert to Time Entries
Click on any event and change it to a time entry. The user, client, project, start and stop time, duration, and description are all carried over. It’s just one more way to track your time!

The Key to Optimizing Bill4Time’s Technical Support

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The key is in the details. The more information you provide, the faster our technical support team can resolve it. A lot of back-and-forth dialogue us wanting a better understanding of your situation. Let’s reduce the dialogue!

Many questions are on a case-by-case basis. Specifics are the key! Here are some very important details we need from you:

  • Company Name
  • Firm ID – When you click on the blue “Dashboard” tab, you will see your firm ID in grey letters, next to your company’s name at the top right corner of the page.
  • The name of relevant client and project/case/matter
  • The invoice number – Sometimes invoices are included in batches, not making them easily visible on the Invoice Management screen. The invoice number is the best way for us to find the invoice and take a deeper look at it.

Should you call us at 1-877-245-5484 or chat with us, make sure you also provide this information too.

Help Directly from the Software

If you have a quick question while you’re working in Bill4Time, peek into the Knowledge Base by clicking on “help” at the top of the screen. Once you click on it, you will see a pop-up window. Put in your question, just like this:

You will then see Knowledge Base articles pertaining to your question.

 

If none of the articles answer your question, click on the bottom right button and submit your support ticket with your name, company, firm ID, invoice number, client/project name, and any other details to your question.

Try Video

We also have some great learning materials at your fingertips! This may provide you with a faster answer. Our short YouTube videos walk you though basic functions, while our webinars give a more thorough video tutorial through the system. We have a few recorded webinars for your viewing pleasure and a few live ones where you can ask your questions to the presenter and they can demonstrate the answer right there!

Simply Billing Webinar

Moving to the Cloud – an Informative Commentary

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I’ve recently come across David Freeman’s articles about moving to the cloud. Freeman admits it’s not a black and white issue when deciding between traditional software and software as a service (SaaS). He sees it’s all about functionality. Depending on the company’s needs, either one is a viable choice. What I got out of it was the following:

Again, this is not all black and white where you can’t keep your traditional QuickBooks software for your accounting while moving to Google Docs for your data analysis. Businesses make up their own rules. Technology allows this. Many of our customers use Bill4Time to keep track of their time as they work in the cloud, and then transfer their set invoice balances to QuickBooks. Others use Bill4Time strictly for time tracking and client management, as they use custom software for their invoicing needs.

Then there’s the question of an upfront fee versus a month-to-month fee. In the end, it’s all about cost and benefits. If the upfront cost is affordable and you don’t plan on switching to a newer version, then perhaps this is the best fit for you. The month-to-month expense only makes sense if:

  • It buys you time so you can pay as you go rather than have a large up-front expense.
  • The total monthly fee is well absorbed into the monthly generated revenue.
  • You intend to use it for a limited time.
  • You are test-driving software.

What I find fascinating in all of these case studies that Freeman presents, is that every one of those companies who chose the cloud-based software route reported some transitional time. They all admitted there were a few bumps and difficulties along the way, but in the end it was worth the time and effort to move in this new direction. It shows that businesses are willing to keep up with technology, as long as the long-term benefits out-weigh the invested costs of time and money.

One of the only risks Freeman pointed out was Internet connection. However, with this day and age of internet technology, smart phones, and Wi-fi access at almost any coffee shop or McDonalds around the corner, it’s an assumed risk when you use the Internet on a daily basis.

But cloud-based companies should pay attention to the avoidable risks that customers assume when trying out their software. It would be a wise investment for a SaaS company to:

  • Provide a user manual
  • Invest in technical support to accept and quickly return phone calls and emails
  • Update your FAQ pages on a regular basis to include answers to new questions

At the very end, Freeman addresses the data security issue. I’m assuming the shortness of that section shows how comfortable people really are with the cloud. With all of our email messages accumulating through the years, I’m sure there’s been more than one email there that contained sensitive material in that long list of archived emails. Freeman points out that cloud-based customers “felt satisfied that their cloud providers were doing at least as good a job as the owners themselves could in keeping data safe.” That’s definitely a statement worth noting! We’ve come a long way from the time when PayPal first surfaced.

