Online Help is available from the Help menu in Amicus Accounting. If necessary, contact Gavel & Gown Technical Support at 416 977-6633.

Amicus Accounting enables you to record Client name and contact information including address, phone numbers, e-mail addresses and matter descriptions. You can also enter notes on the File, billing contacts and diary report items. This information is entered in the Client Matter Details screen. With the exception of the Client Matter ID (which uniquely identifies the File and cannot be changed) you can edit all the Client File information at any time.

Transactions that can be posted to a Client File include fees for services rendered (time entry); Client expenses such as photocopies, courier charges, and medical bills, Accounts Receivable invoices and payments, and trust receipts and checks. To post time, choose Time, New Time Entry. To post Client expenses (disbursements), choose Expenses, New Expense Entry. To post invoices, choose Billing, Create Bills. To post receipts of payment, choose Receipts, Receipts. To post receipts of trust funds choose Trust, Receipts, and to post trust checks, choose Trust, Trust Checks.

You can also post time, expense and Accounts Receivable write-offs, trust transfers, time and expense transfers, trust transfers to pay A/R, interest, and firm checks.

For information on a specific posting function, look up its name in the online Help's index.

WIP stands for Work In Progress. In Amicus Accounting, WIP means unbilled fees or Client expenses.

The WIP balance on a Client File is increased when you post fee or expense transactions and is decreased when you post billings. Depending on your accounting method, you might also have General Ledger control accounts for WIP Fees and WIP Expense.

Most posting programs allow you to edit saved entries before you post them. In the posting program, click View Unposted Transactions to see transactions you have saved but have not yet posted. Click the transaction that you want to modify and click Edit Make your changes and click Save.

Some posting programs only allow you to delete a saved entry and then re-enter it. These posting programs are Firm Receipts, Bills, and Accounts Receivable Write-offs. If you need to make a correction, click View Unposted Transactions to see transactions you have saved but have not yet posted. Click the transaction that you want to correct and click Delete. Then re-enter the transaction.

Expenses affect your client recoverable expense accounts (if you use the Cash accounting method) or WIP (if you use the Modified Cash or Accrual accounting method).

When you post an expense entry to a client file with an expense General Ledger account and then post a firm check to the expense account to pay for the expense, the net affect is a debit to your WIP Expenses and a credit to your general bank. The net affect on your client expenses is zero unless you pay out more or less than what was charged to the client. For example, if you post a $100 expense to the client but pay $150 with a firm check, there is a net expense to the firm of $50. The client recoverable expense accounts in your General Ledger reflect the recovered client expenses.

In summary, law firms provide a service so (in theory) make money on fees. Expenses (in theory) are charged back to the client. If you pay out more for the expense than what was posted to the client's WIP, it affects the client (recovered) disbursement expense accounts and increases the expenses to the firm. If you bill more than what was posted to WIP, this affects your Billed Expense Revenue and increases your firm revenue.

Post the check in the normal manner, entering the check date as the future date. The check will not appear on your Outstanding Check List until that date. If you enter a date that is in a month other than your default posting month, Amicus Accounting will warn you but you will be able to continue. You cannot post to more than one month in the same posting batch, and you cannot post into a future year.

Use the Trust Transfer to A/R program to transfer client trust funds to credit the client's account receivable.

In Amicus Accounting 2008, the following methods are available for transferring trust to pay A/R:

• Use the Trust Transfer to pay A/R in the Trust module. It is now a one step process. The trust check and firm receipt will be posted. Select the Bank Account you want to deposit the trust check to and the journal entry will complete the transaction. Printing a Client Receipt is optional.
• In the Finals Bills view of the Create Bills function, the trust check and firm receipt will be posted if you select the Post Trust to Pay A/R option. Select the Bank Account you want to deposit the trust check to and the journal entry will complete the transaction. Printing a Client Receipt is optional.

