In ContactsLaw, lists of active files are reported at the member, contact and practice levels on the Files tab. These lists are the first port of call for reviewing the current workload, determining when to bill matters, when to follow up debtors, finalise open accounts and evaluate billing performance.
The following lists are available:
- Overview - Lists all active files within a given workgroup which are managed/supervised by a particular member. At the practice level, all active files are displayed. For each matter, the manager and supervisor is displayed, along with the value of unbilled time, unbilled disbursements, trust and debtor balances. This list is used to locate matters within a member's current workload, to quickly view key balances, and to identify files which can be archived.
- Billing - This list is used to identify which files are suitable for billing. For each matter, an approximate bill total is calculated (and broken down into its component amounts). You can filter by a particular minimum value, billing cycle type or restrict the estimates to a particular billing period. After establishing the criteria for billing, it is possible to bulk-bill the files in the list. Depending on whether the process is interactive or automatic, tasks may be created and enqueued.
- Upfront bills - When an upfront bill is rendered, the billing period for the file is opened. To close the period, a finalising bill must be posted after all quoted work is completed. The upfront bills list allows you to see which files have unfinalised upfront bills (and thus require eventual closure).
- Aged debtors - This report shows all clients/files (within the member's cone of responsibility, or across the entire practice) where amounts are owing on the debtors controlled account. It examines allocations to split the amounts into categories according to their age. This makes it possible to quickly identify files which require follow-up or represent a potential bad debt.
- Recovery - This report is used to evaluate billing performance in terms of time. For each matter (within the member's cone of responsibility) where time has been billed, the member can see their share of the total billed, as well as which amounts have been discounted, written off, recovered or constitute a bad debt. Each of these figures is expressed as a percentage of the member's share of the time.
At the practice level, the Overview list is referred to as 'active files'. The following other lists are available at this scope:
- Archived files - Lists inactive (archived) files within a given workgroup with the ability to filter the results based on the period in which they were either opened or archived. This is a convenient way of determining which matters concluded within a particular reporting period.
- Archive boxes - Used to manage a physical collection of archive boxes, and the files contained within them. Users can interrogate a particular box, create/remove boxes and restrict the view according to the age of the box contents.
- Packets - Lists all safe custody packets in the system, sorted by number or the contact to whom they belong. This can be used in addition to the packet search to aid in the process of locating safe custody artifacts.
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