Client Cover Pages

RTG Bills, our time and billing program for law firms, creates a separate bill for each of a client's matters. When a client has more than one active matter, you may want to summarize the matters and show a total amount. That's the purpose of a client cover page.

Before you can print the client cover page for a client, you must first have printed all the bills for that client. You might have chosen to print the bills all at once, or perhaps you printed them over several days. Maybe you found an error on a bill, canceled the bill, then corrected the error and printed another bill. There is no need to print all of the bills on the same day.

When the bills are printed and you are satisfied that they are correct, you can print a client cover page by choosing Bills, Client Cover Pages from the RTG Bills menu. RTG Bills uses the fee and expense cutoff date to select matters for the client cover page. A matter is included if the cutoff date you specified when you printed the bill is the same as the cutoff date you specify for the client cover page. (Fees and expenses after the cutoff date will appear on the next bill.)

For example, suppose client 3 has three matters numbered 3-1, 3-2, and 3-3. You specified a cutoff date of 2/28/2002 and printed all of your bills. Let's say that bills were printed for matters 3-1 and 3-2, but no bill was printed for 3-3 because there was no activity and no previous balance. When you print a client cover page for client 3, for the cutoff date 2/28/2002, it will include matters 3-1 and 3-2 but not 3-3. The last bill for matter 3-3 did not have that cutoff date, so it is not included.

Client-Level Retainers

RTG Bills Version 2.07 introduces client-level retainers, which can be applied to any matter for the client. Although each bill can show the amount of the client-level retainer that was applied to that bill, the retainer balance cannot be known for certain until all of the bills for the client have been printed. For that reason, the client-level retainer balance will appear on the client cover page.

Furthermore, a client-level retainer can be a replenishing retainer, which means that RTG Bills must request additional retainer payments if the balance falls below a set amount. In order to know how much to request, RTG Bills must calculate the retainer balance after all of the bills for the client are printed. In other words, the request for an additional retainer cannot be on any one bill. So the request for an additional retainer will appear on the client cover page.

Previously, a client cover page was only printed if two or more bills had been printed for the specified cutoff date. In RTG Bills Version 2.07, a client cover page is also printed if the client-level retainer has fallen below the replenishment amount.

E-Mail Bills As PDF Files

We recently tried a new program to send bills as e-mail attachments. It's called pdfFactory from FinePrint Software. With this software installed, any program that can print a document can be used to create a PDF file instead.

PDF files, as most Internet users know, can be read with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. However, you need special software - which is not free - to create a PDF file. One option is to buy Adobe Acrobat. The list price is currently $259, with discounts widely available. pdfFactory is a lower-cost alternative. The trial version can be downloaded for free, and you can purchase it for $49.95 directly from FinePrint Software.

With pdfFactory installed, you have a new "printer" named FinePrint pdfFactory. Anything you send to that printer becomes a PDF file that can be saved on your hard disk or attached to a new e-mail message. The trial version adds a line at the bottom of each page which says it was created with the trial version, but otherwise it seems to be fully operational.

To e-mail a bill with RTG Bills, first print a copy of your bills on paper for your own records. Then exit RTG Bills, go to the Printers folder, and change the default printer to FinePrint pdfFactory. Start RTG Bills again. To send a single bill as an e-mail attachment, choose Bills, Reprint Bills from the menu. Choose One Matter and enter the matter number. Click Print. After RTG Bills creates the bill, you will see the pdfFactory window with buttons that let you Save the bill (as a disk file) or Send the bill as an e-mail attachment. Click Send and your e-mail program should appear with the PDF file already attached to a blank message.

In the past, we've recommended eFax Messenger Plus for sending bills as e-mail attachments. Originally that program was free, although now it is offered for $14.95. Like Acrobat Reader, the viewer is free. The disadvantage, however, is that few people have the eFax viewer, so the recipient will have to download it, while many people already have Acrobat Reader.

New Fax Number

Recently, our service provider changed our fax number. The new number is 775-249-8952.

RTG receives fax messages as e-mail attachments. We encourage you to use e-mail whenever possible to contact us. Fax messages do not receive higher priority when you are requesting technical support.

If you want to show us a report or a bill, we suggest that you install pdfFactory or eFax Messenger Plus and send it to us as an e-mail attachment.

RTG Bills and RTG Timer are trademarks of RTG Data Systems. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.