Time and Billing Tips

Did You Know: Searching in TurboLaw Time and Billing

Did you know that TurboLaw Time and Billing has a built-in search feature that’s easy to use and lets you quickly locate bills, expenses, time entries, payments, and clients?

The search box is located in the upper-right hand corner of the main window, and using the search box couldn’t be easier – just type in something you’d like to find and press the Enter key on your keyboard (or click the search button – the magnifying glass).

TurboLaw Time and Billing’s search is simple and easy to use. Let’s say a client calls you with a question about a bill. You can ask your client for the bill number that’s printed on the bill and then type that into the search box.

Once you press Enter (or click the search button), the search results screen will appear. In the example picture shown below, the very first result is the bill that matches the bill number we sought.

You aren’t limited to searching by number, either. Let’s say you wanted to look up all the items you’d entered that were for transcription – you could just type in “transcription” and press Enter.

The results appear almost instantly. You can also search for a client’s name.

Additionally, if you search from the main window, TurboLaw Time and Billing keeps a history of everything you’ve searched for (until you close the program), so you can recall searches you’ve made earlier if you need to.

With TurboLaw Time and Billing’s simple search, there are no complex search keywords to memorize, or confusing options to select. Just type what you’re looking for and you’ll find it – quickly and easily.

New Feature Highlight: Column Resizing and Sorting

One of the changes we made in Version 1.11 of TurboLaw Time and Billing was the way that the bills list was sorted. Previously, the list started with the bill number followed by the client’s name. Perhaps somewhat confusingly, the list was sorted by bill date by default.

Although it seemed natural to us that bills should be sorted by date, it was also natural to want to scan the list visually and find a bill by the client’s name. So, we changed the layout of the list. Now, the client’s name is listed first, and by default the list sorts by client name.

In making this change, however, we discovered that very few people realized that you can change the size of the columns, or even sort by a different column if you wish.

Resizing a column is as easy as grabbing its edge with your mouse and dragging it to the desired size, and sorting a column is as easy as clicking the column heading. You can also double-click the edge of a column heading to force it to adjust automatically to the “best fit” for whatever is in that column.

Read the rest of this entry »

New Feature Highlight: Template Designing

One of the major changes for version 1.11 of TurboLaw Time and Billing was the new “drag & drop” field list in the template designer.

These drag & drop fields make it easy to customize your templates so that information (such as the bill number, the date, your address, and the details of the bill) appear exactly where you want them to. This makes designing a template less like a complex technical process and more like putting together a simple mail merge – as you might do for printing envelopes or mailing labels.

If you’ve ever done a mail merge in another program (such as Microsoft Word/Publisher/Works, or WordPerfect, or OpenOffice) the process for designing your template will seem very familiar. If, on the other hand, you’ve never done mail merge before, there are many excellent resources to help you become familiar with the process:

Once you understand the basics of mail merge, you can begin dragging & dropping fields onto your bill or statement templates with ease and create professional-looking bills and statements that reflect well on your practice, help your clients understand their bills, and reduce confusion about what’s been billed.

New TurboLaw Time and Billing Video Tutorial: Customizing Templates

Once again, we are very pleased to announce the release of another video tutorial for TurboLaw Time and Billing. This time, the tutorial covers customizing the templates for bills and statements.

Unlike our previous video tutorial, this one concentrates solely on the customization of the templates used by bills and statements. It shows you:

  • How to alter the formatting of text
  • How the template’s repeating sections are used to create the final document
  • How to re-position and re-size elements
  • How to insert pictures (such as a corporate logo)
  • How to modify the information that appears in the footer of the document
  • How to preview your template before saving your changes

As well as lots more!

You can visit our video tutorial section to view the video, or just click here to view the tutorial in a new window.

New TurboLaw Time and Billing Video Tutorial: Working with Bills

In our continuing efforts to make TurboLaw Time and Billing as easy-to-use as possible, we’re proud to announce our latest video tutorial, titled “Working with Bills.”

This video tutorial walks you through the process of creating a bill in TurboLaw Time and Billing, and also explains how to use some of the advanced features of our template system to customize bills to your liking.

We hope you enjoy it!

New Video Tutorials for TurboLaw Time and Billing

We are very happy to announce two new self-help video tutorials for TurboLaw Time and Billing:

You can also find both of these new video tutorials in our How-To Videos section.

The first video tutorial will guide you through how to save your TurboLaw Time and Billing data file onto your network so that you can open it from multiple computers. If you were unsure as to how to use TurboLaw Time and Billing on your network, this short video will answer your questions.

The second video tutorial will guide you through using the “mail merge” feature of Microsoft Word to create a mail merge document from your TurboLaw Time and Billing client list. This can be used to create many types of mail merge documents, such as mailing labels, envelopes, and letters.

You can also use the mail merge function in other programs as well, such as Microsoft Works, Corel® WordPerfect®, StarOffice™/OpenOffice.org Writer, etc. The basic principle is the same, although the specific steps will vary – consult your product’s help file or documentation if you are not sure.

We hope you find these two new video tutorials helpful!

What’s the difference between a bill (or invoice) and a statement?

Let’s face it – the English language can sometimes be imprecise. You get a cell phone bill, but you get a credit card statement. Both itemize the charges made to you – so which one is it, a bill or a statement?

While we can’t make the English language any better, we can at least shed some light on the distinction between bills (or invoices) and statements as they relate to TurboLaw Time and Billing.

In TurboLaw Time and Billing, a bill (also called an invoice) is just what you’d think it is – an itemized list of work done for the client, and how much they owe you for it. For example, a bill might have the following items on it:

  • Spent 3 hours in court: $450.00
  • Travel expenses to meet with client: $75.00
  • On-site meeting: $250.00
  • TOTAL DUE: $775.00

This is like a bill or invoice that you might get when you purchase something. We tend to call it a “bill” because you “bill” for your services, while you get an “invoice” for goods – but in practice the two terms are generally interchangeable.

A bill doesn’t say anything about money that might have already been paid – it simply lists the work or expenses you’ve done and how much they total up to.

On the other hand, a statement in TurboLaw Time and Billing is a “statement” of the status of the client’s account at a particular point in time. Each line item on a statement represents either a bill or a payment. As such, it doesn’t offer as much detail as a bill – but it does show payments made towards the account. Statements are often sent out on a regular basis (e.g., monthly – like your credit card statement) to show your clients where they stand (and if they still owe you any money). For example, a statement might have the following items on it:

  • Balance forward: $85.67
  • Bill #123: $290.00
  • Payment #82: $50.00
  • TOTAL BALANCE: $325.67

This shows that the client had a balance due of $85.67 from before the period of this statement (if you send out statements monthly, your statement period is usually “the last 30 days”) and that in that time, a bill for $290 was produced, but the client sent in a payment of $50, resulting in a final balance due of $325.67.

To see a sample bill and statement, click on the images below.

Hopefully this helps clear up any confusion about what the difference is between bills, invoices, and statements. As always, if you have questions about any TurboLaw product, you can call us at (800) 518-8726 or email support@turbolaw.com.

If you don’t already have TurboLaw Time and Billing, you can download our 30-day free trial. There’s absolutely no obligation, and there is no limit on what you can do with the software in the 30 day period. Give it a try and see for yourself how easy it is to use!

Newer Entries

Subscribe

 Subscribe to our RSS feed

Enter your email address to receive notifications of new posts by email.

Categories

@TurboLaw

Legal Blogs

Archives

Search