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RTG Bills Online: Documentation
Purpose
RTG Bills Online is a timekeeping and billing service for law firms and similar professional organizations. Your data is stored on an Internet server, so you can access it from any location that provides Internet access. The only software you need is a web browser.
RTG provides a secure server so that your data is encrypted as it travels over the Internet.
Clients, matters, timekeepers, billing rates, and codes are entered into RTG Bills Online. Then you may enter fees and expenses either directly into RTG Bills Online or into RTG Timer Online. A subscription to RTG Bills Online includes access to RTG Timer Online.
RTG Timer Online is designed for a timekeeper to enter their own time. When the timekeeper is satisfied with the entries, they can be released, which makes them available in RTG Bills Online. Once released, the fees and expenses can be viewed in RTG Timer Online but not changed.
RTG Bills Online can edit the entries that have been released by all of the timekeepers using RTG Timer Online. It also permits direct entry of fees and expenses, which may be preferred when the timekeepers do not enter their own time.
RTG Bills Online is also used for entering payments and adjustments, including trust accounting.
When the various types of transactions have been entered, RTG Bills Online can create bills for each matter. The bills are created as PDF documents, which can be printed on paper or emailed to clients as attachments.
A wide variety of reports are available. They can be viewed on the screen, which allows the user to edit the items on the report, or they can be created as PDF documents, which can be printed or saved to a local storage device.
Recommended
Environment
RTG Bills Online should work with the latest version of the web browsers from Google (Chrome), Mozilla (Firefox), Microsoft (Edge), and Apple (Safari). Although other browsers may work, RTG only supports these.
In addition, the browser settings must permit the following features to work:
- JavaScript
JavaScript is a feature that allows our software to work inside your browser. (Microsoft calls it active scripting.)
- Cookies
Cookies are small amounts of information stored temporarily on your computer by the software. RTG Bills Online uses a cookie to remember that you have signed in as you move from page to page. The cookie is deleted when you sign out.
- Pop-Up Windows
Every page has a Help button or Help link to provide context-sensitive help. The help information is presented in a pop-up window, so you can see the help text and the page it refers to at the same time. Bills and reports, when created as PDF documents, are also displayed in a pop-up window.
Sometimes people turn off these features because they fear malicious websites will abuse them. However, modern browsers should keep you safe while allowing these features to work.
Is your browser ready for RTG Bills Online? Try our
browser test page.
Free Trial
RTG offers a 30-day free trial of RTG Bills Online. The trial period can coincide with the free trial of RTG Timer Online, or you may request it separately at a later time if you subscribe to RTG Timer Online.
One user is designated the Supervisor. A Supervisor has special capabilities, including the ability to decide which users have access to RTG Bills. In addition, a Supervisor can change other users' passwords and designate other users as Supervisors.
Subscriptions
RTG Bills Online is offered on a subscription basis. A firm subscribes to the service, indicating how many users will access the service. A monthly fee is charged based on the number of users, as shown in the
price list.
Your firm may subscribe to RTG Timer Online or both RTG Bills Online and RTG Timer Online. You cannot subscribe to RTG Bills Online alone.
Each user has a username and a password. The username is supplied to RTG by the firm during the subscription process, subject to the limitation that every username must be unique in RTG Bills Online. RTG will provide a temporary password, which the user can change after signing in to the service.
In order to use the service, each user must agree to the
Subscriber Agreement.
Users and
Timekeepers
A user is a person who has access to RTG Bills Online. A timekeeper is a person whose fees are entered with RTG Bills Online.
Sometimes the user is also the timekeeper, but not always. Even in a small firm, a single timekeeper may enter fees and expenses, while an assistant needs access to that information to edit it and create reports. In that situation, there would be two users, but only one timekeeper.
In some firms, a single person enters the fees and expenses for several timekeepers. In that situation, there is only one user, even though there are several timekeepers.
The fee for subscribing to RTG Bills Online is based on the number of users, not the number of timekeepers.
Access to
Timekeepers
The Supervisor determines which timekeepers can be accessed by each user in RTG Timer Online. However, in RTG Bills Online, each user has access to all fees and expenses entered into RTG Bills Online, as well as all fees and expenses that have been released from RTG Timer Online.
Fees and Expenses
Four types of fee and expense transactions may be entered:
- Hourly rate: A time transaction, where the amount to be billed is based on the number of hours and a billing rate. The billing rate is determined by the rate table assigned to the matter. Each rate table contains the rate for every timekeeper.
- Fixed fee: A fee transaction, where the amount to be billed is entered directly and does not depend on the time spent.
- Unit cost: An expense transaction, where the amount is determined by a quantity and a unit cost. A typical example would be photocopies, charged by the page.
- Expense: An expense transaction, where the amount to be billed is entered directly.
Hours
RTG Bills Online keeps track of time to the nearest hundredth of an hour. When you enter the Hours Reported for an hourly rate transaction, you may enter either decimal hours (1.25) or hours and minutes (1:15). If you enter hours and minutes, it is converted to decimal hours when you press the Tab key, or when you save the transaction.
RTG Bills Online includes an option to round time up to the next tenth of an hour. This rounding occurs when you save the transaction.
Writedowns
Sometimes the time you have spent (Hours Reported) may be more than the time you wish to bill the client (Hours To Bill). You can write down the time by entering a lower number in the Hours To Bill box.
Generally, we believe this is better than changing the Hourly Rate, which is the standard billing rate for the timekeeper and matter. The Hourly Rate is taken from the rate table assigned to the matter.
However, RTG Bills Online allows you to change the Hourly Rate if you wish. If you do, when you save the transaction, you will see a message asking if you wish to change to the standard rate. You can click Yes to change the rate to the standard rate, or No to keep the non-standard rate.
Payments and
Adjustments
You may enter payments and adjustments for each matter.
Payments are applied to the balance due for a matter, not to a particular bill. In other words, RTG Bills Online uses a balance-forward accounts receivable system, similar to a credit card account.
For each matter, RTG Bills Online keeps a separate balance for fees, expenses, interest, and taxes, so any payments must eventually be allocated to these categories. However, automatic allocation allows you to enter the total payment amount and RTG Bills Online will do the allocation when it creates the next bill for the matter, based on the amounts due at that time.
Retainers and
Trust Accounts
RTG Bills Online can keep track of several trust accounts for each matter. Matter-level accounts are used to pay the balance due for a single matter. Client-level accounts can be used to pay the balance due for any of the client's matters.
Help Information
RTG Bills Online offers context-sensitive help on every page. Click the Help button or the Help link to open a new window with detailed information about the current page.
The Help window also has a Search feature so you can search all of the help pages.