Tag Archives: MR9

Lesson #94

Tools – Bulk Import function

Data entry and getting MR9 populated is a time-consuming task. One of those long drawn-out processes is entering firms, contacts, and locations from scratch. If you have existing client and location information, don’t re-key these entities into MR9; instead export it to Microsoft Excel spreadsheets from your application, then import it into MR.

MR9 offers 3 import options:

• Firms
• Firms with Contacts
• Locations

If you’re new to MR9 and want to import your clients first, we recommend using Firms with Contacts so you import your client law firms and other entities, such as insurance companies, along with your contacts at those firms at the same time.

Preparation is key

Bringing your client and location databases into MR9 using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets will save you a lot of time but there are a few things to note:

• To import your data into MR9 the Excel spreadsheet must have all of the same column headers in the same order as the Bulk Import headers. So we provide Excel templates to make it easy to set up your spreadsheet correctly. All you have to do is copy and paste your data into the template.
• While you must have the exact same column headers in the exact same order, you do not have to populate all the fields in the spreadsheet. Only required fields in each spreadsheet must have entries in each row in the spreadsheet. For example when importing Firms with Contacts, only the firm name and the contact’s name must be included in each row.
• If you are including an entity’s state you must use the 2-letter USPS abbreviation.
• If you are including email addresses for contacts or locations, each entity should have only one email address.
• When importing entities MR9 does not check the database for duplicate entries. If you discover duplicate entities after importing, you can either delete the duplicate or merge the entries.

Process is easy

After exporting your existing data to an Excel spreadsheet the import process is simple: Select the type of spreadsheet you are importing in Bulk Import and upload the spreadsheet’s .xlsx file.

If the spreadsheet was formatted correctly, the data will appear in the Bulk Import results grid. You can view your entries but not edit them. If you see any errors, you can edit your spreadsheet and re-upload the file or edit the entries in MR9 after importing. If the data looks ok, you can have MR9 import the entries to the appropriate Entity database automatically.

TL;DR: Import existing client and location information from other applications via Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

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

Entity: Individual, business, place, or discrete part of your company, such as revenue centers or branch offices. More >

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

Location: Place where records are stored — such as hospitals, schools, doctors’ offices, or businesses.

Lesson #93

DIY in your MR9

Import data, create forms and labels, perform custom data searches, and more in this versatile toolkit. In this module, you can:

• Import existing client and location information from other applications into MR9.
• Quickly update different clients and locations at the same time. 
• Use tags (keywords or phrases) to organize entities like clients or locations. Send emails or regular mail to all entities tagged the same. 
• Create forms and letters using the set of customizable templates in a word processor with mail merge that automatically incorporates your MR9 data. 
• Modify default label templates and create new ones.
• Search notes globally in MR9 Notes Logs.
• Monitor repository usage by in-house staff as well as by clients via MR Connect as required by general security rules for business applications.
• Save copies of your MR9 database to your hard drive/server.
• View automatic emails sent from your MR9.
• Audit entity merges done in your MR9 database.
• Perform custom searches of your MR9 data­base, and create your own reports from the results. (If you require more complex reports from MR9, we offer a plug-in called Data Reader and custom programming if you would like OMTI to create something for you. )
• Import MR9 entities, invoices, paychecks, and payment transactions into QuickBooks. 

Tools functions by name

• Bulk Import
• Bulk Update
• Tag Manager
• Form Templates
• Label Templates
• Notes Finder
• Repository Download Log
• Download Backup File
• Email Log
• Merge History
• Query Maker
• QuickBooks Integrator

TL;DR: Import data, update records, create forms and labels, and more in this versatile toolkit.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Notes Logs: 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.

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

Lesson #86

Reports – Client Rating Report function

This report lists all invoices (starting with O&1), grouped and subtotaled by client. Each client is listed with the number of originals and amount billed for originals, number of copies and amount billed for copies, combined totals, their outstanding balance, and payment history.

Default is all invoices posted today in descending order by amount, grouped by firm and contact who ordered the services billed (Sold To Firm).

• Each firm’s listing includes their address and phone number to help you identify them correctly.
• Contacts with qualifying original and/or copy orders appear under their firm name with their posted invoice details broken out.
• At the end of the report, grand totals for each column are listed.
• The report’s footer displays the searched by date (today) above the timestamp.

