Tag Archives: Payables

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.