Tag Archives: MR9

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, and payments.
• 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 envelopes and 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.

Lesson #36

Billing – Export Invoices function

If you have clients that require LEDES-compliant electronic billing, first set up your MR9 LEDES preferences for service items and invoices. Then enter your clients’ codes — such as their Client Matter No. and Client ID — on the order party or invoice level. When you generate invoices for the related parts, they will have the proper UTBMS codes and you can export them in LEDES 98B format, which is the most commonly used LEDES format, and email the text file to the client.

After posting invoices, search for a particular firm’s invoices in Export Invoices. The default is invoices generated yesterday but you can choose any date range. You can also search for a firm’s invoices by post date instead of invoice date. Restrict your search results further by filtering for a single order and/or your company’s business units.

Invoices in the results gird display their information in all of the search categories plus:

• Invoice number
• Invoice amount
• Bill To contacts and firms (clients)
• Sold To clients
• Order part number
• Part order date
• Patient/witness name
• Case name

You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, MR 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.

You can view any individual invoice’s details, edit some of its information, upload/download/email/manage its repository files, and make notes in its Notes Log.

Export any or all invoices listed in Export Invoices results in LEDES 1998B format to your device as a .txt file, which you can then validate and email to your client from your device.

TL;DR: Export invoices in LEDES 98B format for clients who require electronic billing that complies with LEDES standards.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Bill To Contact/Firm: The contact/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.

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 — such as an order, part, invoice, or entity.

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

Service items: Regular charges that you bill to your clients. Service items are listed on your invoices to provide itemized details for your clients and third-party payers. In-house, they provide information to help you analyze your revenue streams.

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

Lesson #35

Billing – Transfer Invoice function

Transfer invoices between clients when there has been a mistake in addressing the invoice to a client, instead of voiding and re-billing.

Find the invoice you want to transfer to another client by its invoice number, date, order/part number, and/or your company’s business unit(s).

Invoices in the results gird display their information in all of the search categories plus:

• Invoice amount
• Balance
• Post date
• Sent date
• Bill To and Sold To clients
• Part order date
• Void date
• Patient/witness name (Records Of)

You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, MR 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.

Transfer options

You have several options for transferring invoices. You can change the:

• Firm responsible for paying the invoice (Bill To firm)
• Contact responsible for paying the invoice (Bill To contact)
• Firm which ordered the services billed on the invoice (Sold To firm)
• Contact who ordered the services billed on the invoice (Sold To contact)

You can transfer a posted invoice even if it has already been paid.

TL;DR: If you billed the wrong client, transfer the invoice to the correct client, instead of voiding the invoice and re-billing.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Bill To Contact: The person responsible for paying the invoice for a job. This contact could be the same as the Sold To Contact, but also could be a different person at the same firm or a person at a third-party firm that is paying the invoice, such as an insurance agency.

Bill To Firm: The firm responsible for paying the invoice for a job. This firm could be the same as the Sold To Firm, but also could be a third-party firm, 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.

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

Sold To Contact: Usually the person who ordered a job.

Sold To Firm: Usually the firm that ordered a job.

Lesson #34

Billing – Send Invoices function

After posting invoices to your MR9 ledger, send clients copies of their invoices and archive the invoices in the central repository.

You can access the Send Invoices function either directly from the main menu or when posting invoices. When you post invoices, MR9 gives you the choice to send/archive the invoices at the same time which automatically opens the Send Invoices window with the posted invoice(s) in the results pane.

View invoices

In Send Invoices, you have a lot of options for finding posted invoices — and more options for what you want to do with them. You can find the invoice(s) for an order or single part by the order or order/part number, or use other search filters to find invoices by:

• Invoice date/date range
• Posted date/date range
• Case
• Bill To firm
• One or more invoice types
• One or more business units in your company

Invoices in the results gird display their information in all of the search categories plus:

• Invoice amount
• Balance
• Date sent
• Method used to send the invoice
• Bill To clients
• Sold To clients
• Void date
• Part order date
• Records Of name

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.