Customize your reports

You can generate reports for:

• Different date ranges
• Firms that are responsible for paying the invoices (Bill To Firm)
• Subsidiary firms that belong to one parent firm
• A single Sold To or Bill To Firm
• Firms in specific Billing Rate Group(s)
• One or more of your company’s business units

You can sort the list by amount or alphabetically by firm name. Sorting by amount lists clients in descending order starting with total amounts billed for originals, then copies. Sorting this list by amount can generate a holiday gift list. The report’s footer will display which search criteria you used to generate the particular report with the exception of blank search fields, ALL list selections, or if generating a report for a single firm. If you select two or more items in a list, the report will display that as “(multiple values selected).”

You can also choose a summary version that gives each client one line in the report that lists the firm name, the same original and copy breakdowns and combined totals for the firm, their outstanding balance and payment history, It also hides any zero amounts, making it easier to see the other amounts at a glance.

You can search for a word or phrase in the onscreen report. MR9 will highlight all instances of your searched word/phrase in the report and list them in a scroll box along with the page number where they occur. Export the report in a variety of formats to save it and/or edit in another application, or print it.

TL;DR: Generate reports rating clients on original and copy orders. One use of this report is to generate a holiday gift list based on the amounts shown.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Billing Rate Groups: Umbrella structures that categorize your billing rates.

Bill To Firm: The firm responsible for paying the invoice for a job, usually the Sold To Firm but can be a third party, such as an insurance agency.

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

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

Parent Firm: Headquarters of a multi-branch corporation.

Sold To Firm: Firm that ordered the services on the invoice.

Lesson #85

Reports – Misc. Sales function

Beyond originals, copies, exhibits, rush charges, mileage, and attendance are a whole host of other charges you bill to your clients called miscellaneous service items. The Misc. Sales report summarizes billed miscellaneous charges by client for a specific date range.

When you set up MR9, you organized your miscellaneous service items into groups of related items called Service Item Subgroups. For example under the Service Item Subgroup “Delivery” you included all of the delivery options you offer, e.g., FedEx, UPS, USPS, courier, DHL, shipping & handling. The Misc. Sales report covers one Service Item Subgroup at a time.

Today’s miscellaneous sales

The default Misc. Sales report shows all miscellaneous charges that are part of your first Service Item Subgroup that were included on any invoices posted today. Service item charges are broken down by firm billed — and the firm totals are further broken down to each contact at the firm that was billed for the relevant service items. Each firm’s listing includes their address and phone number to help you identify them correctly.

Each contact line on the report lists:

• Contact’s name
• Number of times they were billed for the service item
• Total amount they were billed
• Average amount they were billed

A firm totals line appears after each firm’s contact listings. At the end of the report grand totals for the 3 amounts (number of times billed, total amount billed, and average amount billed) are listed.

Other miscellaneous sales reports

You can generate reports for:

• Different date ranges
• Different Service Item Subgroups
• A single service item or several from the same subgroup
• Service items posted for all firms under a single Parent Firm
• Service items posted under one or more of your company’s business units

One way to use this report is to find out which clients are buying services you introduced recently.

You can have the results listed in alphabetical order of the billed firm’s name or in ascending order of the total amount billed. And you can have the report compile results from all contacts in each firm into single firm-wide entries in the list.

The report’s footer will display which search criteria you used to generate the particular report with the exception of blank search fields, ALL list selections, and service items. If you generate a report for a single service item or several from the same subgroup, the service items searched will appear at the top of each page of the report. If you select two or more items in the Business Units list, the report will display that as “(multiple values selected)” in the footer.

You can search for a word or phrase in the onscreen report. MR9 will highlight all instances of your searched word/phrase in the report and list them in a scroll box along with the page number where they occur. Export the report in a variety of formats to save, share, and/or edit in another application, or print it.

TL;DR: View miscellaneous sales charges totals & averages by contact and firm.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

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.

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

Parent Firm: Headquarters of a multi-branch corporation.

Service items: Regular charges that you bill to your clients.

Service Item Subgroups: Groups of related service items that make billing faster, because instead of scrolling through a long undifferentiated list of all of your miscellaneous service items, you can locate individual items quickly in their small subgroups.

