Top 4 Takeaways from LegalWeek 2018

February 6, 2018 By Kristin O'Neill 1 Comment

The top 4 takeaways from LegalWeek 2018 were anywhere from Biglaw vs small firms and how alternative legal service providers (ALSP) fit into the discussion, to Cyber Security, and how we see AI shaping the future of law. Of course, there will always be a debate on these topics, but let’s go through what we took away from each of these over the past week.

How ALSP companies are affecting the legal industry – The rise of Alternative Legal Service Providers is playing a large role in legal services today. Whether it’s outsourcing specialized tasks like eDiscovery support services, or technical legal services both inside and outside the courtroom, showing improved results for clients. Paul Stroka from Thomson Reuters discussed how ALSPs provide a path for buyers to access the technology they need, while relying on the domain expertise, experience, and service components that ALSPs can provide. Alternative Legal Service Providers plus a small/mid firm is like breaking the monopoly Biglaw has had on data-intensive work.
Biglaw and how/if it’s affecting small firms – Law firm ecosystems are drastically changing each generation so with the rise of ALSPs are small/mid law firms chipping away at the Biglaw market? That seemed to be a common theme at this year’s LegalWeek which hosted a variety of opinions on the matter. Bill4Time services thousands of small to medium size firms and although LegalWeek is geared more towards Biglaw, no one can deny the growing impact that small firms have in the legal industry. A noticeable theme, which separated the debate, was focused on skill-networking and professional collegiality, regardless of the size of the firm. This exchange would increase efficiency and offer almost a “one stop shop” level of service for clients. Nicholas Bruch from ALM Intelligence discussed forward trends in the legal market which highlighted an increasingly diverse collaboration across types of legal service vendors.
Cyber security and Data Privacy – Cyber security is an always-hot topic and this year was no different. Former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson joined an expert panel to discuss his experience with cyber security in relation to the legal industry and what we can do to protect ourselves. Cyber security is ever-evolving and a business risk for any size law firm. Client driven pressure to review security guidelines and protocols encourages law firms to adopt more secure measures. During one keynote, Brian Krebs a Cyber Security blogger, discussed why businesses are losing the arms-race on criminal cyber enterprise and the need to build proper response strategies. They keynote challenged the way we think about security on many levels and we can hope that the legal industry continues to build on this trend.
Is AI the future? – Innovation and technology was the biggest topic of the week. Walking the floor, different AI technologies marked every corner, and many believe AI will greatly impact the delivery of legal services within the next few years. Some feel AI is the future while others find it to be a distraction. Personal opinions aside, the early adopters we met claim that Artificial Intelligence is reshaping the way lawyers do business, but will it be for the better? A main takeaway from the convention is that the decision to incorporate new technologies in the legal industry is met with slow professional adaption. Many standard practices are still delayed when adopting tech enhancements like AI due to the lack of confidence in their data accuracy.

From key notes, to panels, to many vendors, it was clear that the Legal Industry does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon and the Tech world is trying their best to keep up.

To learn more about Bill4Time or to schedule a Demo, please email Sales@Bill4Time.com or call 877-245-5484.

Release Notes: February 2018

February 1, 2018 By Bill4Time Staff 7 Comments

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 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

Fast-Moving Cyber Security Team Finds a Time and Billing Software That Keeps Up

January 26, 2018 By Simon Ragona & Joan Dorsey 1 Comment

“We started as a full-service security firm, with conventional services like guards and executive protection,” says Simon Ragona, Managing Director of Technology Risk. “Our Technology Risk group focuses on cyber security, data forensics, pen (penetration) testing and event-driven, digital security services.”

Network intrusions, denial of service, hacker attacks happen at inopportune times…late at night, weekends. Part of T&M’s strong reputation for cyber security is based on its ability to deploy a rapid response team on the client’s schedule. A company under attack can become a T&M client in less than five minutes.

This creates administrative challenges for Ragona and his team.

“With incident response…time is of the essence,” said Ragona. “We focus on getting control of the situation and protecting the clients’ systems. Setting up new client billing and project records in a time-keeping system is not our first priority.”

Yet in this fast-moving environment, time keeping and task recording can often be deferred or neglected. And that could result in missed time entries, under billing, and lost revenue.

As late as 2009, T&M was using ad hoc billing systems comprised of spreadsheets and keying in of time-based billing records.

T&M adopted Bill4Time in 2010, and rolled it out to three divisions by 2011.

