Tag Archives: Setup

Lesson #120

Setup – Billing Sets function

Group service items into sets to speed up billable services selection because you only have to choose the set, not each of the items individually.

A Billing Set is a predetermined group of service items that are typically billed together. By configuring these sets, you can add service items en masse to an invoice to streamline the billing process. This eliminates the need to add service items one-by-one, as well as reduces the possibility of overlooking any service items when billing.

There is no limit to the number of service items you can add to a set, and it’s not a requirement to bill for each service item in a set. The purpose of a Billing Set is to select multiple service items to add at once to an invoice from a concise selection pool — rather than having to scroll through your entire service item list to pick each one individually.

Create as many sets as you need

Set up multiple Billing Sets to further streamline your billing process because you can group service items based on what a common type of order requires — and you won’t have to deal with service items you may not need. For example you can make a Billing Set for standard medical records retrieval, one for a particular case, and another one for process serving. This way you can pull up the set that’s specifically tailored to the work type and not have to deal with any unnecessary service items.

Other common Billing Sets you might want would be a list of services commonly included when clients order an O&1 package, and another set for copy clients. You can have as many Billing Sets as you like and choose one to be the default option when generating invoices. You can include descriptions and other notes in your Billing Sets to help you keep them organized.

Add all related services to a set

You can add any of your service items to a Billing Set and set a default number of units for each service item. Put all of the possible service items that could apply to a particular set in the set because it is easier to uncheck the ones you don’t need for a specific order so they are not added to the invoice at that time than it is to not have enough service items in the Billing Set and have to add service items to an order one at a time. Even adding just one or two service items to an invoice individually will slow you down.

For example include all of your delivery options in your O&1 Billing Set. Then simply uncheck the ones you won’t be using for a particular order when generating its invoice.

Using Billing Sets at Turn In

When adding services to invoices in Turn In use the Prefill Service option to access your Billing Sets. It will also show any of the contact’s/firm’s Preferred Services, so you can select all the ordered services and update the number of units ordered for each service in one screen. Once you have added billable services to an invoice, you can edit each service item as needed and arrange their order of appearance on the invoice.

Manage sets

You can update any information in a Billing Set at any time or delete it if you don’t need it. The default view of Billing Sets lists all of your sets and shows which is the default. If your list is too long to easily find a particular set, 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) or search for the Billing Set by name.

You can export your Billing Set list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications  You can also sort and export an individual Billing Set’s list of service items.

TL;DR: Instead of adding service items one at a time to invoices, set up groups of related services so you can add multiple items at once.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with — such as an attorney, paralegal, secretary, legal assistant, claim adjuster, or court clerk.

Firm: Company you do business with — such as a law firm or third party that pays you, e.g., an insurance company.

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

Lesson #118

Setup – Billing Rates function

Billing rates are the amounts you charge for services. These rates are organized into tables — so you can charge different clients different amounts for the same service items by applying different billing rate tables instead of having to enter rates each time you bill someone. You might charge different billing rates for the same service items based on negotiations with clients, networking rates with other agencies, or rates requested by an insurance company. Your multiple billing rate tables can contain the prices for all of your service items — so you can easily apply the correct prices when invoicing specific firms by selecting the appropriate table.

Set up Billing Rate Groups first

Before you start creating billing rate tables, set up Billing Rate Groups in the Lists function. Billing Rate Groups are groups of similar tables, so when billing you can search through a subset of your billing rate tables instead of the whole long list of tables each time you invoice a client. Set up basic categories/groups — such as Standard, Preferred, and for specific clients. You can also designate which Billing Rate Group is your default group that will appear when setting up new billing rate tables, new firms, new contacts, etc.

After setting up groups, use the Billing Rates function to add your billing rate tables within the groups. You can set up as many billing rate tables as you need in each group.

Add as many billing rates as you need

You can set up billing rate tables in 2 ways:

• From scratch
• From an existing table — copying and updating an existing table is a quicker way to create a new table because the existing table’s rates and details are duplicated in the new table for you to update.