Lesson #81

Payables – Reward Points Analysis function

If you reward your best customers with points based on the business generated by their calls to you, use this function to get a monthly, quarterly, and yearly breakdown of clients’ point activity.

This interactive report lists clients’ yearly, quarterly, and monthly points activity for a defined time span including points earned, points redeemed, adjustments, and transfers.

View current activities or customize the report

Reward Points Analysis defaults to all activities in the current month to date, broken down by firm and contact. You can restrict the results to:

• One or more selected activities
• Different date range
• Single firm or contact at a firm and/or
• One or more redemption types (such as cash or gift cards)

The report defaults to displaying points activity by month and year. You can choose to have it break down activity by quarters too which can be helpful when viewing information over a longer date range.

The report displays a list of all contacts with points activity that fit your search criteria — grouped by firm — in year-to-date totals. Firms are listed in order of points earned in descending order. Contacts are listed similarly within each firm. Each contact’s point activities are subtotaled by type (earned, adjustment, transfer, redemption) in each year, month, and quarter (optionally), with grand totals of each type for the entire date range.

Interact with the report

Like other interactive reports in MR9 you can quickly switch between detailed and summary views of the report. While the default view is to view points activity by contact, you can “collapse” the view to firm listings which merges points activity in each activity type column for all contacts at a firm. You can also toggle individual firms between the collapsed/summary view and the breakdown-by-contact view.

Similarly the initial results in the report are displayed as yearly totals. You can “expand” the view to see the monthly (and quarterly if desired) subtotals and toggle between summary and monthly (and quarterly) views for individual years/quarters.

The Reward Points Analysis report is uneditable. You can export it to save, use in other applications, or print out.

TL;DR: View clients’ point activity by contact or firm in specified date ranges in summary or detailed form.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Award Points: Used to encourage clients to book with your agency by rewarding them with points for different services. If you have MR Connect, you can allow contacts to request point redemptions online. (Also referred to as reward points.)

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with, such as attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, legal assistants, claim adjusters, and court clerks.

Firm: Business you provide services to, usually law firms, but can also be other court reporting firms, vendors, insurance companies, corporate clients, and courts.

Lesson #77

Payables – Reward Points History function

If you reward your best customers with points based on the business generated by their calls to you, use this function to see at a glance what points-related activities have been done by which contacts.

Reward Points History defaults to all activities (earned, transferred, redeemed, and adjustments) in all stages of completion that occurred today. It lists activities alphabetically by:

• Firm
• Contacts at the firm
• Date
• Type of activity
• Current activity status
• Points earned or used by the activity
• Number of the invoice that earned points
• Method of redemption
• Any related remarks

It includes a points grand total at the bottom of the grid.

You can change the date range, display history for a single firm or contact, view points related to one or more specific activities, and/or restrict the results to one or more activity statuses.

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).

Reward Points History is an overview only and uneditable. You can export the list of activities as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

NOTE: Contact point history is also available in each enrolled contact’s MR9 listing and in the Reward Points Summary.

Point history in contact listings is all of the contact’s activity in chronological order, most recent first.

Point history in Reward Points Summary is searchable (it is the Reward Points History function defaulting to today’s activities by the contact selected in Reward Points Summary).

TL;DR: Get an overview of clients’ reward points activity.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Award Points: Used to encourage clients to book with your agency by rewarding them with points for different services. If you have MR Connect, you can allow contacts to request point redemptions online. (Also referred to as reward points.)

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with, such as attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, legal assistants, claim adjusters, and court clerks.

Firm: Business you provide services to, usually law firms, but can also be other court reporting firms, vendors, insurance companies, corporate clients, and courts.

Lesson #79

Payables – Reward Points Summary function

Reward your best customers with points like airlines and credit cards do, based on the business generated by their calls to you. Use this function to monitor and manage your reward points program.

Before setting up reward points in MR9, check what your local laws and regulations allow and what you must provide participants with, such as terms and conditions and any legal agreements you must obtain before you enroll a client in your reward program. Some states do not allow these programs for court reporting firms, and OMTI makes no guarantees or assurances about these programs.

