Track and Bill for Your Time - Tutorial and Video Follow
Time Entries and Billing Types Tutorial
The time entries and billing types tutorial will help familiarize you with the power of the Legal CRM time entries feature. Legal CRM time entries are able to handle contingency billing for settlements based on attorney fee percent, flat fee, hourly, a mix of flat fee and hourly, and pro bono billing types. Legal CRM offers many types of billing.
As a convenience, we have centralized all billing types into one screen. Technically, law firms provide their time in exchange for money, other than in pro bono matters so we have located all types of billing in the Time Entries screen. If you are looking for the contingency billing tutorial, that is separate tutorial since it is very specialized functionality with several moving parts to the workflow.
Please review this video:
Index:
- How to Use Flat Fee Billing
- Set Your Default Hourly Rate for Each Billable User
- Creating an Hourly Billing Time Entry
- Using the Timer for Hourly Billing
- Rounding Minutes Up and Down
- Pro Bono Billing
- Filtering, Sorting and Exporting Your Time Entries
- Running Reports on Your Time Entries
- Invoicing Your Time Entries
How to Use Flat Fee Billing
Legal CRM is ready to go for flat fee billing. Flat fees are becoming very popular for billing at firms with the advent of subscription-based services and Legal CRM is here to support those needs whether they are for one or multiple flat fees on a case.
First, we recommend setting a default “Billing Type” for each new case so it is automatically selected for you when you create each new case. The default “Billing Type” is able to be configured in the Setup > Billing Settings screen if you want the same “Billing Type” to be auto-selected for every new case. If you would like to configure this manually for each case, or change the default “Billing Type” configured in Billing Settings.
To make this change on the fly inside of a case, you will select an option from the “Billing Type” dropdown in the case in the top-left corner of the “Case Details” screen. For flat-fee billing, please choose “Flat Fee”
Then, you will go inside of a case then click on “Time Entries” and press the “Add Time Entry” button. The system will default to a “Flat Fee” type.
Enter the “Fee Amount” for the flat fee entry. Finally, we want to choose the “Category” of the flat fee entry. Select the billing category from our UTMBS and LEDES and any other custom categories that your firm may have configured.
Add any notes or description that may be needed. Then, press “Create Time Entry” and you are finished.
Set Your Default Hourly Rate for Each Billable User
Inside of your Legal CRM system, you will need to set a default hourly rate for each user that will bill for their time. First, you will want to click on the “Setup” menu, then click on “Manage Users and Groups” You must be a user with admin access or you will not be able to see these menu options. Please ask your firm administrator or IT department if you need these changes made.
Then, click the “Pencil Icon” button to the left of the user that you would like to edit.
While editing the user, you will enter the “Hourly Rate” for this user. Example, 250.00 per hour. Next, you will want to check the “Does this user bill for their time?” box to be checked, if this user bills for their time. Finally, press the “Update” button to finish editing this user and save your changes.
Please note, this change will not affect any existing time entries. Moving forward, all of your new time entries will be use the hourly rate that you have now configured.
Creating an Hourly Billing Time Entry
In Legal CRM, you are able to create a variety of time entries. For now, we will focus on creating an hourly time entry.
First, we recommend setting a default “Billing Type” for each new case so it is automatically selected for you when you create each new case. The default “Billing Type” is able to be configured in the Setup > Billing Settings screen if you want the same “Billing Type” to be auto-selected for every new case. If you would like to configure this manually for each case, or change the default “Billing Type” configured in Billing Settings.
To make this change on the fly inside of a case, you will select an option from the “Billing Type” dropdown in the case in the top-left corner of the “Case Details” screen. For hourly billing, please choose “Hourly”
Then you will want to go inside of the case then click on “Time Entries” and press the “Add Time Entry” button. Clicking the “Add Time Entry” button will bring you to the time entry screen. As a convenience, if the case “Billing Type” is set as Hourly, then the system will default to an Hourly time entry type for you for any time entries added.
Any time entries created manually, without the timer will be automatically saved as “Estimated Time” / “ET” since they are approximated not estimated time entries.
Please note, you could also use the timer by pressing “Start Timer” if you prefer to do this in a more automated fashion. This will be included in the next section below.
While you are manually adding the time entry, you will need to make some changes to properly create it.
First, select the “Duration” of time. The logged-in user will automatically be selected as the “Billed Staff” as a convenience, but please change it if you need to change it. As long as the billed staff has an hourly rate set, that rate will automatically insert into the “Hourly Rate” field. If your firm wants to allow/disallow editing of hourly rates on the fly, then you may allow/disallow that in the Setup > Billing Settings screen.
Finally, we want to choose the “Category” of the hourly time entry. Select the billing category from our UTMBS and LEDES and any other custom categories that your firm may have configured.
