Tag Archives: Inquiry

Lesson #46

Inquiry – Marketing Inquiry function

Know where your business is coming from. Discover problems — such as inactive clients — to deal with proactively — such as sending them reminder cards.

Client-focused inquiries

Evaluate clients on a firm or contact level in terms of orders placed and revenue generated. Review new client entries and check for duplicate entries. View individual clients’ details. Then use this information for more targeted marketing efforts.

When you start using MR9 review firm and contact entries for errors or actions to take. Then periodically review new clients within a range of dates to acquaint yourself with them. You can also use these reviews as a form of quality control.

As clients order services and you invoice them, you can use other filters in Marketing Inquiry to find out more about your clients and tailor your marketing efforts.

Find your best clients by firm or contact in terms of most orders or most revenue generated within a date range. You can include or exclude copy sales in revenue generated. Including copy sales gives you an overall view of your real top revenue-generating firms and contacts because it’s not only including their invoices, but any other invoices posted for the orders they place with you.

Find inactive clients by searching for which firms or contacts have not placed any orders during a range of dates as compared to the year prior. Seeing who went quiet gives you a list of clients to contact and see if there are any services you can provide for them.

You can also search to see which clients generated no revenue with you within the date range searched as compared to the exact same time period in the prior year. If a client appears in the results, it means they had at least one invoice posted between the dates searched for the previous year.

When searching for clients to market to you can exclude any firms or contacts that have requested that you do not market to them.

If you searched for firms the listings in the results includes firm name and address. If you searched for contacts the listings in the results includes contact name, firm they work at, address, phone numbers, email, and the email’s category in the contact’s listing. You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, MR9 will revert back to the default order).

Use the email notification categories for further targeting your marketing. For example if you want to offer a limited time discount for paying invoices early, you can generate your list for Accounting email notifications only then select the contacts in the list with an accounting email address.

Export the results as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use to create reports in other applications. If you see any incorrect or missing information in the listings, you can update entities directly from their listings.

Print envelopes and labels from Marketing Inquiry results for your targeted marketing efforts. For example generate labels for holiday gifts to your best clients.

TL;DR: Lists contacts and firms in a range of categories, so you can see who your best clients are, review new client entries, and see which clients are inactive and need marketing to. Print envelopes and labels from inquiry results. 

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with.

Firm: Business you provide services to, usually law firms.

MR Connect: Online repository, orders, and access to your office for clients. More >

Lesson #45

Inquiry – Anniversary Inquiry function

Never miss a chance to congratulate your clients on their personal milestones with MR9’s automatic reminders and Anniversary Inquiry’s ability to print envelopes and labels. MR9 will remind you of upcoming events so you can use Anniversary Inquiry to pull up a list of those events and print envelopes for cards and/or labels for gifts to send.

You set up the kinds of events you want to remember for contacts such as birthdays and wedding anniversaries, then enter dates for these events in individual contact’s MR9 records and when you want to be alerted about these upcoming events.

Print envelopes & labels

When MR9 sends you a reminder about a client’s upcoming event through its internal email system you can use Anniversary Inquiry to print an envelope and/or a label with the contact’s business address or home address.

Or if you prefer you can use Anniversary Inquiry to periodically generate a list of clients with upcoming milestones you want to acknowledge. You can restrict your list to only clients you have designated as active — and select specific anniversary types that you want to celebrate this time that occur on a specific date or in a date range. You can also generate lists of contacts at a single firm or contacts that are clients of a specific sales rep or client rep.

Contact listings in the search results include the person’s name, firm name, address, anniversary type, and date. You can sort your lists by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, MR9 will revert back to the default order).

You can view or edit any contact’s details in the list before printing envelopes and labels. And you can export the list to save, share, use in other applications, or print as a report.

TL;DR: Generate lists of clients celebrating upcoming birthdays and other anniversaries, then print envelopes and labels for sending cards and gifts to them.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with.

Firm: Business you provide services to, usually law firms.

Lesson #44

Inquiry – Receivable Transaction Inquiry function

Look up the payment details for a single check or search payment histories by transaction type and/or other options. Searchable options include:

• Check number
• Check date
• Invoice number
• Transaction date
• Posted date
• Payment details
• Firm billed
• Payer

Searching by check date will return only check payments. You can also search for any posted receivable transaction. Transaction types include:

• Payment
• Duplicate payment
• Credit
• Debit
• Miscellaneous receipt
• Write-off
• Void
• Refund

Any transactions that meet your search criteria will appear as a report. The search results in the report include all of the search categories (except the billed firm) plus:

• Payment type
• Payment amount
• Who entered the payment into MR9
• When it was entered

You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, MR9 will revert back to the default order). You can export the report to save, share, use in other applications, or print.

View individual transactions

From your search results you can view detailed information about individual payments and other transactions. If you look at a payment’s details it will include a list of the invoices paid by the payment and a breakdown of how the payment was applied to each invoice in the list. For other transactions you can find information about the client and/or remarks about the transaction depending on the type of transaction.

You can also view invoice details directly for all transaction types — except payments and miscellaneous receipts.