Set up your points system first

Contacts don’t earn points until you turn on the reward points system in MR9 and set up points in contacts’ MR9 listings. When you turn on the points system, you also set:

• Whether points are earned on all invoices or original invoices only.
• Default for how many dollars billed on an invoice equal a point.
• How invoice amounts are rounded up or down for determining points.
• What the conversion rate is for points earned to redeemable dollar amounts.

You also designate which services are “pointable,” i.e. which ones earn points. For example, you probably would want to give clients points for originals and copies, but not for delivery expenses.

When designating who receives points for a contact’s bookings, you can choose the contact themselves and/or other contacts at the same firm. You can also override your default point conversion settings, if for example you have an important client you want to give double points to.

Snapshot of contact/firm reward point activity

Once you have your reward points system in place, use this function to manage your program. You can look up:

• A single contact
• All of the contacts at a single firm who have earned points
• All of a firm’s contacts, including those with zero points

The Reward Points Summary displays a snapshot of point activity, listing each contact’s:

• Firm
• City
• State
• Current points
• Pending points
• Total points earned
• Points spent

Total amounts in each points category are displayed at the bottom of the summary.

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).

From the summary, you can access any contact’s Reward Points History, where you can see at a glance what activities they have done and how their points history has been affected.

If your state does not allow reward programs, you can still use the points system to track your clients’ order history and see who your best customers are by which contact’s calls generate the most revenue instead of by firm only.

You can export the summary as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

Manage points

From the Reward Points Summary, you can adjust, transfer, and redeem points for any contact listed. And if a contact is no longer participating in your points program, you can move their points history to another contact.

Adjust points

If you want to correct an error in the amount of points earned by a contact or to give bonus points, such as for welcoming a new client or other marketing purpose, you can adjust their total points amount up or down.

Transfer points

You can transfer earned points from one contact to another contact in the same firm, for example if a lawyer wants to give some or all of their points to their secretary or everybody in a firm wants to pool their points.

Redeem points

When a contact earns enough points and wants to redeem them, you document that here by noting the type of redemption chosen, the number of points redeemed, and making any notes about the transaction.

Move points

In addition to transferring points from one person at a firm to another, you can also move a contact’s entire points history to another contact. The contact does not have to be at the same firm. A use for this feature would be if a contact moves to a different firm, you can transfer their points to the new listing you make for the contact in their new firm so they don’t lose their points. MR9 will make automatic notes log entries in both contact listings recording who points were moved to/from, when and by which staff member.

Let clients access points online

If you have MR Connect, your clients can view and manage their reward points online. They can:

• Check how many points they have available currently and in the future.
• Look up their previous point history.
• Redeem any amount of points up to their currently available points for rewards.
• Transfer points to other people in their firm.

TL;DR: Reward your best customers with points like airlines and credit cards do, based on the business generated by their calls to you. Monitor, adjust, transfer, and redeem points.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Award Points: Used to encourage clients to book with your agency by rewarding them with points for different services. If you have MR Connect, you can allow contacts to request point redemptions online. (Also referred to as reward points.)

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with, such as attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, legal assistants, claim adjusters, and court clerks.

Firm: Business you provide services to, usually law firms, but can also be other court reporting firms, vendors, insurance companies, corporate clients, and courts.

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

Lesson #76

Payables – Sales Tax function

If you provide taxable services to clients in states or other areas that charge a tax on receipts, enter the sales tax rate in the firms’ listings and flag which service items are taxable. MR9 automatically calculates sales tax on invoices. This report lists all invoices with sales tax charges generated for a specific period.

How sales tax works in MR9

You enter the appropriate total sales tax rate (state + locality) in every firm listing in MR9 that is located in an area/state that charges sales tax on receipts. Then you mark service items as taxable in MR9’s Service Items Master or in individual billing rate tables.

MR9 calculates the sales taxable amount by adding all of the service items on the invoice that are marked as “sales taxable.” Then MR9 multiples the sales taxable amount by the sales tax rate for the client.

Using this report

The default Sales Tax report lists all invoices generated today that include a sales tax amount. It includes each invoice’s:

• Number
• Date
• Amount
• Amount of sales tax charged
• Bill To Firm
• Order Part number
• Part order date
• Case
• Related business unit

You can generate reports for different dates or date ranges, and for specific business unit(s) in your company.