Ragona explains that the biggest drawback of other time & billing software was the hours required to setup a new client, establish new projects, and assign tasks to a team.

“Bill4Time allows us to configure a client and project (case), then assign a team literally as we’re heading out the door to help a client,” said Ragona.

“That allows the team to start tracking their billed hours immediately. We’re able to more accurately capture client work hours right away…and capture revenue that might have been lost with other systems.”

“We saw revenue go up just because we were able to capture time entries right at the time of service. Our people were not postponing time entries. We weren’t sitting on it and forgetting to enter the time,” he added. “Quite honestly, we were losing money when we’re using other systems.”

Flexible Invoice Presentation

Like many professional service firms, T&M invoices are closely scrutinized by detail-oriented clients. Inconsistent descriptions confuse the client or worse, provoke a challenge. According to Joan Dorsey, Senior Accountant, consistent task descriptions and time entries are essential for building trust.

“If there’s just the slightest deviation in language (task descriptions; notes), our invoice could be flagged,” said Dorsey. “Depending up the client, an invoice exception inquiry could delay payment by a month.”
She cites this example:

Let’s say you have four people attending a client meeting that runs approximately 1-hour. Three time keepers log the time at one hour, while a fourth time keeper enters only 45 minutes. If those time entries get submitted to a client, there’s a very good chance the client will challenge all the entries and expect a reduction.

“Bill4Time lets us save & duplicate time entries,” she explains. “So, in situations like client meetings, conference calls — where all participants have the same time entries — we can ensure we show the client the same task description and time entry. This results in a more a unified, professional invoice, with less administrative time for everyone.”

“From a project management perspective, the ‘save & duplicate entry’ feature also lets us avoid situations where a time keeper is billing too much – or too little – for their time.”

“50% of our work is through attorneys and law firms,” said Ragona. “They’re working on their client’s behalf, so they frequently look for those ‘loose threads’. Having a bullet-proof invoice is easy with Bill4Time.”

“Clients have occasionally challenged us on summary invoices for things like duplicate time records,” he added. “But we can generate a detailed summary invoice in 5 minutes to present the facts. Its more credible when you have a detailed, quick response to a billing dispute.”

While hourly billing is the mainstay of T&M’s relationship with its clients, the firm has flat-fee services as well. Flexibility is the key to creating in-depth invoices that still make sense.

“For example, as part of a cyber incident response project, we may have five hours of professional time plus several line-item charges – such as cloning hard drives – with a flat, negotiated rate,” explains Ragona. “Bill4Time was one of the few solutions we found that made it easy to combine both billing types in a single invoice.”

Since T&M runs monthly invoices, billing day can be quite a chore. However, Bill4Time’s batch invoice processing saves hours, according to Dorsey.

“I love that feature,” says Dorsey. “Just being able to enter the date parameters, run anything within an outstanding date time frame. And it gives us a batch preparation of draft invoices. Very neat and organized. Easy to review.”

Occasionally invoice flexibility results in less revenue, which can be equally valuable.

“For example, our group VP will occasionally have billable hours on client projects,” said Ragona. “To demonstrate our commitment to the client relationship, we want to document those hours, but then show that time we provided at no charge – as a professional courtesy. Bill4Time allows us to show the discount at the line-item level, where the client can see it more clearly.”

Ragona also explains that Bill4Time allows them to apply various discounts for marketing channel partners or referral channels, either as a flat dollar amount or a percentage.

T&M relies upon Bill4Time’s unique features to setup and create new client records almost as fast as the company response to cyber attacks. The flexibility in invoice layout and presentation helps T&M create bills that clients can understand. And Bill4Time’s ‘save & repeat’ time entry function results in uniformity and accuracy that prevent client confusion or challenges.

# # #

How a Certified Care Manager Eliminates Paper and Maximizes Billable Hours

January 17, 2018 By Laurel Etheridge Leave a Comment

Time is money for professionals who rely on billable hours to keep their business running. Managing billable and non-billable time can be hard to balance, learn how Laurel Etheridge maximizes her time.

Laurel Etheridge is owner of Etheridge Care Management, a geriatric care management company specializing in dementia and memory loss. Her company serves families and professional fiduciaries in Northern California, specifically Marin and Sonoma counties, and San Francisco.

