TurboLaw Software News
"I wanted to write to thank you and your firm for the substantial support. I have dealt with other vendors of legal software, and TurboLaw is by far the best, both with respect to the product itself and also with respect to the technical support assistance which you provide.
"Your services and product has promoted the efficient running of my office."
Joyce G. Perocchi
North Andover, MA
Time and Billing Reports: “Open Slips”
October 26, 2009
Often, users of TurboLaw Time and Billing who are switching from another time and billing system want to pull up certain types of reports, but they only know the name of the report from their previous billing system.
To help with this, we are going to be posting a series of articles that describe step-by-step how to produce the same reports you’re used to from your old billing system in TurboLaw Time and Billing.
How to Produce an “Open Slips” Report in TurboLaw Time and Billing
In today’s article, we’re going to explain how to produce what some billing programs call an “open slips” report.
In TurboLaw Time and Billing, what other programs might call an “open slip” we call simply an “unbilled” item. Here’s how to see a list of unbilled items.
Note: you can click any of the images in this article to enlarge the picture.
Step 1: From the Home screen, click the Add/Edit Work Items button.
This will bring up the Time and Expenses window.
Step 2: Click the Status column to sort the items by status (billed or unbilled). You’ll have to click the column twice if you want unbilled items to appear first (the first click sorts the list alphabetically, the second click reverses the sort).
Once the list is sorted, you are looking at your report of unbilled items – in other words, the “open slips.”
You can either print this report (click the Print button) or use the Copy or Export buttons to copy the list to another program or save it as a file for further modification.
That’s it! That’s how you pull up a report of unbilled items in TurboLaw Time and Billing – what other programs might call an “open slips” report.
Pro Tip: the steps above will show unbilled items for all clients – if you want to restrict your report to the unbilled items for just one client, first open that client’s window and choose the Edit Time/Work option as shown here:
This will display the same window, but the items shown will be only for that one client.
As always, our goal is to make TurboLaw Time and Billing as easy to use as possible – and that includes making it easy to switch to TurboLaw Time and Billing from another billing program. If you have questions about how to produce a report from your old billing program in TurboLaw Time and Billing, feel free to ask us!
Time and Billing Reports: “Open Invoices”
October 19, 2009
Often, users of TurboLaw Time and Billing who are switching from another time and billing system want to pull up certain types of reports, but they only know the name of the report from their previous billing system.
To help with this, we are going to be posting a series of articles that describe step-by-step how to produce the same reports you’re used to from your old billing system in TurboLaw Time and Billing.
Displaying an “Open Invoice” Report in TurboLaw Time and Billing
In today’s article, we’re going to show how to display an “Open Invoice” report in TurboLaw Time and Billing.
In TurboLaw Time and Billing, “Invoices” are called simply “Bills,” and bills can be either Open (Unpaid) or Closed (Paid). Here’s how to bring up a list of Open (Unpaid) Bills, or what other programs might call “Open Invoices.”
Note: you can click any of the images in this article to enlarge the picture.
Step 1: Switch to the Bills view by clicking Bills from the left-hand navigation bar.
Step 2: Using the options at the bottom of the left-hand navigation bar, choose to see Unpaid Bills. You can choose to group the bills in any way you want – for simplicity in this example we choose No Grouping to produce just a simple list of bills.
The list you see will be all of your open (unpaid) bills – that is to say, all of your “open invoices.” You can print this list by clicking the File menu and choosing Print.
That’s it! That’s how you bring up what other billing programs would call an “Open Invoices” report in TurboLaw Time and Billing.
As always, our goal is to make TurboLaw Time and Billing as easy to use as possible – and that includes making it easy to switch to TurboLaw Time and Billing from another billing program. If you have questions about how to produce a report from your old billing program in TurboLaw Time and Billing, feel free to ask us!
Webinar: How to Run a Paperless Law Office
September 28, 2009
“Lawyers are increasingly challenged to track information that’s growing at unprecedented rates. The rise of digital information has only increased that challenge. We are learning that processing information stored in paper is costly, cumbersome and inefficient. The solution is to switch to a paperless practice, which is challenging—but not as challenging as trying to manage both paper and digital information.”
If you’ve ever thought about trying to cut back on the amount of paper used in your law office, you may want to attend this (free!) webinar.