You can preview original and current versions of posted invoices with service items details visible or not. Then email either version to ordering clients or print them to send via traditional delivery methods. You do not have to choose which method to use for each client here. Contacts’ preferred method of receiving invoices — email, print, or none — is stored in their MR9 database entry. The Send Invoices function will automatically send invoices via each contacts’ preferred method, but you can override it for individual invoices when sending.

Emailing invoices

If you send invoices from MR9 via email and you have MR Connect, you can automatically include a Pay Invoice link in the invoice emails so when your clients click the link they will go directly to the invoice in their MR Connect office to pay the invoice.

Before sending invoices use System Preferences to create one or more email templates to attach PDF invoices to. Customize subject lines and messages, include any text you wish in the templates, embed contextual MR9 data fields such as the case name and patient name, add images, and style the text with fonts, text treatments, sizes, and colors. If you create more than one template, designate one as the default. You can select a different template, edit the email, and attach additional files from your desktop or your MR9 invoice, order, and record-level repositories when you send the invoice.

When emailing invoices you can attach files from your desktop or your MR9 Invoice-level Repository.

If you email invoices, MR9 records the emails sent in the Email Log function in Tools, so you can refer back to them later. It also makes an entry that includes the receiver’s email address in the Notes Log of the invoices.

You can also archive original invoices to the Invoice-level repository here. With all options — send, print, or archive — you can select any or all invoices to process at the same time.

TL;DR: Send clients copies of their original or current posted invoices and archive the invoices in the central repository.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Bill To Contact/Firm: Contact/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.

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, such as an order, part, invoice, or entity. More >

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

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

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

Lesson #33

Billing – COD Invoices function

Cash on Delivery (COD) invoices require the Bill To Firm to pay the invoice when presented — instead of having a grace period before the invoice is due. COD invoices are not included in sales so MR does not allow them to be posted or archived to the central repository. CODs are handled differently than sales to avoid overstating revenue and to minimize the number of voids that would occur to clear uncollectible CODs from your accounts receivable.

You designate an invoice as COD when generating it in Turn In. If you have designated a firm as a COD client in the firm’s listing, their invoices will automatically be COD unless you turn off the COD designation in their invoices manually.

MR9 handles COD invoices separately

If after calculating an invoice in Turn In the Post Invoices button is grayed out, the invoice is a COD invoice. Use the COD Invoices function to manage and send these COD invoices.

Because COD invoices are different from regular invoices and cannot be posted until paid, they are not included in Send Invoices or Invoice Inquiry searches. To find COD invoices use the COD Invoices function.

In the COD Invoices main window you can find all COD invoices at once — or restrict your results to a particular date range, case, Bill To Firm, order number, part number, or selected business unit(s). You can also look up individual COD invoices.

Invoices in the results gird display their information in all of the search categories — plus invoice amount, when sent, Bill To Contacts and Sold To clients, order date, order part date, and patient name. 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.

From this list you can edit, calculate, preview, email, and print individual COD invoices.

Manage COD invoices

You can use this function in combination with other functions for applying payments, purging invoices, and sharing associated files online:

• When you receive a payment for a COD invoice, use this function to remove the invoice’s COD flag and post the invoice. Then apply the payment in Receivables. COD invoices will not appear in Receivables’ outstanding invoices until you post them here.
• Use this function to find COD invoices older than a set date — such as 90 days old — then delete them in Turn In. Do this on a monthly basis — or whatever schedule works best for your organization.
• In addition to emailing and printing COD invoices you can use COD invoices with MR Connect. Since COD invoices are not posted in MR9 they do not appear in clients’ MR Connect online offices unless you manually publish them to MR Connect. This is better than other COD payment methods because the client has to pay the COD invoice online first before they can download the associated files.

TL;DR: Because COD invoices are not treated as sales until paid use this function to manage and send COD invoices.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Bill To Firm: The 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.

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

Sold To Contact/Firm: Person/company that ordered the services on the invoice.

Lesson #32

Billing – Post Invoices function

Instead of posting invoices one at a time in Turn In, you can save time by posting in batches in Post Invoices. You can also archive the invoices to your repository as you post them.

