Law Office Technology

Advanced Search in PCLaw

A client asked me the other day how to run a report to see a list of all matters and their billing rates.  To do this you need to go to Reports –> Client –> List of Clients.

This will list all the clients\matters and what rate they are billed at, plus a whole lot of other information.  If you have a lot of matters this can be a hard report to get information from and you do not have the option of exporting it to excel to sort.

The Adv. Search… feature will help you filter this list to find some real information for you to use.  One example is using the Advanced Search to filter to view just one type of billing rate.  Lets say we wanted to see all matters that have the allstate billing rate. 

This will now only bring up matters that have the allstate (alst) billing rate.  We can save this filter to use it again if we need to.  \

Until the time where you can export the full report to PCLaw, this is your best bet for sorting matter information.

Bye Bye Matter Manager, Hello Matter List….

In one of the newest releases of PCLaw (9.20), a new feature called Matter List appeared.  Lets face it, the Matter Manager in PCLaw leaves a little more to be desired.  It has a narrow view and is not that customizable.  The Matter List solves all these problems and gives you the ability to customize your Matter view like you can in TimeMatter and Amicus Attorney.  To get to it, you need to open PCLaw and go to File –> Matter List. 

Here is the default matter view which shows all your active matters.  You have the option to Add Tabs…

Below is the customized matter list that I install for most of my clients.  The first three tabs are for Active, Inactive and Archived Matters.  The next three are Tabs I create are for the Attorney’s in the firm.   After Responsible Attorney Tabs, I list matters by year opened.  I usually do 2000 -  2007, 2008 and 2009.  After that I create Matter Tabs by types of Law.

Besides looking at a lists of matters I can easily select a matter or group of tagged matters and create a prebill, add a Note or change the matter.  I have stopped using the Matter Manager all together now that I have the Matter List. 

PCLaw: A newer version of the software is required to access the data.

 

When PCLaw is updated on one machine, all users will get the following message.  The correct answer is Yes.

 

PCLaw is now trying to install the PCLaw Print Driver.  Click Continue anyway.

Tracking Sick Time and Vacation Time In PCLaw

A client asked me the other day what is the best way to track Sick Time and Vacation Time in PCLaw.  I use a two tier approach.  First, I create two task codes (Lists –> Task Codes –> Add) one for vacation and one for sick time.  Make sure the category is non billable.

 

Second, I create a Sick Time Matter and a Vacation Matter.  I make sure the default task codes for these files is either the vacation or sick time task code.

If an employee is sick or on vacation, simply enter that time into PCLaw.  When you choose that employee’s vacation or sick time matter, it should automatically default to the new task code.

If you go to Reports –> Productivity –> Time Listing Summary  you can get some detailed information on how much sick time and vacation time each employee has used for a specific time period.

Issues with Expense Recoveries getting Labeled to a Random GL Account

I had a client call up the other day with an interesting problem.  They had been doing a lot of expense recoveries and and when they started running reports in PCLaw, they noticed that some of these expense recoveries were being coded to an account that the client had setup to track HMO Payments.  I logged into the system and verified that this happened, but only when a GL Account was not specified when creating the expense recovery.  When I looked at the Clients GL Accounts List, this became obvious.  (By obvious I mean after I called PCLaw Techsupport and Jason told me the answer)

If we look at the client gl accounts we can see that about 5 accounts that are expenses accounts are given numbers below 5000.  Out of the Box, the First GL Account in Expense is 5000 and NO ACCOUNTS THAT ARE EXPENSES SHOULD BE LABELED BELOW 5000. 

 

When a GL account is not specified in Expense Recovery, PCLaw automatically defaults to the first Expense Account, which should always be 5000.  Since the client created an expense account below 5000, it started to it instead.  The fix for the client is to renumber those 5 accounts something greater then 5000.

New White Paper on PCLaw Backups in SQL

I have posted some information for those of you that have the PCLaw SQL version and want some information on the backup restore process.  There does not seem to be a lot of documentation on this subject.  View it here.

PCLaw SQL Edition Backup Issues

If you have PCLaw SQL Edition, you can only run the backup from the server where SQL is installed.  I was having issues with the backup not working even though I was running  the back from the correct location.  The reason was that PCLaw thought it was installed on a mapped network drive.  I edited the PCLaw.cfg file in notepad and now everything works. 

 

INCORRECT SETTINGS

The T Drive is a mapped network drive.  PCLaw needs to be pointed to a local drive. 

CORRECT SETTINGS

Article in Law Technology News

 

I was quoted and one of my clients featured in the March Issue of Law Technology News.

 

http://www.lawtechnews.com/r5/showkiosk.asp?listing_id=1929932

PCLaw ADP Payroll Settings.

You will need to have the following GL Accounts in PCLaw before you setup the new ADP Payroll.

 

If you do not have the General Ledger Accounts setup in your PCLaw, you will need to add them.  

 

Options --> Lists --> GL Accounts

 

 

Check Payroll Account.

 

Close the ADP Payroll and re-open it. 

Add a one time fee to all Matters in PCLaw

Some firms do not charge clients for faxing, mail , and photocopies but instead charge the client a one time Administrative Fee. 

In PCLaw go to Option --> System Settings --> Matter Billing

One Time Amount will show up as a disbursement. 

A Percent of Fees will charge your client a percentage of their fees.  So if you have $100 in Fees for your client, they will get charged an additional 10%.

Amount Every Invoice charges you the same amount every invoice.

This will only effect Matters that are created after you make the selection.  You can however go into Matter --> Global Change and select this for Matters you have already created so the charge will be on their next bill.