Another way to save time is to set default billing rates, pay rates, and options for service items in the Service Item Master, then change them for specific situations by creating different rate tables with custom rates for the service items.  Every billing rate table you create in MR9 will automatically inherit all service items set up in the Service Item Master — including all default rates and options for each item as well. So if you set up defaults in the Service Item Master then you only have to update them as needed in individual rate tables.

Give each billing rate table you create a clearly specific name so your billing staff can easily understand when it should be used. Some examples would be Standard Rates, Preferred Rates, Medical-Technical, and Rates for [a specific law firm]. You can further segment your market by state and/or city if you charge different rates by location.

Add as many billing rates as you need

In each billing rate table you can customize the billing rate for each item. If there are service items that do not pertain to this billing rate, leave their billing rate at $0 and MR9 won’t bill for them when this billing rate table is used.

In addition to each service item’s billing rate you can also customize:

• The minimum invoice amount for the service item.
•  If the billing amount and pay amount for this service item will have the Expedite/Rush amount added to it.
• Whether the item is court taxable and/or sales taxable.
• If you offer discounts on this particular service item. The percentage of discount that a client will receive on the service item is entered in their Firms setup.
• If you use the Reward Points System and the service item should be included in the revenue calculation to accumulate points.
• If you pay commissions on the service item.
• If you want the service item name and billing amount to appear on invoices. (If you set a firm to always print details on invoices in their Firm setup, then their invoices will be fully itemized, displaying all service items and billing amounts overriding whatever is specified here.)
• If you have the MR Connect plug-in, you can allow clients to request the service item when submitting an online records request.
• If the service item needs your production department’s involvement, you can have it appear on Production Sheets which show them all of the parts that have been turned in and the related service item(s) to be fulfilled.
• LEDES codes required by clients for e-billing.

In addition to customizing the billing rates you can also make adjustments to each Rush Type in the table if needed. All Rush Types are automatically inherited from the Rush Type Master. You can also include any relevant notes or comments in a rate table.

Manage billing rates

You can update any information in a billing rate table at any time except its Billing Rate Group. You can delete any billing rate table that hasn’t been used. If you can’t delete a table, you can de-activate it so it does not appear in lists. And you can update rates in multiple billing rate tables at once in the Service Item Master.

To find a billing rate table to copy, update, delete, or de-activate, you can search your entire set of billing rate tables or narrow your search to a specific Billing Rate Group, state, city, and/or billing rate table name. You can also choose to search all tables or only active tables. MR9 lists the results by Billing Rate Group and includes each table’s name, its state and/or city (if applicable), and its Active status.

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 your search results as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications. You can also sort and export the service item and rush type lists in each billing rate table.

Attach billing rates to entities

After setting up Billing Rate Groups and billing rate tables, attach entities to the rate tables. You connect billing rates to firms, contacts, and parties to an order. You can do this when you set them up or at any time afterwards. Contacts inherit billing rate tables from their firms but you can select different tables for contacts from their firm’s. Parties will default to the billing rate tables in their contact profile. You can override the default when adding parties to orders or when turning in parts.

Apply billing rates

When creating an invoice in Turn In, MR9 will select the billing rate table connected to the designated Bill To contact. You can select a different rate table for this invoice and you can override any charge on individual invoices.

TL;DR: Set up multiple billing rate tables so you can automatically charge different amounts to different clients for the same service items based on prices you negotiate with clients.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Billing Rate Groups: Umbrella structures aimed at categorizing your billing rates. Instead of one long list of billing rates, Billing Rate Groups create a series of shorter lists to search through.

Bill To Contact: The contact responsible for paying the invoice for an order.

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with, such as attorneys.

Firm: Company you do business with. They schedule depositions with you, e.g., a law firm, or they are a third party that pays you, e.g., an insurance company.

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

Lesson #116

Setup – Service Item Master function

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. In-house they provide information to help you analyze your revenue streams.