Finding & reviewing invoices

You can view all unposted invoices or restrict your list to invoices in a specific date range and/or for selected business units. You can include COD invoices in your search. You can also look up individual invoices by job or invoice number.

Invoices in the results grid are color coded by part status — plus you can see at a glance if you didn’t calculate an invoice in Turn In, then calculate it here with the click of a button before posting. You can preview invoices from the list. Other information in the results grid includes:

• Invoice number
• Invoice date
• Invoice amount
• If the invoice is for originals
• If the invoice is COD
• Date sent
• Order.Part number
• Part order date
• Part status
• Business unit
• Patient/witness name
• Staff member who created the part in MR9
• Sold To firm and contact
• Bill To firm and contact

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.

Posting & archiving invoices

Post any or all invoices at the same time — and archive them in your repository in the same process if desired. When posting you have the option to send invoices to the clients at the same time. MR9 will automatically open the Send Invoices function with the posted invoices selected. You can choose to email the original or current invoices — or print them for sending via other methods.

Before posting, you can:

• Preview invoices. If you styled the text in invoice messages and third-party direct billing notes (such as bolding text or adding color), your styling will appear on the invoices.
• View any invoice’s details.
• Edit some invoice information, such as the date, message, and insurance/e-billing information.
• Upload/download/manage files in the invoice’s repository.
• Monitor repository activity. See which clients can access a file in the repository, who has downloaded it, and when.
• Look up and make notes in the invoice’s Notes Log.

After posting an invoice, it will appear in Receivables and MR9 financial reports. Once posted, an invoice cannot be deleted.

TL;DR: Save time by posting invoices in batches. You can archive and send them at the same time.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Bill To Contact/Firm: The contact/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.

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

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

Lesson #31

Finish invoice process started in Turn In

The Billing module is one of the smallest modules in MR9. Its focus is on managing and sending invoices prepared in Turn In. What you can do in this module includes:

• After preparing invoices in Turn In, you can finalize and post them from Turn In or in Billing. The main difference is that you can speed up the process by posting in batches in Billing.
• You can also batch email or print original and current invoices,  and archive original invoices in the repository.
• Billing is where you edit, preview, email, and print COD invoices.
• Transfer invoices between clients when there has been a mistake in addressing the invoice to a client, instead of voiding and re-billing.
• Export invoices in LEDES 98B format for clients who require electronic billing that complies with LEDES standards. 

Billing functions by name

• Post Invoices
• COD Invoices
• Send Invoices
• Transfer Invoices
• Export Invoices
• Send Billing Forms

TL;DR: Use Billing to post and send invoices in batches, plus send COD invoices, correct billing mistakes, and prepare invoices in a LEDES format for electronic billing.

Lesson #27

Production – Repository function

In MR9 you can store documents linked to an order, part, record, invoice, firm, contact, or location in their related repository.

In the Repository function you can:

• Search for files in a single repository or across all repositories.
• Search for files by name, file type(s), part order/invoice/upload date(s), who uploaded the file, order/part/ invoice number, and/or related firm/contact/location.
• Classify files for proper user access and availability.
• Download files for viewing, archiving, or emailing.
• View who has downloaded a file and when.
• Delete files you no longer need to store.
• Customize how the Repository results grid looks.
• Save your custom grid as your default. Your customizations do not affect other users and you can restore the original MR9 grid layout anytime.
• Export the list of repository files as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

Classify files

In the Repository function you can classify individual files for proper user access and availability. Set what types of users can access a file (office only or office and client), in which functions the file will be accessible, what kind of file it is, and if access via MR Connect is permitted. If multiple files will have the same file type and/or MR Connect access, you can set them all at once.

Customize how you view your Repository

The grid in which you view Repository listings is customizable to your individual preference. You can:

• Re-arrange the order of the columns so you can have the information most important to you in the most prominent place.
• Designate up to 10 columns as “sticky,” meaning they do not move when you scroll across a long grid so they are always visible.
• Stretch or shrink the width of columns to better fit the information presented.
• Hide any columns you don’t want to see in the results.
•  Choose which column(s) to sort results by. If you select more than one column, choose in what column order to sort the list and in ascending or descending order in each selected column.