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). The report in MR9 is not editable but you can export it as an Excel spreadsheet or CSV file to save, share, work with in other applications, and/or print.

TL;DR: View all invoices having sales tax charges generated for a specific period. Export the report as an Excel spreadsheet.

RB concepts in this lesson

Billing rate tables: Amounts that you charge for services are organized into tables, so you can charge different clients different amounts for the same service items by applying different billing rate tables. More >

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

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

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

Service items: Regular charges that you bill to your clients.

Service Item Master: List of your company’s services. More >

Lesson #73

Payables – Override Sales Commission function

MR9 automatically calculates commissions for sales reps. You can override the calculated commissionable amount on a single posted invoice without changing your commission rates and/or change the person receiving the commission.

MR9 calculates commissions by multiplying the commissionable amount by the sales rep’s commission rate. The commissionable amount is calculated and stored for each invoice by adding all of the service items that are marked as “commissionable.” You determined whether a particular service item is commissionable or not when setting up MR9. However, you can override the calculated commissionable amount on any invoice using this function.

Find, view, update

You can look up posted invoices to update by invoice number or job number, a date or date range for the invoice or related job, a case, the assigned sales rep, and/or the specific business unit(s) in your company.

Search results include all of the search categories plus invoice amount, balance, and commissionable amount; Bill To and Sold To clients; 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). Export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

When you locate the invoice with a commissionable amount you want to override, you can view basic details about the invoice and related job, including a breakdown of the commissionable service items and the total commission for the sales rep.

You can update the total amount for the sales rep; or if the wrong person appears in Sales Rep, you can change or remove the name. Export the results to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

TL;DR: MR9 automatically calculates commissions for sales reps. You can correct commissions on individual invoices without changing your commission rates.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

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

Service items: Regular charges that you bill to your clients are called service items in MR9. Service items are listed on your invoices to provide itemized details for your clients and third-party payers.

Lesson #72

Payables – Sales Commission Report function

The Sales Commission Report lists all invoices that include a commission, grouped and subtotaled by Sales Rep. A commission is automatically generated from invoices on orders initiated by a Sales Rep’s client.

The default report list all invoices posted today that include sales rep commissions. It includes commissions on both originals and copies — and doesn’t deduct expenses from commission calculations.

Customize report views

You can view reports:

• For different days or date ranges.
• By payment post date instead of invoice post date.
• For a single sales rep.
• For originals only if you do not pay commissions on copy sales.
• For copy sales only.
• Excluding custodial fees if you pay commissions based on NIBO (Net Income Before Overhead).
• For one or more of your company’s business units.

Depending on your search conditions, MR9 lists all of the relevant invoices as a report, grouped by Sales Rep, with each having their own page(s) and a grand total page of all commissionable amounts and commissions. The report’s footer will display which Date Type and date range you used to generate the report.

The report breaks out scheduling firm and contact, invoice number and date, whether a commission is for an original or copy, order part number and date, commissionable amount, commission, case name, and Sold To firm. In addition to the report subtotaling commissionable amount and commissions by resource, each resource’s total is further broken down into subtotals for ordering contacts and firms.

You can search for a word or phrase in the onscreen report. MR9 will highlight all instances of your searched word/phrase in the report and list them in a scroll box along with the page number where they occur.

Using the report

Besides looking up details about sales commissions, you can use the report to help you adjust commissions in the Override Sales Commission function, and in other ways:

Voided invoices and invoices for which you have issued credit memos or debit memos are listed at the end of each person’s commissions as adjustments so you can void, decrease, or increase the commissions if desired. (You also have the option when voiding or issuing a credit/debit memo on an invoice to not alter the commission, then that invoice will not appear in the Adjustment list.)

Export the report to save it, give to resources, edit in another application, or print.

TL;DR: View all invoices that include a commission grouped and subtotaled by Sales Rep. Invoices that may require an adjustment to the commission — such as voids — are listed separately for each person.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

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.

Date Type: Depending on the function you are using, you can choose to see results for different date categories — such as the date an invoice or client payment was posted.

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

Scheduling Contact: Contact who initiates orders with your company.

Scheduling Firm: Firm that initiates orders with your company.

Sold To Firm: Usually the Ordering Firm on a job.