Message Board

Getting Started With Trust Accounting

Chris — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:27:15 GMT

I've got good news... If you currently use Time59's Invoicing and Accounts Receivable features, you will find that trust accounting won't require much of a change in the way you currently use Time59.

You will still enter payments from clients using the Payment Entry function. The only difference is that for a trust deposit you will specify "Trust Deposit" as the payment type where in the past you might have specified "Check".

All trust deposits will be reflected in the client's A/R balance.

Trust deposits will also be reflected in the four new trust accounting reports.

Trust deposits will not appear on the regular Payment List report until they have been used to pay client invoices.

Trust deposit amounts can be applied to invoices in much the same way that you currently handle unapplied payment amounts in Time59. They can be applied to an invoice as it is being created, or by using the Payment Entry function and selecting the Apply Trust Funds payment type.

Probably the first task in going live with Time59 trust accounting is getting your Time59 trust account balance in balance with your actual trust bank account balance.

You can always see your current Time59 trust account balance by opening the Trust Balance List report. This will display the trust account balance for each client and the overall total trust account balance.

There are three ways you can alter the amounts that appear on this report:

1) Make a trust deposit for a client.

2) Apply trust funds to a client invoice.

3) Use the new Refund Or Modify A Payment function to move an existing payment into the trust account.

Option 3 is especially handy if you have been using Time59's existing A/R functionality to manage your trust account. You now have the ability to take an existing payment, even it has been partially or fully applied to client invoices, and move it into the trust account. You can also move it back out of the trust account if you so choose.

Once you have your trust account in balance with your bank account you can go forward making trust deposits and then applying these funds to invoices as they occur. All trust account activity will automatically appear on the four trust accounting reports. They are easy to understand and information can be displayed by date range, for all clients, a single client, or client groups.

This is just a brief overview to help you get started. For more information, post a question or comment here by clicking on the "reply" link above right, or by contacting Time59 directly.

Forum: Lawyer's Corner

Welcome to Lawyer's Corner

Chris — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 16:26:16 GMT

Lawyer's Corner is the section of the Time59 User Forum where legal professionals can discuss how they use Time59.

If you're trying to figure out the best way to get something done, post your question here.

If you've got a Time59 tip, share it with other legal professionals who use Time59.

Forum: Lawyer's Corner

Trust Accounting for Time59

Chris — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:20:19 GMT

I'd like to announce that Trust Accounting is coming to Time59. This feature will be of particular benefit to lawyers who use Time59. It will be very easy to use. I will provide more details in the near future. Look for it in April. If you have any questions or comments feel free to post them here.

Chris

Forum: General Discussion

Time59 Service Interuption

Chris — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:53:16 GMT

Time59 experienced a brief unplanned service interuption yesterday morning (2/10/09). The cause was a domain registration issue. The Time59 software and data were completely unaffected by the problem other than that they were inaccessible for a brief period of time.

Please accept my apology for any inconvenience this may have caused. If you have any questions or concerns please contact me, Chris Monaghan, at 312-957-4711 or support@time59.com.

Forum: General Discussion

multiple projects for 1 client invoice?

karl — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:00:27 GMT

hi there, i am look to find some online software that will do multiple projects time tracking, then compile into 1 invoice when i choose. Does this do that? Cheers

Forum: General Discussion

flat or fixed fees?

Robert — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 06:17:40 GMT

I really like how simple Time59 is for my solo practice. I do mostly flat or fixed fee rates for my clients. Is there any way to incorporate such an alternative fee arrangement within Time59?

Forum: Using Time59

Time records with hours > 24

chris — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:55:32 GMT

It is now possible to enter time records with the number of hours > 24. To be perfectly honest I'm not sure why that restriction was ever there. Nevertheless, you can now enter a value upto 9999:59 hours (9999.98 in decimal). The only restriction is that if you enter an hours value > 24 you cannot enter a start and end time.

The next modification in the pipeline is the ability to enter quantity and unit amount in expense records. This will be useful for entering mileage expenses. If you have any suggestions for this modification please let me know because I'm going to start working on it soon.

Chris

Forum: General Discussion

Export payments

Kent Laugen — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:13:00 GMT

Hi Chris,

Would it be difficult to add the ability to export payments? I like the ability to export my time as a backup method, and payments wold be nice too.