Use with Aged A/R

In addition to using Receivable Transaction Inquiry to look up payments or search payment histories, you can also use it when you are managing collections and accounts receivable with the Aged A/R function. In the interactive Aged A/R report you can open the Receivable Transaction Inquiry directly for any client and it will automatically list that client’s payment activity for the past 90 days.

TL;DR: Use Receivable Transaction Inquiry to look up a single check or search payment histories and view detailed information about individual payments and other transactions such as refunds and write-offs.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Firm: Business you provide services to, usually law firms. More >

Lesson #40

Inquiry – Client Analysis function

Use Client Analysis to get a snapshot of a client’s billing activity via what services they purchased. Compare totals by period to track your most important customers.

Client Analysis is similar to Client Activity — except in Client Activity you see information about a client’s invoices that fit your search criteria. In Client Analysis you see information about service items billed to the client.

You can view billed service item amounts for:

• Firms that ordered the records that included the billed services or by the firms responsible for paying the invoices for the services (since they are not always the same firm).
• A firm’s parent company — not just the individual firm if they are part of a larger organization.
• All of the contacts at the firm or a specific contact.

You can refine your results by including a date or date range for the invoice(s), the order(s), or when the invoice(s) posted in MR9. You can view billed service items for paid or unpaid invoices, or all invoices that match the other search criteria.

You can find billed service item amounts for a single order. And you can view billed services by all, some, or a single business unitof your company.

If you don’t use any of the search filters, Client Analysis will list all of the selected client’s billed services with your company since their first invoice.

Interactive snapshot of billed services

Client Analysis displays a snapshot of billed service item amounts that meet the specified search condition(s), with each category broken down into number of units sold, billed rush charges, and total billed amounts’ year-to-date and all-time totals. It includes sales and court taxes as separate line items so amounts match Client Activity reports.

The results returned in Client Analysis are interactive, so you can drill down in the information by clicking on dates or service line items. You can see monthly and quarterly amounts for the main service categories, for subgroups within the main categories, and for individual service items. Category totals and subtotals appear on gray backgrounds with bold headers to differentiate them from individual line items. You can also see the details of all of the results at once with a click.

You can export the report in Excel format to save, share, use in other applications, or print.

TL;DR: This interactive report summarizes a client’s billed activity, broken down by service item. Compare totals by period to track your most important customers.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Bill To Firm: Firm responsible for paying the invoice for an order.

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately.

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with.

Order: An order in MR9 is usually a request for all records related to a case or to serve a subpoena for an appearance at a legal proceeding.

Parent Firm: Headquarters of a multi-branch corporation.

Sold To Firm: Firm responsible for a job with your company.

Lesson #39

Inquiry – Client Activity function

Look up a single client’s invoices using filters to focus your search so you can — for example — search the client’s invoices by order number to come up with a settlement amount for a particular order in seconds, no matter how long the related case has been going on.

And if the client requests a copy of all the invoices for that order, you can email them all of those invoices as a single PDF file with the click of a button.

Finding invoices

You can find invoices for a firm that placed the orders billed or the firm responsible for paying the invoices (since they are not always the same firm). You can find invoices for a firm’s parent company, not just the individual firm if they are part of a larger organization. You can find invoices for all of the contacts at the firm or a specific contact.

You can further refine your results by filtering for the date or date range of the invoice(s), the order part(s), or when the invoice(s) posted in MR9. You can find a firm’s invoices for all parts or a single order. And you can find a firm’s invoices billed by all, some, or a single business unit of your company.

The search results include all of the search categories ( except the post date) plus invoice number and amount, balance, payment date, order part number, patient/witness (Records Of), case, and date voided. You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, MR9 will revert back to the default order).

You can export the results to save, share, use in other applications, or print as a report.

Email multiple invoices as single PDF

You can view all invoices, or only paid or unpaid invoices, which is handy when you are looking for a client’s outstanding invoices. If viewing unpaid invoices, you can email a single PDF of the invoices with “Past Due” automatically stamped on them.

If you don’t use any of the search filters, MR9 will list all of the selected client’s financial activity with your company.

If you don’t want to send all the invoices listed in your search results, you can select only the ones you want to include in the compiled PDF. You can also include other attachments with the email if desired. When you send invoices from Client Activity, MR9 logs the event in the invoice’s Notes Log.

You can view any invoice’s details from the search results and see the same level of detail as in Invoice Inquiry.

Embedded in Aged A/R report

While you can access Client Activity from the main menu in MR9, you can also access individual client’s activity directly from the interactive Aged A/R report in Receivables, saving you time when working on collections or just looking for answers about the client’s outstanding invoice amounts displayed in the Aged A/R report.

TL;DR: One use of Client Activity is to generate a settlement amount for a particular case in seconds, no matter how long the case has been going on. Plus you can send the client a single PDF of their related invoices. 

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Bill To Firm: Firm responsible for paying the invoice for a job.

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately.

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with.

Notes Log: Un-editable internal-use only notes entered either by a user or automatically by MR9 appear in chronological logs in the database record where they occurred, such as a order, part, invoice, or entity. More >

Order: An order in MR9 is usually a request for all records related to a case or to serve a subpoena for an appearance at a legal proceeding.

