Known Problems in RTG Bills

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Introduction			No software is perfect. When problems are found in RTG Bills or RTG Timer, they are reported here. Each problem is listed under the version of the software where it was first reported. In some instances, the problem may have affected previous versions. In general, you can expect that each version fixes all of the problems reported for the previous version. We encourage you to use the latest version of RTG Bills and RTG Timer at all times. To make suggestions for improvements, or to report problems, send a message to RTG.



Version 2.23			No problems reported at this time.



Version 2.22			Fees collected realization reports These two reports (detailed and summary) may cause an error, SaveCredit amount . . . is not negative. The problem is fixed by a new version of RTG Reports, upgrade 324. Error in allocating fees to timekeepers The fee allocation reports may not properly allocate fees to timekeepers when there is a previous balance and the next bill has both additional fees and an auto payment. The problem is fixed in the next version of RTG Reports. Run-time error '402' in RTG Timer This error occurs if you are editing an hourly rate transaction in the RTG Viewer and you click the Mini button. In the next version of RTG Timer, the Mini button does not appear in this situation. All of the problems listed below were fixed by an update to RTG Bills and RTG Timer V2.22c. RTG Timer help file The RTG Timer help file had some errors. Updated price list California sales tax increased on April 1, 2009. Two-column Billing Summary If you choose two amount columns for the Billing Summary, the bill format is written incorrectly. It causes the following error message: RunPgm: illegal item=2248. Consolidated bills Two bills for different clients may be printed on the same page if you are using a consolidated bills format (a new feature in RTG Bills V2.21) and you have chosen to skip bills for matters with a zero balance and no new fees or expenses. Client Cover Pages If you print the Client Cover Page for the same client and cutoff date more than once, the historical Client Cover Pages feature will print all of them, not just the most recent one as it should. Run-time error '6': Overflow This error may occur when you print certain reports, including the Matter Ledger and the Matter Aging report. Bill format error in section 20 Certain bill format choices create a section of the bill format that is longer than the maximum size allowed, although the error message does not explain this. Type mismatch generating a bill If the bill format specifies a PayPal payment link and the matter has a credit balance, a Type mismatch error occurs and the bill cannot be created.



Version 2.21			Fee allocation error RTG Reports contains several fee allocation reports: Fees Billed and Collected by Matter, Summary of Fees Billed and Collected, and Total Fees Billed and Collected. An error in the calculations for these reports occurs if a payment (using automatic allocation) is received on the same day that a bill is printed for the matter. The payment is not allocated to the timekeepers. Another error causes the unapplied payments total to be incorrect when late charges and taxes are involved. Both problems are fixed in RTG Reports V2.21a (upgrade 295). Missing report The Matter Ledger by Date report was not included in the installation file. The problem is fixed by installing upgrade 297. Client reminders Client reminders are not printed for closed matters. This will be fixed in the next version. Standalone operation of RTG Timer Upon startup, when disconnected from a network, RTG Timer displays an error message (Bad file name or number) and exits if it was set to access the RTG Bills database on the network. It starts normally when connected to the network. The correct behavior in this situation is to display a message that the RTG Bills database cannot be accessed and that the local RTG Timer database will be used instead. This allows RTG Timer to be used either connected to the network or disconnected from the network without changing any settings. The problem will be fixed in the next version of RTG Timer.