Kent Laugen

Forum: General Discussion

New invoice format is now available

chris — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 01:24:27 GMT

A few people have requested an invoice that does not show the extended amount for each time item on an invoice. They wanted an invoice that showed the detail but then only had a total invoice amount at the bottom.

An invoice like this is now available. It appears in the dropdown list of invoice formats as "Show Date, Description, Hours".

As the name indicates, this invoice will display the Date, Description and Hours columns for each time item on the invoice. The total billing amount of the time will only be displayed at the bottom of the invoice.

It should be mentioned that for expense items, taxes, and other invoice detail that is not time-related, the amount will be displayed on the line item.

I would be interested in hearing any feedback on this new invoice and invoicing in general.

The new features will continue to roll out as long as your suggestions keep rolling in!

As always, thanks for using Time59!

Chris

Forum: General Discussion

New Feature: Client Groups

Chris — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:30:07 GMT

I'm pleased to announce a new Time59 feature:

Client Groups

You can now organize clients into groups and
then view the Time, Expense, and Summary lists
by the groups you have created.

This feature is completely optional and if you
choose not to use it, your Time59 account will
behave exactly as it always has.

Here is a sample use of Client Groups:

If you have one or more client records set up for
tracking non-billable or internal activity, you can
assign your billable clients to a group called
"Billable" and your non-billable clients to a group
called "Non-Billable". Now you can view detail
and totals for these groups separately.

Creating Client Groups is extremely easy. Simply
edit a client record and type in a group name
into the new Group Code field on the client record.

For any other clients you want in the same group
just enter the exact same group name for them.

The groups will automatically appear in the drop
down client lists on the Project, Time, Expense
and Summary pages.

On the User Preferences form you can specify
one of your groups as the "default" group. This
group will automatically be displayed wherever
the ALL CLIENTS used to automatically be
selected (such as on the Summary page). Again
this feature is optional.

If you have any questions or suggestions please
post a comment. Thanks!

Forum: General Discussion

no charge billing

Kent Laugen — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 17:33:43 GMT

I'd like to see the ability making a time entry with the amount of time, but making it as "no charge." Or, being able to enter 0.0 time in the entry, and put the time spent in the description field.

Thanks for adding the sort capability for client names.

Kent

Forum: General Discussion

Northern Illinois University

Chris — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 06:11:20 GMT

I'm a graduate of NIU and what happened on February 14th really hurts. I'm saying prayers for the people who were killed and wounded. From what I've seen so far I'm proud of the way the University and the City Of Dekalb have responded. What happened can't be undone; it will echo forever, but NIU and Dekalb will recover. Finally, as a nation, we need to do something to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.

Forum: General Discussion

Time59 Blog Post

Chris — Thur, 31 Jan 2008 12:36:34 GMT

Here is a blog post featuring Time59. Take a look and leave a review.

http://costlesscomputer.blogspot.com/2008/01/time59com-web-based-client-billing.html

Forum: General Discussion

Recurring Invoices

Neill Rocha — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 05:03:02 GMT

Hi There,
I signed up for an account and found that Time59 has all the features I need except one, which in my case is crucial. Recurring Invoices.

Are you guys planning on implementing recurring invoices any time soon?
Thanks
Neill

Forum: Using Time59

New Features

chris — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 01:44:45 GMT

Time59 has some new features I'd like to tell you about.

You can now display terms (i.e. NET 30 DAYS, DUE ON RECEIPT, etc.) and a due date on invoices. To turn these features on go to the User Preferences form on the My Account menu.

Also under User Preferences you will find two new items labled "Invoice Info Line 1" and "Invoice Info Line 2". Using these two items you can place additional information about your company on invoices such as License Numbers, Tax Numbers, or other information that may be legally required.

Another major new invoice feature is automatic invoice numbering. When this feature is turned on Time59 will automatically generate invoice numbers for you. This number will be an integer value (i.e. 1, 756, 20070014, etc.). The inserted number will always be the next sequential integer value from the prior invoice number. If you are currently using a non-numeric invoice numbering scheme you can leave this feature turned off and continue to enter invoice numbers manually. If you'd like to use automatic invoice numbering go to the User Preferences form and change Invoice Numbering to "Automatic".

Be sure to view the User Preferences help topic for additional information on these and all of the other User Preferences settings.

These new features all sprang out of requests from users, so please keep the suggestions rolling in.

Thanks, Chris

Forum: General Discussion