May 1999

Conversion To RTG Bills From Timeslips

Timeslips is a timekeeping and billing program, a competitor to our own program, RTG Bills. Recently we have noticed dissatisfaction among Timeslips users with the newest release, Version 9. The program was completely rewritten, according to the publisher, and some people complain that it is much too complex.

In order to make it easy for Timeslips users to switch to RTG Bills, we now have a free conversion program on our Web site. We provide directions for getting client information out of Timeslips and into RTG Bills.

What Gets Converted

Using our conversion program, the client names, addresses, telephone numbers, and previous balances are moved to RTG Bills. The "In Reference To" field is used as the matter description in RTG Bills.

We do not attempt to convert timekeepers or codes of any kind. Unbilled transactions (often called work-in-process or WIP) are not converted, either.

Most firms that use Timeslips do not make a distinction between clients and matters. However, RTG Bills (like nearly all legal-specific programs) uses clients and matters to organize your timekeeping and billing.

A matter is a "case" or "file" or "project" that you work on for a client. RTG Bills keeps a separate balance due, and prints a separate bill, for each matter.

Our conversion software provides a choice of methods for creating clients and matters. The simplest method creates one client and one matter in RTG Bills for each "client" in Timeslips. Other methods try to use additional information to identify whether a client has more than one matter.

Try Before You Buy

You can try the conversion program even before you buy RTG Bills. Just use the free RTG Bills demo program, which you can download from our Web site, and convert your Timeslips data following our instructions.

The RTG Bills demo is limited to nine clients and nine matters per client, so you won't see all the converted clients and matters until you buy the complete program. Nevertheless, you can see how the conversion works and decide which conversion method works best for your data.

[The demo has been replaced by a free trial of the full version of RTG Bills.]

Read more about the Timeslips conversion here:

www.rtgsoftware.com/tsconv.htm


New Version Of RTG Names

RTG Names stores the names, addresses, phone numbers -- and now the e-mail addresses -- of your clients.

The latest release of RTG Names also looks more like a Windows 95/98 program.

RTG Names can import names and addresses from other software. It imports files in comma-delimited format (also called comma-separated values or CSV), which is a format most address books and contact managers can write. It can also import a format, which we call the tagged format, that was designed for compatibility with programs which have a built-in report writer (like most database software).

RTG Names provides tight integration with RTG Bills, our time and billing software. A synchronize feature updates the information in RTG Names by reading the firm's client list directly from RTG Bills. However, you can also store the names and addresses of people who are not clients. They remain unchanged when you synchronize.

Unlike complex contact databases or personal information managers, RTG Names is a simple, fast program designed to run all the time without slowing down your computer. It uses a relational database so the program can handle large lists of names efficiently.

RTG Names is free if you download it from our Web site.


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.

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