You store and organize all the service items you bill to clients in the Service Item Master. Then during Turn In you select services from lists instead of entering items by hand. If you have MR Connect your clients also select services from lists, eliminating longhand requests from clients. Instead service item descriptions are consistent throughout your system.

Service Item Master set-up

There are 9 main categories in the Service Items Master List, called Service Groups, which represent the most commonly used billable items for court reporters. These main categories are preset by the system and cannot be modified by the user.

Within these main groups are subgroups that further organize your services so you do not have to scroll through your entire list of billable items to find a service to add to an invoice.  You can add/edit/remove subgroups that organize your miscellaneous services in the Service Item Subgroups function. After setting up your subgroups enter your company’s billable services with their details into these subgroups in the Service Item Master. You will use these items for setting billing rates.

Customize the defaults

The Service Item Master comes with a set of default service items already organized into subgroups. You can:

• Add/edit/merge/delete/de-activate service items in Misc. Charge subgroups.
• Edit the name of service items in the Attendance Service Group.
• Set default billing and pay information for all individual service items.
• If you have clients who require that invoices be submitted electronically, you can enter LEDES codes in your service items.

Once you have set up your service items with their defaults, you can set up multiple billing rate tables with custom rates for service items to cover different invoicing scenarios. The options that you set in each service item copy to the billing rates tables you create, saving time because you only have to update the defaults that need changing.

At any time, you can update service item rates and options. The default view in the Service Item Master lists all active service items within their service groups and subgroups to make it easy to locate an item. You can restrict the view to a single service group, a single subgroup, or service item name. You can also view all items, not only active items, that fit your search criteria.

You can:

• Add new service items
• Delete service items that are not needed.
• Merge service items into other service items.
• If you do not want to delete or merge an item you can de-activate it. (Deactivated service items do not appear as a choice when billing.)
• If you have multiple billing rate tables that need the same rate or option changed (including LEDES codes), you can update them all at once within Service Item Master with the Mass Update feature.

Information you can include in each service item:

• Service item Subgroup
• Service item name (the only required field). The name is important because it is how the service will appear in Turn In, on invoices, and in MR Connect.
• Unit type — such as pages, miles, or hours. MR9 prints the unit type on detailed invoices next to the number of units so your clients have a better idea of what they are being billed for. You can set up your own unit types in Lists.
• Account number of the related revenue account. You can customize your accounts in Chart of Accounts.
• Whether the item is active (will appear as an option when billing) or not
• Default billing rate (amount you charge per unit for the service item)
• Default markup type (fixed dollar amount or percentage) and amount
• If the service item is a taxable court cost or sales taxable
• If the service item is discountable (if you offer a negotiated discount on a firms’ invoices, what’s discountable is specified at the service item level, and the discount percentage the client will receive is entered in their Firms setup.)
• If you award clients points for ordering services, and the service item should be included in the revenue calculation to accumulate points
• If you have sales representatives and the service item should be included in the calculation of commissions
• If you want to include the service item name and/or amount when an invoice is printed with “no details”
• If you want to make the service item available for clients to request when they are scheduling online using MR Connect
• If you want to include the service item on production sheets
• UTBMS codes (if you want invoices to be LEDES compliant). If an insurance company requires different codes than the standard, you can update their billing rate tables only without modifying the service item master list.

The list of service items in the Service Item Master displays all of this information for each item listed, so you can see it upfront. You do not need to go into individual service items unless you want to edit/delete/merge/mass update rate tables. You can sort the list 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.

TL;DR: Set up service items, including default billing and pay info. Group related service items so you can locate them quickly in their subgroups when billing, instead of scrolling through a long, undifferentiated list of all miscellaneous service items. If you have MR Connect, your clients will be able to select service items the same way.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Award Points: Used to encourage clients to book with your agency by rewarding them with points for different services.

Firm: Companies you do business with.