For more information and to sign up for the webinar, visit Ernie the Attorney’s site.
TurboLaw 2.72 Released
September 14, 2009
As always, we are happy to announce the release of the latest version of TurboLaw – Version 2.72. This new version introduces some new features as well as some improvements that will make TurboLaw even easier to use. Here’s a list of all the new features and changes, as well as a brief explanation:
- Easier Registration - the registration process has been streamlined by replacing the multiple registration option buttons with a single button which simply says “Click here to register.” Since every copy of TurboLaw must be registered, and you must also re-register when you get a new computer, we try to make this process as simple and streamlined as possible.
- Recent Update History - the TurboLaw Update Utility will now keep a record of all the updates (new or changed documents) it has downloaded, so that you can see what has been updated previously, rather than just in the current session. This is useful if you want to see if, for example, your TurboLaw downloaded a new version of a form that came out last week.
- Safer “Alternate Case Folder” Option - previously, it was possible to select folders using the “Alternate Case Folder” option that would cause problems for TurboLaw – for example, the infamous 4160 error. Now, TurboLaw will warn you when you attempt to use a folder that might cause trouble later on.
- Update Timeouts - a small number of users of TurboLaw were reporting that the Update Utility was occasionally (and randomly) “timing out” when trying to download updates, even though their Internet connection was fine. This new version of TurboLaw includes enhancements to prevent this problem from happening.
Although this is a (relatively) minor update, we do encourage all TurboLaw users to download and install this update.
If you have automatic updates turned on in TurboLaw, you will be notified about this update. If you don’t have automatic updates turned on, you will have to check for updates manually by clicking the Update menu in TurboLaw and choosing Check for Updates.
This window will appear on your screen when a new TurboLaw Update is available.
As always, please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any trouble getting this latest update, or if you have any questions or comments. We welcome your feedback!
TurboLaw Time and Billing 1.15 Released
August 3, 2009
Once again, we here at TurboLaw Software are extremely pleased to announce the release of the latest version of TurboLaw Time and Billing: Version 1.15! We’ve worked very hard on this latest release, adding more than a dozen major new features/improvements to the program – many of them based directly on feedback we receive from you, our wonderful customers. As always, our goal is to bring you nothing less than simply the best time and billing program possible.
This new version has a lot of new features which we just can’t stop talking about, so instead of our usual list of new features, we’re going to go into a little bit more detail instead.
Read on for more details on all the amazing new features we’ve added and improvements we’ve made!
Totally new statement templates specialized for retainers:
This feature is one that will be especially helpful to those people who regularly take retainers for their work. You can select one of the new templates we’ve added to the program that have this feature if you want to see it in action.
Bills can now be printed in “batches” from the “Bills” list:
This is a feature we heard many of our customers ask for – and we listened to you! When looking at the list of bills in TurboLaw Time and Billing, just select the bills you want to print, and right-click and choose Print Bill(s). You can also click Print Bill(s) from the navigation bar on the left, if you prefer.
Separate fields for the “category” and “notes” of a bill line item:
Previously, line items on a bill had simply a single “description,” which was a combination of the “category” for that line item and any notes you may have entered for that item.
Above: the old bill line item "description" field in a template
The description for a bill line item always printed out in exactly the same way, as Category: Notes.
Above: a bill line item's description as it appeared on a bill
Once again, we listened to our customers’ feedback, and based on that, we added two new fields to bills – they are called category and notes. Although none of our default, built-in templates use these new fields, you can add them to your own templates easily. This way, you can choose to display the category of an item and its notes in separate columns, or perhaps choose not to display one or the other, depending on your tastes.
Above: the new "category" and "notes" fields for bills
Above: the new "category" and "notes" fields as they appear in a bill
As always, we believe that you should have total control over how your bills look – and these new fields make it possible to design your bill template to be exactly the way you want it to be.
All “list” style windows can now be copied to the Windows clipboard for pasting into other programs, or exported to a CSV file:
Because we believe that the data you enter into TurboLaw Time and billing is yours to do with as you please, we added some new buttons to all of the “list” type windows. These new buttons allow you to either copy the list you see to your clipboard (so you can paste it into a spreadsheet or a document), or export the list you see to a CSV file (a type of text-only spreadsheet). Either way, the data you see on the screen can now be easily taken out of TurboLaw Time and Billing and put into whatever program you wish. You can manipulate the data if you want, create reports of your own, or even just share the data with others who might not have TurboLaw Time and Billing.