Unlike a home health aide or caregiver, Etheridge manages the complex ‘circle of care’ that supports her aging clients. She has professional certification from the National Academy of Certified Care Management and is an Advanced Professional member of the Aging Life Care Association (formerly the Geriatric Care Manager’s Association). Care managers practice in eight different knowledge areas including health and disability, legal, financial, housing, families, local resources, advocacy and crisis intervention.

Care management is designed to help families manage the complexities of growing old,” explains Etheridge. “A lot of clients don’t even know where to start or what questions to ask. I help families to develop, then manage, a circle of care for a loved one.”

Like an attorney, Etheridge bills for her time in six-minute increments. She attends to 15 different regular clients, on average, each month, and spends most of that time out of her office, visiting hospitals, residential care facilities or meeting with doctors, lawyers, fiduciaries, or other professionals. She also does consultations and special projects such as moving a client from home to a care setting.

Some of my clients may require only a few hours per month while others have complex needs that require much more help,” said Etheridge. “Our minimum requirement for ongoing service is that we need to meet with each client at least one time each month.”

When she started her business 7 years ago, Etheridge did not use any time-billing software, just a notebook to record client activities. As her business grew, the limitations of paper became more noticeable when managing her billable hours.

In the beginning I only had a few clients, so a paper-based system seemed simpler,” said Etheridge. “Yet I was creating each bill by hand, transposing task descriptions from a notebook to an invoice template, adding up the hours, then adding on expenses. When a subcontractor sent her invoices, I had to re-enter all the dates and descriptions. It didn’t help when she used a different naming convention for tasks…I had to translate and then catch those inconsistencies.”

After about a year of paper, Etheridge began using Bill4Time.

I chose Bill4Time based on a recommendation from another care manager,” said Etheridge. “I liked the fact that I could use my iPhone to capture all my billable time. I can enter a description of what I did, and be very specific, immediately after the event, when the details are fresh.”

According to Etheridge, her invoices are so specific and detailed that she’s never had a client challenge.

Another benefit of a cloud-based time & billing system is the ability to record time entries whenever, wherever.

Because I am so busy with visiting clients, I never enter my time on the desktop,” explains Etheridge. “I can be away from my desk for three or four days every week. So, I document all my time using Bill4Time’s iPhone app, which syncs to the ‘cloud’ and then my desktop.”

Staying Efficient with Billable Hours

While Etheridge was new to being a sole proprietor, she started her company with more than 20 years’ experience in the field, working as a director and care manager with a large eldercare services agency, as well as executive director of a dementia-specific assisted living community. Her experience taught her to immediately focus on systems and procedures that minimized non-billable hours.

To be successful, a care manager has to achieve an 80% billable-time ratio,” says Etheridge. “Given the pressures of the job, and the amount of documentation associated with elder care, it is an extremely difficult to target to achieve.”

To stay efficient, Etheridge takes steps to minimize paper-based records whenever possible, and avoid unnecessary complexity in her software.

I tried a standard accounting software package (QuickBooks) for invoicing, but quickly gave up on it,” said Etheridge. “It was just too complex and time consuming to use. Instead, I used Bill4Time for all my time collection, invoicing and reporting. I don’t feel the need to use accounting software…or even hire a bookkeeper!”

I do my billing at the beginning of the month,” said Etheridge. “When I first started out with a paper-based system, it would take me about 5 to 7 hours to issue invoices for five clients. With Bill4Time, it now takes me about two hours for 15 clients. The longest part of the invoicing process is proofreading, finalizing and emailing the bills.”

Etheridge assigns categories to non-billable, tax deductible expenses within Bill4Time. Then, at tax time, she runs a user summary report, which shows total net revenue (her billable hours less reimbursed expenses), and costs. That information goes directly to the tax form.

For subcontractors, Etheridge runs a separate report that shows her contractor hours. This number goes into her profit and loss statement and helps speed the preparation of IRS 1099 tax forms.

One of the best features of Bill4Time is the ability to run a collections report,” explains Etheridge. “About the third week of the month, I run a report to see who has not yet paid. I send a simple reminder, and get paid. It’s really helped my cash flow.”

Client notes and reporting is another way Etheridge has gone paperless.

For me, everything I’ve done for the client is in Bill4Time,” said Etheridge. “I have detailed, time-stamped notes about each client: when they were hospitalized, when they were discharged. I can instantly run a service summary report to see activities and a timeline.”

Recently a client needed a report showing all the payments made to Etheridge over a 3-year period. She was able to easily run a service summary report, a task that would have required hours of research using a paper-based system.