There are a few ways of handling this:

• Post the entire amount including the overpayment to the client file and leave a credit on the client file A/R balance to offset future bills. To do this, post the entire amount of the payment as a receipt. You might want to post this as two entries - post one entry for the amount required to pay the invoice, and then post another as the overpayment and indicate this in the description of the firm receipt. This leaves a credit on the client's A/R balance and deposits the entire amount to your general bank.
• Post the difference to the client's WIP to offset unbilled expense entries. To do this, post a regular firm receipt for the amount required to pay the invoice. Then, post another receipt selecting the Unbilled Expenses option on the firm receipt screen. This posts the credit to the client's WIP expenses balance (reducing the expense balance) and deposits the payment in your general bank.
• Post the difference to the client's WIP and then writes a firm check to reimburse the client for the difference. Use this option if you want to reimburse the client for the excess amount. Follow the instructions above to pay the outstanding invoice and post the excess to the client's Unbilled Expense balance. This posts a credit to the client's WIP expenses balance. Then, post a firm check to the client file for the amount of the excess. This offsets the amount of the receipt to the WIP expenses, (leaving the expenses balance back where you started), and removes the excess funds from your general bank.

In Amicus Accounting 2008, the Enter Receipts function allows you to enter the total payment once. Select the bills to pay and any overpayment will be displayed as an Unused Payment. You have following ways to handle the overpayment:

• Apply as a credit on the account, which will generate a negative A/R that can be applied at a later date.
• Issue a refund check.
• Apply to a selected trust account.

Reverse the receipt. This will credit the General Ledger account for your bank and will reinstate the A/R on the client file. You cannot reverse a receipt that has been cleared in the Bank Reconciliation Program or posted to a client file that has been closed.

1. Click Receipts, Receipts.
2. Select Reverse Receipts.
3. Select the general bank account number the original receipt was posted to.
4. Enter the date on which you want the reversal to appear.
5. Select the client file or General Ledger account number the receipt was posted to.
6. Select the invoice/reference number of the receipt to be reversed. It is important that you use the original reference number because Accounts Receivable transactions are grouped and aged by reference number.
7. The original amount will display automatically. You cannot edit this amount.
8. Click Save, and then click Post.

The New Expense entry, Firm Check and Invoice Entry programs calculate tax based on the tax settings on the individual expense codes and on the tax settings on the client files. The expense code tax settings are configured in the Lists, Expense Codes screen. Print your list of codes and review them before making changes. Don't make changes to expense codes after you have posted using them.

There are two types of taxable codes: those in which tax is included in the amount you enter, and those in which it is not. For example, if you enter $10 in the posting program, do you want tax to be calculated on top of the $10 (i.e. for a total of $10.70, if the tax rate is 7%) or is tax to be broken out so that the total remains at $10 including tax? Review your list of codes and ensure that the setting for Tax Included is set correctly, either to a Y or an N.

If you don't want tax to be calculated on an expense code at all, set the Tax 1, Tax 2, and Tax Included settings to N.

The tax setting on client files also determines whether tax will be calculated when posting to that file. Click Clients, Client Matter Details and locate a file that should not have tax calculated. Click the Matter Details tab and check the Tax 1 and Tax 2 settings in the lower left corner. If the file is nontaxable ensure these are set to N. The tax setting on the client file overrides the settings on the expense codes - you can post to a client file marked as nontaxable using a taxable expense code and tax will not be calculated.

Expense codes are also used by the Firm Checks posting program. Client expenses posted using the New Expense Entry posting program will be summarized by expense code (except for codes 0 and 999, see below) on client invoices. Client expenses posted using the Firm Checks posting program will be itemized on client invoices.

Here are the settings to use for the various types of expense codes.

Expense codes 0 and 999 are default codes and should not be modified or deleted. They don't have a predefined description; you will type your own description when you post using them. Use code 0 if you want to record an expense that is Tax 1 taxable, where Tax 1 is included in the amount of the expense, and on which you want to type your own description. Use code 999 if you want to record an expense that is not Tax 1 taxable, on which you want to type your own description. Code 0 should be set up with Tax1 = Y, Tax2 = N, and Tax Included = Y. Code 999 should be set up with Tax1 = N, Tax2 = N, and Tax Included = N. Expenses posted using codes 0 or 999 are itemized on client invoices; they are not grouped by expense code.