When you have arranged your Repository the way you want it to look, you can save your layout so MR9 will display it this way each time you access it. You can always change or refine your layout, or return it to the default MR9 layout.

TL;DR: Manage files in the central repository.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

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

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

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

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.

Lesson #24

Production – Shipping function

When clients call to find out where their order is, you don’t have to leave MR9 to check the shipping status. Use the Shipping function to send products via FedEx or UPS, then quickly follow up an order’s current location anytime from within MR9.

You can also use this function to keep track of when and via what other methods you sent records out, and update the status of any shipped part or any other information about the shipping and its related part, order, and contacts.

Use Shipping to:

• Ship out produced service items.
• Print FedEx & UPS shipping labels that automatically include shipping addresses from your firm listings and your shipping preferences, and are tied to your FedEx/UPS account. If contact information is incorrect you can update it here and MR9 will update the contact’s listing.
• Track UPS & FedEx shipments from inside MR9.
• Note if you used another sending method such as via courier or email.
• Record notes about a shipment.
• Search for shipments using order, order part, or invoice number, shipping date(s), delivery method(s), and/or business unit(s) to quickly locate a shipment to track. You can sort your search results by one or more columns in ascending or descending order. (When you exit the function MR9 will revert back to the default order.)
• Create a new shipment with the same order part information, search subject (Records Of), location, and invoice information as a previous shipment.
• Export the list of shipments to an Excel or CSV file to save, print, share, or use in other applications. (Similarly you can export the witness/service item list from any shipment.)
• Change a part’s status to Shipped. MR9 will automatically alert your billing department that the part is ready to be billed if they do not invoice a part until it has shipped.

Shipping is a stand alone function but you can also access it directly within Turn In when entering service items to be billed.

FedEx/UPS tracking in MR9

When you generate a FedEx or UPS shipping label in MR9 it automatically:

• Enters the receiver’s address, phone number, and email. If the entity has a separate shipping address in its listing, RB9 will use that here. It will also validate the address before generating the label unless you deselect that option. And if the address is a P.O. Box, it will warn you that delivery might not be possible so you can change it before printing the label.
• Sets the Ship From address, phone number, and email to the assigned business unit of your company. (You can select a different business unit.)
• Enters your shipping preferences. (You can set up multiple profiles with different preferences and the same or different business unit.)
• Enters the tracking number in the shipment’s record.
• Enters today as the ship date.
• Adds the estimated shipping cost to the shipment’s record in MR9. Estimated Shipping Cost appears in the Shipping function’s results grid and in individual shipping label windows.

When you click the tracking number in MR9 it opens the related delivery service website in your browser and shows the shipment’s current status.

TL;DR: Use the Shipping function to send products via FedEx or UPS, and track an order’s current location without leaving MR9.

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 — such as branch offices, other companies you own, affiliates, and profit-sharing operations.

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

Lesson #23

Production – Envelopes and Labels function

Print addresses on labels and envelopes with information from your MR9 database automatically included. Start from an order, contact, firm, or location to generate mailing addresses, then select which ones to print. With orders you can choose a list of the locations related to the order, the order’s Sold To firms, or all of the order parties.

If entities have multiple addresses in their MR9 listing— such as office, shipping,  and home addresses — you can choose which type of address to print. You can also create labels and envelopes manually for one-off printing.

Print DYMO labels for correspondence and packages. Use MR9 default label layouts or create your own custom layouts. (Label printing out of MR9 requires a DYMO printer.)

If you want to address envelopes, use this function to generate a PDF file to print addresses directly on envelopes. Before printing, you can specify defaults in System Preferences for the envelope size and setup you use the most to minimize printing time.

TL;DR: Generate labels and envelopes with information from your MR9 database automatically included.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

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

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

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

Sold To Firm: Firm that ordered the services on the invoice. Usually the Ordering Firm on a job.