Overview:

Consolidated billing means that when you have multiple matters open for a client, the billable items for those matters are combined into one bill. Without consolidated billing, each matter will have its own invoice.

In this article, we will take you through how consolidated billing works in Actionstep and the steps you will have to take to set it up.

Setting up Consolidated Bills

NOTE

For now, Consolidated Billing is set as an Early Adopter function and must be switched on before it can be used. To switch it on, an Actionstep Administrator must go to the General Settings (Admin > General Settings), scroll to the bottom section and

Enable the Feature Preview
Enable Early access group
Enable Consolidated billing (EBM)

There are instances where you will not want to consolidate your bills and times when you will. To give you control over when consolidated bills are applied, you have a setting on each contact record that controls consolidated billing.

When consolidated billing is switched on for a contact, any matters where that contact is the client will be consolidated together.

The setting can be found in the accounting section of a contact record. Once enabled, additional settings can be defined.

Invoice template	This is the template that will be used when the consolidated bill is produced.
Send to email address	Here you can define the email address or addresses that will receive a copy of the bill once it is produced.
Email template	This template will be used to email the consolidated bill once it is produced.
No. of copies to print	This controls the number of copies that are printed when the consolidated bill is produced.

Creating Consolidated Bills

There are two ways you can create a consolidated bill. Matters will automatically be consolidated together if:

All the clients on the bill match (Primary and any Secondary Clients), and
That client has consolidated billing set on their contact record, and
The bill date of the invoices are the same

TIP

The Mass Billing screen will have a column to show if the client has consolidated bills set.

A Consolidated Bill through Mass Billing

A Consolidated Bill through Matter Billing

You can also create a draft bill from one matter at a time. If the system finds two draft bills for the same client(s) and that client(s) have consolidated billing set on their contact record, they will appear as consolidated.

If you create a consolidated bill one matter at a time, make sure that the invoice date is the same. If the invoice date differs, the invoices will not be consolidated.

TIP

Just because you have set a contact record to use consolidated bills, does not mean that every bill must be consolidated. You can bill one matter and approve the bill for that matter then bill the second matter and approve that second bill separately.

Only if you have bills from two or more matters in draft at the same time with the same bill date, will Actionstep consolidate them.

Dealing with more than one client or billable party on a matter

Matters will be combined when the billable parties (normally your clients) on matters match. If there are multiple billable parties they must all match for a bill to be consolidated. See the example below for clarification.

Information:

EXAMPLE:

Carol Withers is a client for the law firm and has three matters open and being worked on. Two matters are just for Carol (Matter 123 for a Will and Matter 124 for an Enduring Power of Attorney).

The third is Matter 125 to set up a family trust for Carol and her husband Jonathan. For matter 125, Carol and Jonathan are added as the 'Client' on the matter as separate contacts.

If Carol's contact record is set to consolidate bills, then when billing Matter 123 and Matter 124 will be consolidated into one invoice with the client "Carol Withers".

Matter 125 will not be consolidated with the other two as the system will treat the client as "Carol Withers & Jonathan Withers".

If there was a fourth matter with both Carol Withers and Jonathan Withers as the clients then this could be consolidated with matter 125 as the combined clients on the two matters would match.

Editing consolidated bills

When you open a consolidated bill it will, at first, present you with a list of the different matters that had billable items added to this bill.

You are able to evaluate and change the items with the other items from that matter that they came from. Just click on the invoice number link to open those billable items and make any applicable changes.

Paying consolidated bills

Once a consolidated bill is approved, it can be paid in the same ways that any other bill in Actionstep can be paid.

You will see a list of the sub-bills and you can choose how to allocate the payment amongst those bills. Alternatively, bills can be paid separately like any other bill in the system.

Help Center

Consolidated Billing