Most likely, the transaction is marked for billing. To check, go to the Account Inquiry screen and view the client file. Click either the Time or the Expenses details tab, depending on the type of transaction you are trying to write off. Find the transaction, and scroll to the right until you see the Stat column. If there is a small "p" in this field, or a "p" followed by a number, this means the transaction is marked (also called pre-billed) for billing. You need to unmark it before you can write it off. To unmark time or expense transactions:

1. Click Billing, Create Bills.
2. Click the Draft Bills tab. You will need to change the status of the bill to draft if it is in Apply Payments/Transfers or Final Bills tab.
3. Click the Time button to unmark time entries or click the Exp. button to unmark expense entries.
4. Marked entries will be highlighted in green. Double-click the transaction or click on it and press Enter to unmark it. Click Deselect All to unmark all the entries.
5. Then close the Create Bills screen WITHOUT posting.

When you are posting an A/R Write-off, the "Invoice to Write off" total must equal the "Distribution to G/L" total. The Invoice to write off amounts represents how the write-off will be posted to the client file. The Distribution to G/L amounts represent how the write-off will be posted to the General Ledger. The total of the two must match.

Therefore, if you edit the Invoice to write off amounts, for example, to do a partial write-off, you must also edit the Distribution to G/L amounts.

You can write off invoices using the Accounts Receivable Write-off program.

1. Click Receipts, A/R Write-offs.
2. Enter the date of the write-off, click to select the date from the calendar, or press Enter to use the current system date. To post to a date in your prior year enter the date and then enter the previous year adjustments password when prompted.
3. Enter the client number.
4. Click the Invoice No. list or select from the list of the client's outstanding invoices.
5. Type a description for the write-off or press Enter to use the default.
6. Enter the amount of fees to be written off or press Enter to accept the default.
7. Enter the amount of expenses to be written off or press Enter to accept the default.
8. Enter the amount of taxes to be written off or press Enter to accept the default.
9. Click Save.
10. Type A to prorate the fees to the responsible lawyer, type P to prorate them based on the invoice or type M to manually allocate them to more than one lawyer. If you enter M, enter the lawyer number and the amount to distribute to him/her. Continue until the balance remaining is zero.
11. Continue entering write-offs or click Post.

You cannot write a check off term trust funds. Instead, use the Trust Receipts posting program to transfer the funds to regular trust. Follow these steps:

1. Post the amount to the interest bearing trust account through Trust Receipts so that the balance in Amicus Accounting matches the closing balance of the interest bearing account at the bank.
2. Post a negative receipt (type a negative sign and then the number; Amicus Accounting will automatically change this to a positive number) to the interest bearing trust account through Trust Receipts to reverse the trust from the interest bearing trust account.
3. Post a regular receipt to the pooled trust account through Trust Receipts to transfer the trust from the interest bearing account to the pooled trust account.

Amicus Accounting's flexible billing program enables you to generate statements of account either for individual client files, for all client files by name, matter number or file number, and by any combination of Responsible or Assigned Lawyer, file type, and billing cycle. You can automatically post payments from trust without using the Transfer to A/R program and you can automatically post and print trust checks and print client receipts. Other options include the ability to save draft bills and print a summary report of the drafts, and to print a summary report of the final bills. You can also exclude files based on a minimum amount owing, include non-billable time on the bill and print envelopes.

1. Click Billing, Create Bills, Bill single Client tab and enter the date and client number.
2. Click on Save to Draft Bills.
3. Go to Save to Draft Bills tab. Click the Exp button on the middle of the screen, below the upper table. The client's unbilled expenses will display. You will need to ensure that only the transaction you want to bill for is marked. Click Deselect All to unmark all the transactions, and then check the entry you want to bill for.
4. The Exp column on the upper table will automatically be updated with just the amount of the expense you marked.
5. Click the Create Final Bills button. On the Final Bills tab, select Post Bills checkbox and other desired options. The client's WIP will be reduced by the amount of the expense you billed, and the transaction will no longer be outstanding.