The difference between trying to use complex accounting software and Bill4Time is night and day,” concludes Etheridge. “Everything I need is contained in Bill4Time.”

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

Bill4Time 2017 Year in Review!

January 3, 2018 By Kristin O'Neill 1 Comment

Another year has passed and 2017 has us reflecting on many amazing features released this year and more exciting updates to come.

Just in case you missed it, here are a few features released each month in 2017.

Don’t forget to click the month to gain access to the full list of features!

— FEBRUARY —

MacOS Desktop Widget – The desktop application allows you to track time and expenses both online & offline. Along with the Windows and Chrome application, we have released the download for Mac.
Added Server Capacity – Doubling the server capacity was made in an effort to improve load speeds and decrease latency for users.

— MARCH —

ACH via Stripe – In an effort to accelerate the adoption of secure, reliable, and convenient online payment options for firms and their clients, ACH payments via the Client Portal was released. Not only is this a lower-cost option compared to traditional credit card transactions, but ACH payments offer a more rapid and direct method of payment.
Annual Billing Plans – Annual billing is now available and can be updated within your Subscription. Click here for further instructions.

— APRIL —

Invoice Template improvements – implement new features and apply them to all templates, template layouts more responsive to content changes
Box & Files Update – This update streamlines the process of opening files in Bill4Time by opening in new tabs instead of same tab along with improving the upload pop ups with Box integration.

— MAY —

Trust Account Summary Add-on improvements – show/hide, Euro Date format, Bill Start Date observance – Updates to the Trust Account add-on within Invoicing observes date format and selection.
Conflict Check PDF downloads – Updates to the Conflict check allow you to now download and save PDFs.

— JUNE —

API – public beta that supports get/read operations from Bill4Time to other applications
iOS update – enhanced expense tracking: Image upload, quantity calc, unit price defaults

— JULY —

Support Site Overhaul – Along with a complete redesign, we’ve implemented more robust community features that allow our Support team to better track and respond to feature requests, questions, and comments.
Conflict Check is more robust – Update will now scan through project-level addresses for possible matches.

— AUGUST —

Late Fee Auto-Calculate – Late Fee update that recalculate each time a payment is applied to an invoice or deleted automatically.
Mobile app login tracking – Login tracking for mobile app users has been enabled to track via the account settings in Bill4Time.

— SEPTEMBER —

LEDES enhancements – Updates to Tax IDs and new Timekeeper classifications to bring into alignment with the LOC revised timekeeper classifications codes.
Batch Trust Payments – streamlined to observe defaults and reduce ‘clicks’

— OCTOBER —

Conflict Checker Update – Whole word search has been added so once enabled will limit results to only those that match the exact terms entered.
Invoice batch optimization – improve load speeds and complete actions more quickly, streamline editing a batch.

— NOVEMBER —

Web Content Accessibility – enhanced compatibility with Screen reading and other accessibility software.
Trust Deposit void display tracking w/o having to open the transaction – Easily track if deposits have been voided.

— DECEMBER —

Invoice Email BCC – Addresses can now be added to the BCC new feature when emailing invoices, so you can easily BCC yourself on any emails sent out of Bill4Time.
Invoice Email Report Update – An update to the Invoice Email Report includes the Body Text section of any email sent out of Bill4Time.

New Reports

Schedule Report – Update to reflect “All Day” appointments has been added to the Schedule report based on user feedback.

Project Billing Method – The Project Billing Method report will detail a list of projects, grouped by client, with their corresponding ID number and Billing Method.

Unbilled Summary Report – This new report pulls only unbilled time for review. This report generates in a format similar to the other summary reports, with similar filter options a table layout.

Task Summary Report – Available for our Legal Plan subscribers, this report filters, sorts, and sub totals by Task Code.

Alpine Backs Bill4Time, Steve Reardon new CEO – https://www.bill4time.com/blog/alpine-investors-backs-bill4time-appoints-steve-reardon-ceo/

Invoice email tracking – We’ve developed key email tracking features that eliminate the theatrics of tracking these emails and ultimately getting invoices paid. https://www.bill4time.com/blog/invoice-emails/

Stripe ACH – This feature broadens the existing relationship between Bill4Time and Stripe – in an effort to accelerate the adoption of secure, reliable, and convenient online payment options for firms and their clients.

API read-only beta – Simply put, this interface allows programmers to develop applications that communicate with an existing application or service to automate the flow of data and manual data entry.