These new buttons are available in all of the “list” type windows in the program, including:
- Clients
- Time and Expenses
- Payments
- Staff Members
- Staff Titles
- Account History
- Billing Categories
- Matters
The “list” window for work/expenses now has a column showing whether each item has been billed or not:
This feature is another one that was suggested to us by our customers. When looking at a list of time and expenses, you will now see an additional column labeled “status” which tells you whether that item has been billed for yet. An item that is marked “unbilled” has been entered into the program, but has not yet been added to a bill. An item that is marked “billed” has been added to a bill, and is counted as part of the client’s balance.
Graphs can now display data by specific intervals (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.) for either a single client or staff member, or for ALL clients or staff members:
We’re always looking for new ways that people want to use the data in TurboLaw Time and Billing for reporting purposes – after all, there’s no way we could think of all the different ways you might want to use the data. One way that was suggested to us by a customer was to show a graph of (say) revenue for the past several months. To make this happen, we had to add an additional option to our graphs window to allow you to include “everyone” in the graph, rather than just restricting it to the currently selected client or staff member.
The result was the ability to graph trends in things like revenue, billed time, and payments received.
The increased flexibility and power provided by TurboLaw Time and Billing’s graphs with this new option make it possible to track your firm’s productivity, revenue, and expenses even more accurately.
Items in the “Account History” window can now be deleted directly from that window:
We always try to give you multiple ways to accomplish your goals in TurboLaw Time and Billing – that way you can use whatever method is easiest for you. In the case of the Account History window, we wanted to make it possible for you to delete an item directly from this window – so we did! Just right-click any item and choose Delete.
Other Improvements:
These improvements and changes aren’t really the sort that you can show with a picture, so we’ll just list them here.
- Newly-created clients are now “auto-saved” when you add a matter
- User-entered client ID numbers now appear on bills and statements
- Upgrades now remove old, unneeded files to save disk space
- Improved “unexpected error” message now more informative, and includes the phone number to call if you need technical support
- New “extensible” architecture (for enabling 3rd party integration)
As always, your TurboLaw Time and Billing will check for updates automatically and notify you when a new update is available. Just watch for the pop-up balloon, or for this message at the bottom of your screen:
This message lets you know a new update is available.
Remember – we welcome your feedback as well, so don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any thoughts or comments about the program.
We hope you enjoy this latest version of TurboLaw Time and Billing!
Document Assembly and ROI
July 16, 2009
Seth Rowland has recently published two very insightful articles on Document Assembly and Return on Investment.
- A Systemic Approach to Legal Document Automation (I): Building Technology Bridges
- A Systemic Approach to Legal Document Automation (II): Defining the ROI
Here are some excerpts:
Now is the best time for lawyers to redouble their automation initiatives. Document automation is the art of doing more with less (more work in less time) — with the potential of leveraging higher profits out of a shrinking staff. The best cost-cutting initiative is an investment in document automation.
[...]
For over a decade, I have preached that with document automation, firms can leverage legal talent with multiples that far exceed that of hourly billing.
[...]
Document assembly, properly understood, is a means to systematize the practice of law. Under such a system, you could achieve the same results, or better results, in a fraction of the time.
John Heckman had this to say about these articles:
The premise behind this approach is very simple (and I have seen it work very effectively with clients). Lets say you normally bill a client 5 hours to prepare all the wills and associated documents connected with estate planning. If you charge $300 per hour, that’s $1,500. So you invest in Document Assembly and tell your clients you are reducing the amount you charge for will preparation to a flat fee of $1,000. But meantime, due to the efficiencies of your document assembly routines, it only takes 2 hours to prepare the package, and virtually all of that can be done by a paralegal. All the attorney has to do is make a couple of tweaks and bless it.
So the end result is that your client is happy because he has saved $500. Meanwhile, your effective hourly rate has gone from $300 an hour to $500 an hour. You will very rapidly recover the cost of setting up the system and from there on it is all gravy.
These are both very insightful articles into how investing in document assembly is very worthwhile – it makes your clients happy because they save money, and it makes you happy because you can do more in less time.
