Alisanne Steele | TheSoftwareConsultant | Saturday, July 8, 2018
Sage has put together a feature rich upgrade for Timeslips users. While I usually recommend that users upgrade every-other release (while maintaining support availability), this version is truly worth the cost and effort of upgrading. In addition to some long-awaited fixes, the following are a listing of some of the new and improved features giving the 2019 release some real momentum.
- LawPay Integration – (Premium and Perpetual) The long-awaited link between Timeslips and LawPay will provide a “Pay Now” link in your emails to your clients. Your clients can now submit payments online by clicking on the link in your sent email. (For more information about LawPay, or to setup an account, visit LawPay).
- Once the payment is completed in LawPay, Timeslips displays a window showing any payments waiting for application to invoices. You can then apply the payment as desired.
- The link with LawPay is a great start, but it’s still “not ready for prime time”:
- There is no way to embed in the invoice. There is no icon to click. It displays as a rather long URL in the body of your email.
- The payment comes in as an Accounts Receivable transaction rather than as a Trust Receipt. There is no Payment to Funds option.
- Hopefully these oversights will be addressed by Sage soon, perhaps in the August Serve Release.
- Security Profile Overview Report – (Premium and Perpetual) With each new release of Timeslips all users are given access to new features by default.
- Caution: In Timeslips 2018 the default is set to allow users to delete and edit billed slips. THIS SHOULD BE CHANGED IMMEDIATELY!! The report details the Timekeepers’ Profile settings in one place. The report can be displayed or exported for easy review.
- Client Contacts – (Premium and Perpetual) Timeslips has long supported a conflict of interest checker, but there was never a way to add adverse or related parties as connected contacts. Timeslips 2019 includes the ability to add additional contacts to a client record, allowing you to track supplementary contacts such as opposing counsel, judges, etc.
- You can now determine how a contact is linked with the client(s).
- The client information window will now have an additional Contacts tab for quick access.
- While this is a nice addition, Timeslips is still not a Practice Management solution.
- Filter Options for Timesheet Entry – (Premium and Perpetual) You can now filter your Timesheet Entry Templates. Over time your Timesheet Entry Window can become too congested; filters will allow you to display only the relevant Templates.
- Day View Slip Entry – (Timeslips Premium Only) The Day View gives timekeepers a visible look at their work day. If you enter start times, you can see the slips fill in during the day, making it easier to spot gaps in time.
- Flat Fee Billing Arrangement Assignment for Timekeepers – (Premium and Perpetual) In Timeslips 2019, when you set up a flat fee billing arrangement you will be able to indicate who will receive credit for the full amount of the time charges (Many users do not enter time entries for Flat Fee matters).
- This allows for the reduction of unallocated amounts in the Contributions Report. When invoiced, you will see a contributions tab on the payment to show who will be receiving the fee.
- NEW FEATURE ADVANTAGE: You can set this up retroactively for all flat fee billing arrangements.
- More often than not, users do not final bill a flat fee matter. This improved final billing process goes back to the beginning of the flat fee matter and reallocates all fees based on all the work done by all the timekeepers. This re-allocation serves to redistribute the fees to the timekeepers who worked on the project long after the money was allocated at the beginning of the flat fee arrangement.
- There is a dialog box showing you all jobs not final billed. You can quickly check the matters and have the system perform the allocation automatically. When you run an allocation report, you can review client jobs first.
- Ledes 98BI, Ledes 2000, and Ledes XML (Premium and Perpetual) New Ledes templates are now available in Timeslips 2019. Ledes 98b and Ledes 2000 billing exports will support automatic naming of the Ledes files, if you choose to print the invoices separately.
In addition to the above features new to the Timeslips 2019 release, here a few improvements that will improve your overall experience with the program:
- Funds Account Listing – This report finally (I have been waiting for this for years!!) shows a total at the bottom of the report.
- Delay Typing – In Timeslips 2019, you can manually set the length of time it takes for the list to reset for context-sensitive searches. While typing a name in a list in the past, if you did not type fast enough, it would reset. This can now be avoided by setting delay.
- Support for laptop DPI displays at 150% – Many laptop users have experienced window cropping when increasing the display size to 150%.
- Print from Dialogs Option – This cool improvement will (optionally) send a print form an on-screen slip listing (and other on-screen listings) to your display rather than directly to you default printer.
- Google Calendar Sync – You are now able to sync Timeslips to your existing Google calendars. You no longer need to have a calendar dedicated to Timeslips.
- Transaction Amount Expansion – For those of you fortunate enough to require this enhancement, you are no longer limited to $225,000 as a transaction amount. It has increased to $999,999,999.
- Email Address Prompt – When you enter an email address in the client record, the program will prompt to set up email billing for the client (if you have not already done so).
While the above new and improved features already pack a strong punch, many of the existing reports have also been improvedupon or re-written and the API package has been greatly improved allowing for tighter integrations with 3rd party applications (Such as accounting and matter management).
Whether you are on a supported version of timeslips (2018 & 2019 at this time), an unsupported version (2017 and earlier), or a user of another time & billing solution, Timeslips 2019, is worth the time and investment.
Let us know when you are ready for demo, or you can start a test drive at the sage Timeslips website.
As always, we are here to get you on the right path!
~Sanne