Add any notes or description that may be needed. Then, press “Create Time Entry” and you are finished.
Using the Timer for Hourly Billing
Legal CRM comes equipped with the flexibility of either using our timer or manually entering in the duration of time for any time entries with hourly billing. If you would like to start an hourly time entry using the timer, then you will want to go inside of a case then click on “Time Entries” and press the “Start Timer” button. Clicking the “Start Timer” button will automatically start the timer on a draft time entry.
Any time entries created by the timer will be automatically saved as “Actual Time” / “AT” since they are approximated not estimated time entries.
As a convenience, the user that is currently signed into Legal CRM will be the billed user for the time entry. You always have the option to change the billed user at any time for a time entry by editing a time entry.
Please make sure that all of your users that will bill for their time have a default hourly rate set up in User Settings for each user.
At this time, the timer will appear in the top-right corner of the screen in Legal CRM and it will follow you around the system until you stop the timer.
While the timer is active, you may press the “Pause” icon it at any time and then to continue, press the “Play” icon. Pressing the “Stop” icon will stop the timer and save the time entry.
Please note that the billing category is required but may be modified or selected inside of the time entry after you stop the timer. To edit the billing category, please follow the instructions below.
After the time entry is finished and you press stop, it will automatically save/create a new time entry with the selected category. You will want to go into the time entry at some point before you invoice it and select the billing category from our UTMBS and LEDES and any other custom categories that your firm may have configured.
Rounding Minutes Up and Down
Legal CRM can be configured to automatically round your hourly time entries up or down. For example, you may automatically round up your time entries up to the next 6-minute increment. To set up rounding of time entries, you must be a user with admin access. You will not be able to see these menu options if you do not have admin access at your firm, so please ask your firm administrator or IT department if you need these changes made.
First, go to Setup > Billing Settings
The out of the box configuration for the “Default Rounding of Time” is “None” which is no rounding of minutes. If you want to turn on rounding of time, then you will want to change this by selecting “Up” or “Down” Many firms round up, but only you may decide what is right for your firm.
When finished making edits, then save your changes by clicking “Save” at the top-right of the Billing Settings screen. Please note, this change will not affect any existing time entries. Moving forward, all of your new time entries will be rounded according to the rounding settings that you have now configured.
Pro Bono Billing
Legal CRM even allows pro bono billing for those that want to give back to the community. Thank you for your contribution to the betterment of society! Pro Bono billing will make all time entries at the rate of zero dollars per hour. If you would like to bill for your time, then we suggest another billing type.
Any expenses added to a Pro Bono billing type case will be billable if you do not select “No” for the “Client Billable” selection. This is to allow any exceptions if there happens to be an expense that you absolutely must pass alone to the pro bono client.
To create a Pro Bono time entry, you will want to go inside of the case then click on “Time Entries” and press the “Add Time Entry” button. Clicking the “Add Time Entry” button will bring you to the time entry screen. As a convenience, if the case “Billing Type” is set as Pro Bono, then the system will default to a Pro Bono time entry type for you for any time entries added to be complementary at a zero rate. The hourly rate will be set to 0.00 and will not be editable for a Pro Bono time entry, as shown below:
Filtering, Sorting and Exporting Your Time Entries
Exporting time entries is simple. When inside of the case, click on the “Time Entries” tab. Now, you may decide if you want to export “All” time entries or just some of them by time entry type. After you have applied the desired filters and sort order, you will press the “Export” button and then your time entries will export for this case into Excel format on your computer.
Running Reports on Your Time Entries
Legal CRM features many powerful reports at your fingertips. However, you will need access to the “Reports” menu to see the available reports in the system. If you need access to reports, then please ask your firm administrator or IT department.
The “Time Entries Report” is accessed by clicking on “Reports” then the “Time Entries Report” from inside of the “Reports” menu.
Invoicing Your Time Entries
Now that you have added your time entries inside of a case, the next step is to create an invoice and get paid for your hard work. The Invoicing workflow is very intuitive and easy to use in Legal CRM.
From inside of a case, you will want to click on the “Invoices” tab to open the Invoice screen. To create a new invoice, you will click on the “New Invoice” button. The “New Invoice” screen will now pop up the center of your screen. You will want to decide the date range of activities and expenses to create an invoice. The default date range is “All Dates” which is all time. You can change this to any date range if you would like a custom date range. After that, you will decide if you are going to invoice time entries, expenses, and/or special damages.
Then, you will press “Create and View” to generate an invoice in draft mode. At this point, you will want to review the Legal CRM Invoice Tutorial which will walk you through all the setup and details of the extremely powerful Legal CRM Invoicing workflow.
Support/Assistance
If you need further assistance, then please contact Legal CRM Support to assist you further.
🤗 Thank you very much for choosing Legal CRM