The bottom line seems to be that document assembly really is the future – it’s good for both you and for your clients.
John HeckmanJohn
Free TurboLaw Wallpapers
July 14, 2009
Everyone likes to have a pretty picture on their desktop (often called “wallpaper”) – and here at TurboLaw we’re no exception. So one of our more artistically-gifted staff members put together a few nice TurboLaw-themed desktop backgrounds, and we’re posting them here for free for anyone who wants to show their support for TurboLaw on their computer.
Just click on any of the small thumbnail-sized images above to see the full-sized image. (Right-click the full-sized image and choose “Save as” to save the image to your computer.)
Feel free to save these images to your computer and set them as your computer’s background image, or share them with friends who also love TurboLaw!
New Guardianship Forms for Massachusetts Probate Law
July 1, 2009
New Probate forms for Guardianships are now in effect for Massachusetts. We will be uploading them for current customers as quickly they become available.
The new guardianship forms are named differently from the old forms. The new forms all start with “MPC.”
TurboLaw is set by default to check for updates and new forms automatically every time you open the program, so if you have not changed this setting, then your TurboLaw will pick up the new forms automatically each time you open the program.
If you have automatic updates turned off (for example, if you have a dial-up connection) you can check for updates manually by clicking the Updates menu in TurboLaw and choosing Check for Updates.
Solving the Problem of Sending Sensitive Files via Email
June 19, 2009
A common problem for law firms (and for businesses in general) that is getting increasingly more attention these days is how to share files and documents between people – such as between a lawyer and a client, or between members of a team that are not physically in the same office. (Such sharing is often described as collaboration.)
The classic approach to this – and the one most people probably think of first – is to simply email the files to whomever needs them, have them edit the files, and then email them back. This method is relatively easy and popular because most people already know how to use email.
However, increasing privacy and data protection laws, as well as the increased risk of identity fraud (a.k.a. “identity theft”) have made many people re-think the classic approach of emailing files around.
This is because there are lots of downsides to using email to share files:
- Sending a large number of files is cumbersome
- Different email providers all have different limits on the maximum size of attached files
- Email has no “security” built in – because emails are sent “in the clear” they can potentially be intercepted and read, or even modified
- Sharing files with multiple people for collaboration (shared editing) is basically impossible
- Some people are trained to avoid opening attachments because of past experiences with viruses
- Some email programs (notably Microsoft Outlook) just flat-out block certain types of attached files
Part of the problem is that sending files via email is simply not what email was originally meant for. Email was originally “text only” – the ability to “attach” files to email was not originally part of the email specification. In fact, attachments were sort of “grafted” on much later – circa 1996, in fact.
Fortunately, there are better options for sharing files instead of email – and they are just as easy to use. You just need to know about them.
There are several “file sharing” websites and services available these days – precisely because of the need to share files without sending them through email. We’ve picked out two that are a good match for law firms and other small businesses: Box.net and drop.io.
(Full disclosure: we are not affiliated with these companies in any way – we have picked these two based on the merits of the services they provide.)
Both of these websites offer the same basic service: upload your file (or files) to their server (protected with a password if you wish) and then get a link you can give to other people so that they can get the file. Basically, both of these websites are acting like digital “drop boxes.”
Both websites offer a “free” service that is limited in the number of files you can save, and both offer a paid service that gives you a lot of space to store files (useful if you’re sending big files – like videos or audio transcriptions – back & forth). 
Both of these services allow you to organize the files you upload, control what access people have to them (for example, you might want to give someone only the permission to download the file, but not to re-upload it back), and set “expiration dates” for the “drops” that you create. All of these options give you incredible control over how you end up sharing files and documents with your clients and with other firms.
These services are managed via the web, so you can upload files from wherever you are. And because they are both web-based, you don’t have to worry about whether the person with whom you are trying to share files has a PC, a Mac, or whatever. If they can get on to the Internet, they can get the files.
The best parts of these services, though, are that they provide you with a simple, secure, safe, and controlled way to share documents, forms, and other files with your clients or other law firms – without exposing yourself to the potential problems that come with sending things via email. And you can do all this very easily from a web site, without needing to have an IT person come in and set it up for you – which is a real bonus in these tough economic times.