Version 2.20			RTG Reports error Each version of RTG Bills requires a matching version of RTG Reports. If you upgrade to RTG Bills V2.20 but fail to upgrade RTG Reports, you will see a confusing series of messages instead of the correct message. (The correct message would say that the versions don't match.) Install the new RTG Reports to fix the problem. Wrong database version If you start RTG Bills V2.20 after the database has been upgraded to a later version, a message says that you have the wrong database version for this program version, which is correct. But when you click OK, you are asked if you want to start RTG Upgrade. That shouldn't happen, because RTG Upgrade is no longer used for version upgrades. Instead, you should download the latest version and obtain a license key for it. RTG Bills Import This program imports fees and expenses from other software into RTG Bills. The original release for RTG Bills V2.20 (upgrade 273) was missing the fields that make it possible to import fixed fees and expenses. That is fixed with a new release (upgrade 282). Duplicate lines in Attorney Summary The Attorney Summary may show two lines for the same timekeeper and rate, in both the prebills and bills, when a matter discount is used. Although this problem appears in RTG Bills, it is actually caused by a bug in RTG Timer. Under certain circumstances, when a matter discount is in effect, RTG Timer does not round the hourly rate to two decimal places as it should. A rate of $175 per hour, for example, may be stored as $174.9975. When it is displayed, the rate will be rounded properly. But when RTG Bills creates the Attorney Summary, it sees the unrounded rate as different from the correctly-rounded rate, so it creates two different lines in the summary. You can ignore this problem if your bills do not include the Attorney Summary, or if you do not use matter discounts. If you do include the Attorney Summary and you see duplicate lines on the bills, you can fix the transactions in RTG Bills with the program described here: Fix Bills or Timer Database. In that program, choose File > Fix Fees and Expenses to properly round the hourly rates. This problem will be fixed in the next version of RTG Timer. Taskbar corruption in Windows Vista Due to a bug in Windows Vista, the taskbar may become corrupted when RTG Timer is running. The solution is to install an update from Microsoft that fixes Vista. Read more. Run-time error '380' If you click the Codes button while entering a fee or expense, you will get this error if there are no shorthand codes. This will be fixed in the next version of RTG Bills and RTG Timer. A workaround is to enter at least one shorthand code. Dollar sign on prebills The Timekeeper Summary on the prebills shows a dollar sign even when the currency symbol is changed to another character. This is an error in the prebill formats, which will be fixed in the next version. A workaround is to edit the prebill formats (formats 249 and 250) with Layout to change the dollar sign (label 32) to the desired currency symbol. Cannot restore deleted matter In some circumstances, RTG Bills says that it cannot restore a deleted matter because it does not belong to the client. While this can be true if you deleted the client and re-used the matter number (always a bad idea), it may also happen when the client has not changed. This will be fixed in the next version of RTG Bills. Until then, do not delete a matter if there is any chance that you will want to restore it. In fact, it is our recommendation that you *never* delete an actual matter that you have worked on, because deleted matters are not included in report totals. If you have a matter that you need to restore but RTG Bills says it is the wrong client, contact RTG and we can help you restore it. Split fee totals do not show attorney summary For split bills, the attorney summary does not appear even if the bill format says it should. This is an error in the bill format and it will be fixed in the next version. Split fee totals show incorrect total hours with item discounts Item discounts cause the Hours Reported to appear with a fee instead of the Hours To Bill. If the item discount feature is used on a split bill, the total hours will be incorrect. This is also an error in the bill format and it will be fixed in the next version.



Version 2.19			User names and passwords in RTG Bills The tutorial incorrectly states that you can ignore the security system if you do not want to use it. It is important to use the security system if more than one person uses RTG Bills. Certain settings, and the shorthand codes, should be stored separately for each user. They can only be kept separate if each user signs in with a different user name. The first eight characters of each user name should be unique. Passwords are optional. Fees with item discount show wrong hours When you write down the time on an hourly rate transaction by entering Hours To Bill less than Hours Reported, usually the bill shows the Hours To Bill. However, if you enter an activity code that specifies Show writedown as discount, then the bill should show the Hours Reported instead. The idea is to show the client the full amount of time you worked, even though you are charging for less time. Currently, the bill shows the Hours To Bill regardless of the activity code. This is fixed in the next version.