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

Lesson #115

Setup – Service Item Subgroups function

Any billable services that you include on invoices must be set up as Service Items in MR9. You could have over a hundred service items to cover all the types of billable services you provide. To make it easier to add billable services to invoices, they are broken down into 9 basic service groups: Original, Copy w/ Original, Copy, Additional Copy, Rush, Exhibit, Mileage, Attendance, and Misc. Charge.

However since you can still have potentially a hundred or more miscellaneous charges to bill, MR9 breaks down service groups further into Service Item Subgroups. This way you can locate individual service items quickly when billing based on their subgroup instead of searching through a long uncategorized list of service items.

MR9 includes some default subgroups and you can add/edit/delete subgroups in the Misc. Charge group to better fit your company. Since the idea with subgroups is to make billing easier by limiting the amount of time it takes to find an individual service item, take some time upfront to consider what would be logical groupings of your billable services and make Service Item Subgroups for each of those categories.

An example of a Service Item Subgroup would be Exhibits. You have multiple items for exhibit billing: Color Copies, B&W Exhibits, Bates Stamping, etc., that could all be categorized as Exhibits.

You can update your subgroups at any time but you cannot delete any subgroups containing service items that you have already used on invoices.

Create your own subgroups

The default view in Service Item Subgroups is to list all subgroups, but you can narrow the view to the Misc. Charge Service Group to make it easier to see if you need to add a subgroup or update one in this group by editing its name to better fit your needs. (You can view but you cannot add subgroups to or edit the other Service Groups.)

You can sort the list by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, MR9 will revert back to the default order). It might be helpful when setting up subgroups to export the list of existing subgroups to share with others, work with in other applications, or print out.

Creating new subgroups is easy. All you do is click New, give the subgroup a name, and save. Your new subgroup will automatically be added to the Misc. Charge Service Group for you to use in other functions. Some common subgroups are Production, Exhibits, Delivery, Video, and Video Conference.

After setting up a subgroup you can then enter its related service items using the Service Item Master.

Using subgroups

Service Item Subgroups come into play when adding a client’s requested services to either their entity listing, as a party to an order, or when adding service items to an invoice during Turn In. You can also use them to narrow the results of reports such as the Misc. Sales report and to see subtotal breakdowns in interactive reports such as Client Analysis.

TL;DR: To make finding a particular service item quicker set up Service Item Subgroups, then arrange your company’s billable services into these subgroups.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Service Groups: The most commonly used billable items for court reporters such as Original or Copy. These main categories are preset by the system and cannot be modified by the user. The catch-all Misc. Charge Service Group is where you enter billable service items that are not a separate Service Group.

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

Lesson #114

Setup – Chart of Accounts function

Although MR is not a general accounting system, it uses account numbers to keep track of sales, cash receipts, accounts receivable, payables, and other transactions in a basic double-entry bookkeeping system. You can set up MR’s accounts to match your general ledger or accounting software.

For example, if you use QuickBooks, you can use QuickBooks Integrator to import your MR data directly into your QuickBooks. But before you can import MR invoices and payments into QuickBooks, you must set up your MR business units’ accounts to match your QuickBooks setup.

If MR’s default set of accounts is not accurate to your in-house setup, you can add, edit, and delete accounts to match MR9 to your general ledger or accounting software.

Set up account types first

The first step in matching MR to your in-house setup would be to customize your account types in the Lists function. Basic accounting rules group all finance-related things into 5 fundamental types of accounts: Assets, Liabilities, Equity, Income, and Expenses. MR includes these and other account types, which you can edit/delete and add your own. Entries here appear in the Account Type drop-down in individual accounts in the Chart of Accounts function.

Set up your Chart of Accounts

Each account in Chart of Accounts is tied to an Account Type, and includes an account name and reference number (account number). MR uses these accounts for different financial activities in your company’s business units.

The default view in Chart of Accounts shows all accounts in the system in numerical order by account number. It also includes the account names, their account types, and whether the account is active or not. You can restrict the view to a single account type or multiple account types.