If you send documents back & forth frequently via email – especially confidential or sensitive documents – you really should check out one of these type of services. They may just end up saving you from a lot of trouble later on down the road.
Icon courtesy of the Crystal Icon Set. Box.net and drop.io logos are trademarks of their respective companies.
Where are my documents?
May 21, 2009
One of the questions we sometimes get asked in regards to TurboLaw Document Software is “where are my documents actually saved?”
The short answer to this question is “wherever you want them to be saved,” but that’s not necessarily helpful, especially if you’re not paying attention to where you save your documents and are just accepting the default save location. So we’ll go into it in a little bit more detail here.
First though, a little bit of terminology: It’s important to remember that TurboLaw is not really “document management” software – it doesn’t save your documents in some special “repository” that you can only access through TurboLaw itself. In fact, any documents you create with TurboLaw are just saved on your computer as normal Word or Excel files.
It’s a little bit inaccurate to speak of your documents being “in” TurboLaw – they aren’t really “in” TurboLaw, they’re “in” your computer, and you just happen to be looking at them “through” TurboLaw. You can also look at your documents “through” any other program you wish – such as Windows Explorer or Microsoft Word or Excel.
With that out of the way, we can talk about where your documents are actually saved when you create them with TurboLaw. There are 2 different scenarios to consider, depending on what you are doing.
Creating a Blank/Empty Document
Creating a blank/empty document is the simplest and fastest way to bring up a form in TurboLaw – although of course you pay for that speed with the time it takes you to fill out the rest of the form by hand, since a blank/empty form is, by definition, empty – that is, no case or client information is inserted for you automatically.
Whenever you create a blank/empty form, TurboLaw saves it into a “temporary” folder on your computer. (After all, since there’s no case involved here, TurboLaw has no idea where you might want to save the document, so a temporary folder is the best it can do.)
After you’ve created and opened a blank/empty form, you can choose the Save As menu in Word or Excel to save the file anywhere on your computer that you’d like. If you would like to just print the document and be done with it (and never use it again), you don’t need to save it at all – just fill it out, print it, and close it.
If you don’t save your blank/empty form somewhere else, then when you are done with it, TurboLaw will delete it from the temporary folder. After all, that’s why it’s called a “temporary” folder. But as long as you remember to save your files where you want, you don’t have to worry – just don’t save them in the temporary folder!
As a safety precaution, TurboLaw reminds you that your blank/empty document is saved initially in a temporary folder every time you open a blank/empty form (unless you have specifically checked the box to not be shown the reminders).
Creating a Document for a Case
When you create a document for a case, the documents you create are saved into the folder for that case.
If you don’t tell TurboLaw otherwise, it will automatically create a folder for your case and manage it for you. The folders that TurboLaw creates are still saved on your computer, but they are named with the internal “ID number” of the case, so that TurboLaw can find them quickly.
The default location where TurboLaw creates these automatic folders may vary depending on the version of Windows (or the version of TurboLaw) on your computer, but you can see what it will be by clicking the View menu in TurboLaw and choosing TurboLaw Status, then looking for the Cases Path. This is the “root” folder where TurboLaw will create additional folders for each case you create (unless you tell it otherwise). If you are using TurboLaw on a network, this folder will be on your network as well – otherwise, it will be on your computer’s local hard drive.
If you choose to use the Alternate Case Folder option when creating a case, you can tell TurboLaw to save the documents for that case in any folder you want. Once you have done this, TurboLaw will save any documents for that case in the folder you picked.
If you ever want to see where the documents for a particular case are saved, just click the Open this Folder button to see the folder for that case open up in Windows Explorer.
Once the folder is open in Windows Explorer, you can look at the Windows Explorer address bar to see the exact location of that folder.
In the picture above, you can see that this case is saved in one of TurboLaw’s managed folders – that’s the reason why it ends with that really long number. The files are still on your computer, even though TurboLaw is controlling where they are saved – and you can do anything with those files that you want. After all, it’s your computer, and they are your files!
TurboLaw always strives to keep things as simple as possible, letting you get down to the business of creating the documents you need. However, knowing a little bit about where TurboLaw saves your documents – and the power it gives you to control where those documents are saved – can help you be more “in control” of your document workflow, and help you stay on top of your work.
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