Release Notes: April 2018

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 April:

 

 

Updated 4/26/2018

B4T QuickBooks Connector Update – Our developers have updated the Bill4Time QuickBooks Connector app to v2.0.8.2. This update was released to address a rare amount-rounding conflict between Bill4Time and Quickbooks that affected invoices with both discounts and write-downs.

Batch Time Entry – Our developers have identified and resolved a bug that was preventing an system notification from appearing before saving a batch of time entries. This notification has been restored for all accounts and users, and will alert of an issue before saving their batched work entries.

 

Updated 4/24/2018

Invoice Status Report Update – We have updated this report to allow the Start and End Date ranges to filter for the Billing Through Date instead of the Invoice Date when running this report. To access this new toggle, please open the Invoice Status Report – it is located towards the top of the box of filter options.

Safari v9.1.3 Update – Thanks to customer feedback, we’ve identified and resolved a bug affecting firms using an older version of Safari (version 9.1.3 only). This issue is now fixed for this version – other versions of Safari were not affected by this bug.

 

Updated 4/10/2018

Invoicing Dashboard Column Formatting – We’ve resolved a display-only bug that was affecting the formatting of data on the Invoicing Dashboard. A small subset of users was erroneously seeing a code snippet where they should have seen a clickable-icon. This issue is now resolved for all accounts and users.

Schedule Report Update  – Our developers have identified and resolved a bug within the Schedule report, which affected a small subset of accounts with operations split across areas of the US that do not observe Daylight Savings Time. The report will now display event times relative to the local device for added clarity.

Report Headers When No Data Is Found – Our developers have updated how a Report PDF appears when there is no data found upon generating the report. Previously, when no data was found, exporting the report as a PDF downloaded just a blank page. With this update the Header of the report, which includes the filters and date range, etc, will appear as evidence that the report was pulled and what parameters were used.

 

Updated 4/5/2018

Invoicing Dashboard Invoice Date Column Refresh – Our developers have identified and deployed a fix for a small subset of users who were experiencing an issue where the Invoicing table was not immediately refreshing to pull updated Invoice Dates onto the table. This issue is now resolved on all browsers for all accounts.

 

Updated 4/3/2018

Invoice Email Icons and Tooltip – We have identified and resolved a bug affecting the envelope icons found on the Invoicing Dashboard. The dark-shading of the icon that indicates an invoice email has been sent, and the corresponding tooltip populated with this data, have been restored to their normal functionality.

 

Click here to view March’s Release Notes

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

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.

 

With the updated Invoicing Dashboard, our goal was to help users find a specific invoice using a minimal amount of identifying information about the bill. There is now greater flexibility than ever before when searching for your invoices. For example, if you are looking for an invoice that you know you created in March and was a particular invoice amount. Well, you would simply follow the steps below to retrieve the desired information.

 

   Potential Use Cases:

We know the invoice was created in March, and was paid in full:

1. Click Invoicing
2. Click Show Filters
3. Created after 3/1/2018
4. Sort the ‘Balance’ column by ascending
5. Review results for a match

We know the client’s Account Manager, and the bill was issued in 2018 and is unpaid:

1. Click Invoicing
2. Click Show Filters
3. Select Account Manager
4. Filter Paid Status: Unpaid
5. Invoice Date Before 1/1/2018
6. Review results for a match

We want to print a copy of every Pre-bill:

1. Click Invoicing
2. Click Show Filters
3. Invoice Status: Pre-bill
4. Check all results
5. Click ‘Print’ Invoices

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

 

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  *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!