Billing Concepts

Note: Some of these concepts only apply to Actionstep systems using classic billing

 

Time Billing

You can create bills from time records linked to completed tasks provided the tasks have:

• a billable rate sheet, and
• non-zero billable hours

When tasks are billed they are linked to the associated invoice and will be removed from subsequent lists of billable time. If you delete the associated invoice then the lined tasks will be returned to the pool of billable time.
Non-billable tasks will be displayed at billing time to give you the opportunity to review these tasks and to make sure that they are not billable. If you decide that they are billable then you can edit the task to add a rate sheet and some billable time. If you are satisfied that the tasks are truly non-billable then you can mark them as "confirmed non-billable" and the will be removed from subsequent billing runs.

Fixed-Fee Billing and Progress Claims

You can setup scheduled payments within each matter to reflect your fee arrangements with your client. If you record time against a fixed-fee matter then you should mark that time as non-billable and then "confirmed non-billable" when you bill out the associated fixed fee.
See user guide document on Fixed Fee Billing for more information on setting up fixed fee matters.

Bureau/Office Fees

Bureau or Office fees are those that you which to charge the client to cover random disbursements costs such as photocopying, courier fees, etc. Many firms do this differently but it is normally either a fixed charge that is added to the invoice or a percentage of the fees. 

There is not an automatic function for this in Actionstep so if you would like add this kind of fee to your invoices then you will have to do so manually by either adding to the WIP via a scheduled payment or adding a line item to your invoice while it is in draft status.

Non-Billable Matter Types

When you create an matter type you can check the setting to mark it as non-billable. This will prevent users from putting billable time against non-billable matters. This can be changed on a matter-by-matter basis.

Rate Labels

See Rate Labels for details on how to setup rate sheets.