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

You can keep the default accounts set up by MR or customize the default Chart of Accounts by adding, editing, and deleting accounts. If an account is not used but you don’t want to delete it, you can make it inactive so it will not appear as a choice in account lists elsewhere in MR.

If you are going to process credit card fees in MR, you must set up two accounts in Chart of Accounts so MR will separate out those fees:

1. An Expense-type account for the fees
2. An Other Current Assets-type account for undeposited processing fee funds

Then you can assign those accounts to handle those fees in your business units.

Designate accounts to use

After you have set up your accounts, you designate which ones to use for different financial activities. Where you use accounts in MR

• When setting up business units, you can leave the default accounts set up by MR or select which accounts handle which types of transactions for each of your company’s business units.
• When setting up billable services (called service items in MR), you select an account to associate with each service item.

TL;DR: Use MR’s default accounts as is, or customize the Chart of Accounts to match your in-house system or QuickBooks.

MR 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.

Lesson #113

Setup – Users and Groups function

You can run MR9 as a single user, but if you have other in-house personnel who need access to your MR9, set them up as users. Then give them user names and passwords to access MR9, and store work-related and personal information about them. Group them according to their access levels and job functions, so they can perform their jobs and receive internal messages, but not access areas of MR you do not want them to use. 

Each MR9 user needs a license to gain access to the application. Although account sharing is allowed, our recommendation is for each user to have their own unique Named User License for security, data integrity, and auditing purposes.

Groups give users defined access

User account administration is a critical stage of your setup phase as it allows you to bolster your security posture by managing the access each of your users has within RB9. Users and Groups is the tool you use to manage MR9 users, individually and grouped according to permissions, rights, and notifications. There are 2 default groups in MR9:

• Administrators – grants group members full access to all areas of MR9.
• Users – basic group every MR9 user is part of and grants them limited access to only essential areas of MR9.

The initial user of your MR9 system is designated as an administrator so they can enter other users and grant them permissions. They can add other users to the Administrators group, and anyone who is an administrator in MR9 can perform the same functions. There is no limit to how many administrators your system can have. We recommend maintaining at least two members in the Administrators Security Group to ensure that if one admin is locked out, the other can quickly restore their access.

Security Groups

This feature enables precise permission management, ensuring users have the exact access required for their roles. By limiting exposure to sensitive information, administrators can effectively maintain data integrity across the organization.

Security Groups can be created with well-defined permissions to limit group members’ access to specific functions. For example you could set up an Orders group, in which you give access to all Orders functions in MR9 and maybe some select functions in other modules, such as the repository and entities.

When setting up a new group, the only required information is the Group Name. Other information you can add to a group is a group description, group members (MR9 users), and security permissions/function access.

There are 2 levels to security permissions:

1. Simple access — Users in the group can search and view information, i.e., a read only level.
2. Comprehensive access — Users can also edit and delete information.

Most functions offer comprehensive access only, but in some functions you can limit access to read only. Functions that offer both access levels are generally more critical areas, such as orders, parts, and invoices, which you might want to allow some users to view, but not change.

In addition to setting up Security Groups administrators can:

• Add or delete users from each group (one user, several, or all users at once) — MR9 indicates which users are active making it easy to remove unnecessary group members.
• Change which functions are accessible in a group (except the Administrators group).
• Delete groups (except the Administrators and Users groups).

Users can be members of more than one group, so you do not have to have a lot of groups to cover every option. If someone’s responsibilities overlap different areas, such as someone who oversees both calendaring and billing, administrators can give that person access to both areas through membership in multiple Security Groups.

While members of the Administrators group have all of the capabilities described by default, they can also grant members of other Security Groups the same capabilities if desired. Due to the sensitivity surrounding user account administration, access to the Users and Groups function should be limited to those belonging to the Administrators Group only.

Message Groups

In addition to Security Groups, MR9 also has Message Groups, which allow you to send a message to all the members of a group simultaneously. Members of a Message Group can also send messages to the group. There are no required Message Groups, nor are users required to be a member of any Message Group to use MR9.