I look forward to more of Freeman’s articles on the subject of moving in the cloud. I believe it’s an inevitable movement with this current economy of businesses reducing their costs and software providers optimizing their distribution.

Bill4Time Giving Back: Free Time Billing Software for Students

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Our students are the next generation of professionals who will be part of this current economy. They work hard in their studies while faced with the financial hardships of college life. It’s not easy, and Bill4Time commends all students who make the extra effort to go beyond the classroom for real-world experience. We at Bill4Time believe it’s important to invest in students’ future.

Software for Students

Bill4Time now offers all students—law, accounting, computer science, whatever—with an .edu address a free use of the full software for as long as they are in school. Sign up for our time billing software for students and let us know your school, field of study, and how Bill4Time will help you succeed in your future.

Quickly learn to use our intuitive software with our ever-growing Knowledge Base and webinars, too!

“Now students can enjoy all the benefits of Bill4Time for free while they are studying,” said Jeremy Diviney, president of Bill4Time. “Using time billing software as a business tool prepares students for the real working world and helps them succeed after graduation.”

New Features: Trust Account, LEDES, and Lots of New Reporting Features

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Trust Account Summary

Bill4Time now allows you to show the balance in your Trust Account Summary on your invoice even though there was no trust activity during the billing period.

LEDES Formats

Bill4Time, as a legal billing software, supports LEDES invoice formats for electronic billing. Users can either export the classic LEDES format or the various versions required by companies such as the Great American Insurance Group. We’ve recently added the “Chubb” format to our current group that includes American Empire, Nationwide, Scottsdale Insurance, and Scottsdale OGC.

LEDES formats for Great American

New Reporting Features

Based upon requests submitted by customers, the Bill4Time development team has recently released a long list of added features to the time billing reports.

• “Rate” column added to reports – This keeps you on top of all of your various billing rates, giving a further explanation of the reported billing amounts. With this feature, you can see how you are going to bill the client before creating an invoice.

Time Billing Report with Rate Column
• New “Exclude from invoice” filter – When you enable the “Exclude from invoice” setting on a time entry, you can hold back on that entry to put it on a later invoice. When you are ready to bill that time entry, use the “Exclude from invoice” filter in a summary report to find them easily and disable the setting for each entry.

• “Project Type” & “Client Type” filters added to reports – These filters help you see how much time, billable time, and unbillable time were devoted to specific facets of the business. You can also see which facet has yielded the most income.

• “Labor Time” column added in reports – With this extra column, you can clearly see labor time versus billed time for a project. See how much you worked in total, and compare it to how much of that time was billed to the client.

• “Non-Billable Time” column added to reports – This makes it even easier to identify the non-billable work for lined items and total time.

• Full featured Project Summary report—The Project Summary Report has now all the filters and features found in the User Summary report and Client Summary report.

• “Start” and “End” times shown on summary reports – This is very useful for companies that need to keep track of every minute of the day.

• “Disabled Users” filter added to reports – With this filter, you can see the work of users who are no longer working in the Bill4Time system. Note: this filter is currently added to only the User Summary, Client Summary, Project Summary reports.

• Multiple currency symbols in reports – This is great for firms working internationally.

• Project Due Date report added – This project management tool enables you to easily keep track of your deadlines. The report gathers up all the projects with set due dates, and displays the created date, due date, account manager, labor time, billable time, and more.

Project Due Date Report
• “Account Manager” filter added in the summary reports – With this additional filter, you can group your information by account manager. This enables you to see the progress of each account manager clearly.

• “Group By” filter added to the Schedule report – With this added filter, you can see events for just one user or just a single month. This cleans up the data and makes it easier to view.

• “User” Column added to the Project Summary report – This extra column quickly shows your users’ contribution to projects.

• Weekend work included in the User Efficiency report – When calculating the total work done by users per week, the totals now include work done over the weekend.