Version 2.18			Shorthand codes in RTG Timer Due to a bug in RTG Timer, changes to the shorthand codes are not saved. To work around this problem, you can make changes to the shorthand codes in RTG Bills and save them in a file: File > Export > Shorthand Codes. The codes are saved in the file Abbrev.dat, which is the file that RTG Timer reads to get the shorthand codes. PrintList: No report 699 This error occurs if you try to view or print the Order Form from the list of reports. You can ignore the error message. The Order Form should not be in the list of reports. To view or print the order form: Help > Order Form. Install upgrade 256 to fix the list of reports so that it does not include the Order Form. Installing RTG Reports also fixes this problem. Automatic allocation of manual retainer When you enter a Use Retainer transaction and the amount you enter exceeds the amount currently due, RTG Bills looks for unbilled fees and expenses. Then it does the allocation again, including them. This second calculation is wrong when the amount currently due is not zero. To work around this problem, look at a prebill to see how much is due when the unbilled fees and expenses are included. Then uncheck Automatic Allocation and enter the correct amounts. The problem does not occur when you are applying a retainer to amounts that you have previously billed. That would be the usual situation. Also note that this problem only applies to manual retainer transactions, which you enter yourself. It does not apply to automatic retainer transactions, which are created by RTG Bills when you print a bill. For a further description of the difference, see the help information: Help > Contents > Other Topics > Retainers and a Trust Account



Version 2.17			Blank user name The first time you start RTG Bills, it will not prompt you with a user name, as it did before. (Try Supervisor if you are the only RTG Bills user.) Subsequently, it will fill in the user name as it did previously. This problem arises from a new feature: RTG Bills can now remember the "last user name" for each Windows user. Previously, it only remembered one name. This change causes it to start off with a blank name the very first time each user signs in. Matter Check report The description of this report was not included in the help information. You will find a brief description on the RTG Reports page. No reports The reports are now stored in the data location, not the program location. When you install RTG Bills using the installation file, you are asked for the data location, and the reports will be placed there. If you enter the wrong location, then change it later from within the program (Setup > Database), the reports will be in the wrong place. The solution is to uninstall RTG Bills and then install it again with the correct data location. Shorthand codes In RTG Bills, all users currently share the same list of shorthand codes. The shorthand codes are read from the file Abbrev.dat when RTG Bills starts. If you change the codes, they are written to that file when you close the Edit Shorthand Codes window. If two users are in RTG Bills and both make changes to the codes, the last person to make a change will write the file and the other person's changes will be lost. In the next version of RTG Bills, each user will have a separate list of shorthand codes. It will be possible to export one user's codes and import them for a different user. This problem does not occur in RTG Timer because each user already has a separate list of shorthand codes. RTG Bills settings Some settings in RTG Bills apply to all users and all matters. Most of those settings are on the Setup: Other tabbed dialog box. Others are on the Prebill Options and Bill Options windows. The settings are read from a file when RTG Bills starts and written to a file when RTG Bills exits. This can cause the changes to be lost when there is more than one RTG Bills user. If one user makes a change and exits while a second user is still in RTG Bills, the changes are lost when the second user exits. To work around this problem, the Supervisor should change these settings when no one else is using RTG Bills, then exit the program before anyone else starts RTG Bills. In the next version, only the Supervisor can make permanent changes to firm-wide settings. Other users can make temporary changes, but they are not saved when RTG Bills exits. Item and matter discounts This version introduced a new feature that allows a writedown to appear as an item discount on the bill. (A writedown means hours to bill is less than hours reported.) As a bill format option, the total item discount can appear at the end of the fees section of the bill. There is currently a problem combining item discounts and a percentage matter discount. Although the billed amounts are correct, some of the other numbers on the bill are incorrect. For a transaction with a writedown, the full amount (originally $X.XX) does not show the amount before the matter discount. Also, the Total discount is wrong. The next version will correct those problems. The Total discount will include all item discounts plus the matter discount. Roundoff errors Calculations of late charges and taxes may be rounded off incorrectly. This will be corrected in the next version.



			Known Problems in earlier versions.