Similarly to Security Groups, the only requirement when setting up a Message Group is a group name. Administrators can also add a group name, and add or delete members. Administrators can edit or delete existing Message Groups.

With either group you can sort the list by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, MR9 will revert back to the default order).

Adding users

When you open the Users and Groups function it lists all of the users who are already entered into your MR9 system — along with their user name, email address, whether they are an active user, and when they last logged into the system. You can sort the list 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 also export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

Administrators can add users to MR9 at any time. When entering a new user, the only required information is their full name, MR9 login name, and password. When saving a new user MR9 will prompt you to tie them to your company’s business units (BUs). You can tie them to one or more of your company’s BUs.

Even though it is not required, we recommend you include the user’s email address in their listing as it is important for password reset emails, Notifications and Messages, and 2-step verification at log-in.

If you are using email addresses as user login names, you will be required to enter the user’s email address instead of a login name. We recommend this option because everyone knows their email address, so it is easier for them to remember than a unique user name for their MR9 user ID. The option to use email addresses for MR9 login is a general system preference.

General information

In addition to required information you can store users’ contact information — such as their work email address, and other work related information, including their work phone number, start date/termination date, title and department (which you choose from lists you customized in the Lists function), the user’s supervisor, and any information you want to include that is not covered elsewhere in the user’s listing.

In addition to storing info about the user, this is also where administrators can:

• Reset the user’s password for them if they forgot their password and don’t want to change it themselves (administrators do not have a way to retrieve passwords).
• Let the user back into MR9 if they got locked out for making too many incorrect attempts to log in (using the wrong user name and/or password). Administrators set how many tries users get to log in correctly before being locked out in System Preferences.
• Deactivate the user if they no longer work for the company or otherwise don’t need to be assigned or contacted anymore. Deactivated users can no longer log into MR9, and their names will not appear in the system by default.
• Delete a user if they never did anything in the system. MR9 tracks and logs user interactions so if someone has added or updated information in MR9, they cannot be deleted from the system because their interactions are part of your audit trail.

Personal info

Personal information about a user includes their home address, date of birth, and personal phone numbers. When entering the user’s street address or P.O. box number, skip the other fields and enter the zip code. MR9 will fill in the city, state, and country for you. After entering the user’s address you can view maps and directions to it in MR9.

Pay Info

If the user you’re setting up is a Sales Rep, specify their Commission Rate so it will be included when calculating invoices.

After saving a new user, 2 other panes appear in their listing: Groups and Business Units. Groups will have the default Users group listed, and Business Units will list any BUs you tied to the user. You can add or delete groups and business units you want to associate with the user here.

Who gets MR9 access?

Clients who need access to their information in your system are not the same as MR9 users who are your staff, managers, or other company personnel who need access on a more global level. If you want to give your clients access to their orders, financial info, files, and other relevant info, add MR Connect to your MR9 system where they can have their own online MR9 offices automatically populated with their information exclusively.

TL;DR: Store work and personal information about company personnel. Give them access to specific functions in MR9 through Security Groups. Communicate internally with multiple users at once through Message Groups.

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.

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

Named User License: Each MR9 user needs a license with their own user ID and password to gain access to the application. 

Lesson #112

Setup – Lists function

Lists in MR9 allow users to choose an entry from a set of available values — saving time and reducing errors that result from keying in entries. MR9 includes initial values and defaults for lists used throughout the system, and you can run your business using these defaults. You can also edit, hide, merge, or delete most of these entries. You cannot create new lists, but you can add your own entries to most MR9 lists.

Managing lists

When setting up your MR9 system, take some time to customize its default lists to better match your company. You can revise a list at any time you have new options to add or unused options you’d like to remove/hide.

You can set each list’s default entry which will appear in any field tied to that list. Default entries cannot be deleted. If you want to delete a default-designated entry, you must set a different entry in the list as the default. Then you can delete the other entry if it is not required by MR9.

