These are the Frequently Asked Questions for RTG E-Bills.

• Letters in the matter "number"
• Which matters need e-bills?
• Check the task and activity codes
• Five-character task codes

Q: My client uses letters and numbers to identify their matters. RTG Bills only allows me to enter numbers. What should I do?

A: The LEDES electronic billing format has two different "matter numbers" for every matter: one that you assign and one that the client assigns.

The LAW_FIRM_MATTER_ID is supposed to be whatever "matter ID" you want to assign. That will be the RTG Bills matter number.

The CLIENT_MATTER_ID is the ID assigned by the client to the matter. That's whatever the client wants it to be, such as their claim number. It can have letters, numbers, dashes, parentheses - any characters they want to use.

You must enter the CLIENT_MATTER_ID on the first line of the Matter Reference field in RTG Bills, as explained in the Edit Matters section of the RTG E-Bills tutorial.

Q: How do I tell RTG Bills which matters need e-bills?

A: You don't. RTG E-Bills knows which matters require e-bills by looking at the bill format number.

Our standard procedure is to use bill format 50 for e-bills. RTG creates the file ebill50.rtg with all the information needed to create the e-bills for your client. (Additional bill formats may be used if you have different clients that require different e-bill formats.) You must create a normal bill format 50 that will be used for printed bills.

First you print all of your bills on paper. You will get a paper copy of the matters that require e-bills, too.

Then you choose Bills > Reprint As E-Bills from the RTG Bills menu. You can choose All Matters, even if only one client requires e-bills. When you click the Print button, RTG E-Bills begins its work.

For each paper bill that you printed, RTG E-Bills looks up the bill format used for the paper bill. Then it looks to see if there is an e-bill format with the same number. For example, if the paper bill used format 50, it looks for the file ebill50.rtg. If it finds the e-bill format, it creates the e-bill. If there is no such e-bill format, it doesn't create the e-bill.

Q: Where can I check the task and activity codes before I create the e-bills?

A: The prebills show both task and activity codes for each transaction. Choose Bills > Prebills from the menu.

Print the prebills before you print the bills so you can review the codes.

Note:
This feature was added in RTG Bills Version 2.07. If you don't see task and activity codes on transactions that definitely have them, delete the files bill249.rtg and bill250.rtg and install RTG Bills again.

Q: My client requires five-character codes from the UTBMS Patent and Trademark code sets, but RTG Bills and RTG Timer only allow four-character codes. How can I enter the five-character codes?

A: RTG Bills and RTG Timer V2.22 and below allow the entry of four-character codes but not five-character codes. The Patent code set uses codes like PA100 and the Trademark code set uses codes like TR100.

To enter a Patent code, use the letter N and the number. For example, instead of PA120, enter N120. (We chose the letter N because every other letter in the word patent is used for an existing code set.)

To enter a Trademark code, use the letter T and the number. For example, instead of TR120, enter T120.

RTG E-Bills V1.15 and above can translate the codes properly, so that N codes become PA codes on the e-bills and T codes become TR codes on the e-bills. In addition, you must edit the e-bill format file to change the format identifier from LEDES1998B to LEDES1998B5. Contact RTG if you need help making this change.