Consolidating bills

When running Automated Billing you can choose whether to produce one bill with multiple items for the same invoicee or multiple bills for each invoicee. This is useful if clients/invoicees prefer to receive a single bill for all their matters, as opposed to individual bills for each one. This grouping of bills is known as "consolidated bills". To achieve this, there is an option on Step 3 of the Auto-billing Wizard which allows you to consolidate bills by invoicee.

To consolidate bills:

1. Run the Auto-billing Wizard and complete the Billing Batch (Step 1) and Filter options (Step 2).

2. Click Next to move to the Billing Options (Step 3) and tick Consolidate bills by invoicee.

3. Click Next to move to Matter Selection (Step 4). A list of the matters to be consolidated is displayed. This is indicated in the Consolidate column with a "Yes". Each matter is also allocated with an ID number, which relates to each invoicee. This is just an arbitrary number to show the grouping of matters, e.g. 1: Smith John Mr.

4. (Optional) All matters are consolidated by default, however the list can be manually customised by using the Consolidate radio-set. This allows you to add/remove matters on an ad hoc basis.

• To remove a matter from the consolidated bill, highlight it and click No.

• To add a matter to the consolidated bill, highlight it and click Yes.

5. Click Finish. A draft bill is created for each bill in the normal way, i.e. within an automated billing batch. However, each one is flagged as part of a consolidated bill by showing a "P" in the Part bill column of the Draft Bills tab (lower pane). Once posted, the matter ledger shows an entry for each bill, with a "P" appended to the bill number to show they are part of a consolidated bill, e.g. 123456(P).

Notes

• Draft bills can be removed from consolidated bills by modifying them and unticking the Consolidated option on the Billing Options tab of the posting slip. Similarly, bills from the same batch (i.e. those generated by the auto-billing run, but not included in the consolidated bill) can be added by modifying them and ticking the Consolidated option. The Invoicee field becomes available allowing you to select a consolidated bill. This only applies to bills generated via Automated Billing.

• The Consolidated bills by invoicee option can be set as part of a billing rule.

• Draft bills which form part of a consolidated bill can only be posted together.

• It is possible to change the invoice address associated with a consolidated bill in the Bill Viewer (Consolidated Bills > Billing tab). However, changing it affects the invoice address for all related bills for this consolidated bill.

• Part bills can also be reversed. However, all the part bills that make up the consolidated bill are reversed as well. A list of the matters to be affected by the reversal is displayed for confirmation.

• If you run Automated Billing for a client which creates a single bill, this is not a consolidated bill. If you then manually add another bill for the same invoicee it is not possible to link the bills in order to create a consolidated bill.

• If a consolidated bill is created with 2 or more bills and then modified to be un-consolidated, they cannot be re-consolidated once the penultimate bill has been un-consolidated. Where this is the case, you will need to delete the batch and re-run Automated Billing.