Parent Firm: Headquarters of a multi-branch corporation.

Part: A part of an order is a separate record that is being sought that is included in the entire body of records for a case or patient. You can also think of it as the work order for that separate record.

Records Of: Patient name — or witness if this is a subpoena.

Sold To Firm: Firm responsible for a job with your company.

Lesson #38

Inquiry – Invoice Inquiry function

Search for posted invoices using a variety of criteria, such as invoice number, type, amount(s) and/or date(s). Find invoices for a particular order/part, location, claim number and/or client matter number. Limit your search to open or paid invoices. Send original or current invoices to clients. Export or print the results as a report. Get detailed information about the invoices including payment history.

Quickest way to find invoices

Invoice Inquiry will usually be the best function for finding invoices when you don’t have the invoice number because it has the most search filters. You can search for invoices using any one or combination of these filters:

• Invoice number
• Invoice date, job date, or invoice-posted date
• Date range
• Order number
• Order part number
• Open invoices, paid invoices, or both
• Claim number
• Client matter number
• Invoice total $ amount range
• Client’s reference number
• Type of invoice — such as its source, purpose, or function
• Business units

Invoice Inquiry lists posted invoices based on your set of search criteria as an exportable/printable report. The report includes information from the search categories as well as the amount outstanding, void date, Bill To client, and Sold To client so you can see most information about an invoice at a glance.

Invoice Inquiry displays an invoice’s original amount plus 2 current balance amounts:

1. The outstanding amount of the original invoice minus any payments appears in the Balance column.
2. The current balance for the invoice including all fees added since the original invoice was issued — such as late charges and finance charges — and minus any payments already made appears in the Balance+ column.

The report also includes a Totals line. You can export the grid as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV(comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

Customize how you view posted invoice lists

The grid in which you view posted invoices is customizable to your individual preference:

• Re-arrange the columns so the most important information is most prominent.
• Stick up to 10 columns to the left side of the grid so they do not scroll when you have a results grid wider than your screen.
• Stretch/shrink columns to fit the results.
• Hide columns you don’t need to see.
• Choose which column(s) to sort results by.
• If you select more than one column, choose in what column order to sort the list.
• Choose whether to sort info by ascending or descending order in each selected column.
• Save your custom grid as your default.

You can save your custom grid as your default. Your customizations do not affect other users, and you can restore the original MR9 grid layout anytime.

View, re-send, & edit any invoice listed

You can view, send, and update individual invoices listed. For example if you didn’t get a party’s e-billing information until you posted the invoice, you can enter it here. You can see information about the 3rd party billing, service items, and billed amounts. You can view the order and related parts the invoice encompasses. You can also view an invoice’s detailed receivables transactions — including late fees, finance charges, and credit card processing fees — as well as download the invoice from the repository and read the invoice’s Notes Log.

You can email or print out the invoice you are viewing. You can choose the original or the current invoice that includes any finance or late charges added since the invoice was originally issued. If emailing you can include other attachments from your desktop or MR9’s Records-level Repository plus edit the email contents before sending. If you choose the print option, you can preview the invoice with details on or off, export the invoice in a variety of formats plus search for a word or phrase in the onscreen invoice. MR9 will highlight all instances of your searched word/phrase in the invoice and list them in a scroll box along with the page number where they occur.

NOTE: Because COD invoices are different from regular invoices and cannot be posted until paid, they are not included in Invoice Inquiry searches. To find COD invoices, use Billing > COD Invoices.

TL;DR: Search for posted invoices using a wide variety of criteria. Export or print your results as a report. Get detailed information about the invoices including payment history.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Bill To client: Client responsible for paying the invoice for an order.

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately.

Notes Log: Un-editable internal-use only notes entered either by a user or automatically by MR9 appear in a chronological log.

Order: An order in MR9 is usually a request for all records related to a case or to serve a subpoena for an appearance at a legal proceeding.

Part: A part of an order is a separate record that is being sought that is included in the entire body of records for a case or patient. You can also think of it as the work order for that separate record.

Repository: MR9 has 9 repositories where you store files for safekeeping and quick retrieval, including a dedicated invoice repository.

Sold To client: Client responsible for an order with your company.

Lesson #37

Find targeted information fast

Need to find an invoice quickly? Want to know how much you billed a client last month? These questions and more can be answered in the Inquiry module. What you can do in this module includes:

• Instantly locate information about orders, invoices, clients, payments and transcripts. 
• Generate a settlement amount for a particular case in seconds, no matter how long the case has been going on. Send a client a PDF of their invoices. 
• Analyze aspects of your business, such as clients’ billing activity. Run monthly, yearly, and year-to-date total reports. 
• Print labels for cards and gifts to send to clients celebrating upcoming birthdays and other anniversaries.
• Find who your best clients are, and which clients are new or inactive.

Inquiry functions by name

• Invoice Inquiry
• Client Activity
• Client Analysis
• Receivable Transaction Inquiry
• Anniversary Inquiry
• Marketing Inquiry

TL;DR: Use Inquiry functions to quickly look up information about invoices, clients, and transactions.

MR9 concepts in this lesson