Smart Time Capture helps firms make timekeeping faster, easier, and more consistent by connecting billable activities in MerusCase to preset rules for time entry. When configured by your firm, common activities such as tasks, calendar events, emails, and notes can prompt users with prefilled time entry details like default hours, descriptions, and billing codes, reducing the effort needed to record time. MerusCase also provides a centralized view of billable activities so users can quickly review which activities already have time entered and identify any that are still missing, helping ensure more billable time is captured and less time slips through the cracks.
The My Time Capture page provides a centralized view of case-related activities that require time entry under your firm’s Preset Billing Rules. By default, it displays activities from the past 14 days that you created or that were created on your cases, provided they include an activity tag linked to a Preset Billing Rule. You can access this page from the Cases menu.
The Firm Time Capture page provides similar information, with visibility for activities across all case files in your firm. This page is only available to Power Users with Accounting and Administrators.
Preset Billing Rules are set up by your firm to determine which activities prompt for ledger entry and how that time should be recorded - i.e. what information is prefilled in that entry. These rules help ensure billable work is captured consistently, while reducing manual entry for users.
Logging Time for Billable Activities
Once Preset Billing rules are set up in your firm, you can continue creating case activities as normal. When an activity includes a tag linked to a Preset Billing Rule, you’ll be prompted to apply Preset info on a related time entry when that activity is saved.
Default hours, ledger descriptions, and billing codes are automatically prefilled based on the Preset rule, allowing for efficient time tracking. You can easily adjust any of these details before saving the ledger entry.
If time is not logged when an activity is created, the My Time Capture or Firm Time Capture page will show 0 hours for that activity, making it easy to see which activities still need time recorded. Click the “+” icon on the activity row to log time.
Even if time has already been recorded, you can log additional time entries for an activity by clicking the + icon. If multiple time entries are linked to the same activity, you can expand the row to view each individual ledger entry. Use Expand All to view details for all activities on the page.
To edit a time entry, click on the Edit button (pencil icon) next to the case ledger, make the necessary changes and click Save & Close.
Note: Case ledgers that have been reviewed, invoiced, or exported cannot be edited.