If you no longer need a particular entry — but want to keep its historical data — you can merge it into an existing entry of the same data type if it is not required by MR9.

If you don’t want to delete an entry or merge it into another entry— but you also don’t want it to appear as a list option in MR9 — you can de-activate it if it is not required by MR9. It will still exist in the database but it will be hidden.

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

Lists can be customized for:

• Accounting: Although MR is not an accounting system, it does track many financial aspects of your business. Its data can be used with QuickBooks, and it replaces separate billing software.
  Set up categories for types of accounts, financial transactions, names for types of custodian fees, payments, payment terms, and units of service items (e.g., pages, miles, or hours).
  Also set up billing rate groups: parent structures for related billing rates. (You could have 100s of billing rates, which can quickly become overwhelming without some sort of organizing capability.) You will assign each billing rate table, firm, contact, and party to an order to a billing rate group .
• Connect: MR Connect is the MR9 plug-in that gives your clients and third parties direct access to your office via the internet.
  Set up designations for MR Connect support ticket ratings and status (e.g., Awaiting Response or Closed).
• Contacts: Contacts are people who work at firms that order services from you.
  Set up categories for types of contacts, notes, work turnaround preferences, credit ratings, and tags to organize contacts. Also set up gender classifications, work titles, and salutations.
• Firms: Firms are companies you do business with: They order services from you, e.g., a law firm, or they are a third party that pays you, e.g., an insurance company.
  Set up categories for types of firms, notes, credit ratings, collection actions, and tags to organize firms. Also set up designations for account status, class (the quality or ranking of a firm), and client sources (how clients heard of you).
• Invoice: Set up categories (Groups) for invoice headers and messages so you can find what you want when invoicing without having to scroll through all of your invoice headers or messages. Also set up categories for invoice types and notes types to use as search filters.
• Locations: Set up categories for types of locations, departments within locations, doctor specialties and titles, notes, ways subpoenas are served, and tags to organize locations your runners visit.
• Orders: Set up categories for types of cases, special kinds of dates, sides represented in a suit, notes about the related case or parties, how orders are received by your company, and case statuses — such as in progress or settled.
• Others: Set up categories for types of events to acknowledge — such as client birthdays and anniversaries, how notes in Notes Logs were received (e.g., System, Email, or call), and award point redemption like gift cards or cash.
• Parts: Set up types of actions to take with requests — such as Contact Client — and actions taken — such as Call Made or Email Sent, admissibility of records, types of record being obtained e.g. Medical or Billing, categories of scheduling actions — such as mail requests or pick up records, part statuses — such as records obtained or part canceled, and categories of subpoenas — such as for a person or document.
• Production: Set up designations for how products are delivered to clients, e.g. USPS, courier, or FedEx.
• Repository: Set up designations for types of files that you will store in MR9 — such as notices and delivery receipts — to aid in finding files once stored. Some designations are pre-set by MR9 and cannot be deleted or edited, except options to show or hide on MR Connect.
• Tracking: Set up categories for items/services you want to track — such as records and process serving — and the priority of tracked items — such as rush or low.
• Users: Users are people on your staff who directly access MR9 — as opposed to contacts who access your office through MR Connect.
  Set up categories for departments in your company and position titles.

TL;DR: Many lists in MR9 can be customized by adding/editing options to better fit your company.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Award Points: Used to encourage clients to book with your agency by rewarding them with points for different services.

Billing Rate Groups: Umbrella structures aimed at categorizing your billing rates. Instead of one long list of billing rates, Billing Rate Groups create a series of shorter lists to search through when invoicing clients.

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

Firm: Companies you do business with.

Header Group: Parent structure that contains related invoice headers as its children.

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

Message Group: Parent structure that contains related invoice messages as its children.

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

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 >

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 as opposed to a work order.

Part: A part of an order is a work order/request for a single record that is included in the entire body of records for a case or patient.

Tracking: System for keeping track of where production items are in your production cycle and physically in your office.

Users: You and your staff who directly access MR9.