Bill Request Overview 

1. In Insight, a bill request can be created by anyone using the Case Enquiry screen. This produces a bill document and posts a bill request that the accounts department can post
2. Once you have clicked Submit at the top left, the Bill Request will show on the ledger in green until the accounts department posts it. Once the bill is approved and posted, it will show on the ledger in black

Case Enquiry Screen

1. To create a bill request, go Cases>Case Enquiry and open a Matter.
2. Click Bill Request, this will be greyed out if there is nothing to charge
3. This will then open a new tab for you to complete the bill request

1. Enter the relevant Date, Ref and Description. The Ref field is used to store the bill number. This can be manually typed in, or you can turn on Auto Bill Numbering within your System Settings, which will mean the bill numbers automatically populate in the bill posting screen

1. If you are not time recording on the system, or if no time recording needs to be picked up on the bill, you will need to enter the correct value in the Costs field and check that the VAT rate is correct. If the VAT amount calculated is not right, you can overtype this with the relevant amount

1. If you need to include disbursements on the bill, this is done at a later stage, so the Disbs and Disbs VAT fields will both be 0.00

1. If you ticked ‘Auto Select Time’ in the last tab, you will see in this tab that Insight has only selected time entries up to the value that has been entered in the Costs field
2. You can choose to do this by selecting Whole Entries by Date or Part Bill All
3. This will leave the remaining time entries outstanding to be billed or written off at a later date
4. Alternatively, you can click Write off Remaining which will write off the remaining portion of any entries with the Include tickbox marked

1. For example, the below posting will write off the £992.50 outstanding on the last selected entry but will leave the remaining £350.00 entry outstanding
2. If you need to add more entries to the write off, you need to turn off Auto Select Time and tick the remaining entries

Billing for a specific date range 

1. If you need to bill all entries within a specific date range, you can enter the date range and then click All as shown below. This will then only select entries within the range provided, so you can just double check the Time value shown at the bottom of the screen

Billing all time entries

1. If you need to bill all entries on the matter, you need to click AlL (leaving the date range blank) and ensure you are happy with the totals 

Billing specific entries

1. If you only have specific entries to select, you can tick next to the relevant entries to include them on the bill

Billing fixed fees (without writing off)

1. If you need to bill for a set amount but do not wish to use the Auto Select Time function (i.e. if you do not want to write off the time or leave it outstanding but instead wish to mark the time as fully billed), you will first need to select the time entries you are billing using one of the above methods. Once this is done, you then need to overtype the Costs amount as shown below

1. You can see that the Time value has remained the same, meaning the time entries will be marked as having been billed in full, but the actual Costs amount the client will be charged has been amended to the reduced value. This would also work if you increased the value in the Costs field instead of decreasing it

Manually amending the 'To Bill' amount

1. If you need to amend the amount to be billed on specific time entries (either to leave it outstanding or write off the remaining amount), you can manually overtype the amount shown in the ‘To Bill’ column as shown below

Disbursements Tab

1. This tab will show you any unbilled disbursements posted with the O4 Office Disbursement posting type. You can also add prebilled disbursements to this screen
2. To include a disbursement on the bill, tick the ‘Include’ tickbox and check the VAT rate and amount are correct

1. You will see the Disbs totals at the bottom update
2. Please note that the VAT rate you select for each disbursement must be one of the following options:

                  - The X - No VAT rate (this might be called ‘EX - Exempt’ instead)

                  - The O - Outside Scope of VAT rate

                  - The same as the VAT rate selected in the Details tab

 

**If you need to add a prebilled disbursement to the bill (i.e. you are billing this disbursement to your client before you pay it out of your bank), you will need to right click and click Add**

 

1. You will then need to fill in the details of this disbursement

Client Disbs Tab

1. This tab allows you to pick up any client disbursements you wish to include in your bill document if your bill template is set up to include client disbursements. These would have been posted using the C4 Client Disbursement posting type
2. Selecting a client disbursement in this tab will not impact the total of the bill and will, therefore, not affect the amount due from the client for this bill

 

Allocation Tab

1. This tab allows you to view and amend the fee earner allocation of this bill. Insight defaults to allocate the Cost amount to the fee earner(s) based on the time picked up on the bill. However, if there is no time on the bill, it will allocate the Costs amount to the fee earner responsible for the matter
2. You can change how the bill is allocated using the dropdown list

1. Alternatively, you can manually amend the figures as long as the total allocation matches the Cost amount of the bill. To add other fee earners to the allocation, right click and ‘Add’

1. You then need to select the relevant fee earner and enter the correct amounts

 

Document Tab

1. If you have a bill template set up on the system and wish to produce a bill document for this posting, you can select the template you want to use in this screen. You will then need to confirm the details of the document and which client it will be addressed to

1. This document will be produced when you click Submit at the top left of the screen so that you can click Next

Summary Tab 

1. This tab shows you any warnings relating to the information input in the other tabs. Once you have reached this screen and checked the warnings, you can then click Submit to send the bill through for review by the accounts department

 

1. If you selected a template within the Document tab, the document for the bill would now be generated and saved to the matter