Using Files to Track Vacation Time and Absence Due to Illness

Amicus can help you keep track of the time you are absent due to vacation or illness. For your convenience, two Files are automatically created for each new Firm Member:

• Personal - Vacation - [Firm Member's Full Name]
• Personal - Illness - [Firm Member's Full Name]

To see these Files in the Files Index, select the Non-Billable option in the Navigation Pane.

File Index - Showing Non-Billable Files

You can add Notes, Communications, Events, Documents, etc. to these Files in order to organize your vacation requests, medical appointments, and other information.

Note that special Billing Categories are assigned to these Files:

• "Vacation - Non Billable" is assigned to the Personal-Vacation File.
• "Personal - Non Billable" is assigned to the Personal-Illness File.

If you create Time Entries using these Billing Categories, the time will be added to the Non-billable Hours totals in your Statistics view of the Time module. In particular, it will add vacation time to the Vacation Days total.

If you have already been assigned to Files for this purpose by your firm's accounting program, you will want to open the Files supplied in Amicus and change the details to match those you use now. For example, you will need to edit information in the fields that are used as the basis for matching Amicus Files with records in your accounting program (e.g. Matter ID and Client ID if you use PCLaw). You can change the names of these Files if you wish.

Keeping Track of Vacation Time or Absence Due to Illness

When you have been absent due to illness, or when you know that you will be taking time off for a vacation, create a Time Entry for each day of absence, and associate the corresponding File with each Time Entry. Do not forget to enter the appropriate number of hours in the Time Entry.

By doing so, you ensure that the projections calculated in your Statistics view will be reliable.

Vacation Day Statistics

The time you assign to Time Entries that have the "Vacation - Non Billable" Category will be used against your projected vacation days in your Statistics view, and will be counted as non-billable.

When calculating the vacation day total in the Statistics view, vacation days are defined as days that meet either of the following criteria:

• past business days that have no Time Entries
• past business days that have a vacation Time Entry and no other Time Entries

A vacation Time Entry of four hours or less is counted as a half-day vacation.

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