This article will review various menu options inside the ledger tab shown below (Noted by the dollar sign) inside personal injury cases, as well as adding damages and settlement information. This article will explain how to create invoices and pay bills related to the damages and settlement information.
Add Damages to your Case
The damages section can be found within the submenu of the Case Ledger tab (displayed as a dollar sign) within a case. This section allows firms to enter in line items such as police report or medical record fees, emotional distress, loss of wages, and more.
1. Inside a personal injury case, click the Ledger $ Tab. Click Damages.
2. Select the New Line Item button.
3. Fill out the information and enter a description toward the bottom of this page. You can select the Other damage type, if you would like to note a line item that does not correspond with the other types. After clicking Save in the top right corner, the totals will appear at the bottom of the Damages page.
Creating Bills from the Damages
1. Inside a personal injury case, click the Ledger $ Tab. Click Damages.
2. Click the blue box with three dots, next to the line item. Select Create Bill from this Entry.
3. You can fill out the amount due, the payee, the account it is payable from, a memo, and upload an image or file of the bill itself.
Note: Once the bill is saved, it will appear in the Ledger $ Tab > Client Account Bills. If you click the blue button next to the item, then select Pay Bill, you will receive an error message that the account is empty. Once you add money from the settlements, you can pay each bill.
Settlements
1. Inside a personal injury case, click the Ledger $ Tab. Click Settlements.
2. Select the Add Settlement button. Here, you can enter the total amount of the settlement. At the bottom of the page you can enter dates, such as the date settled, date received, date approved, date distributed, etc.
Note: The fields for Legal Fee (Amount) and Legal Fee (%) will update and match when an amount or percentage is entered. For instance, if the amount is entered for $500.00 on a settlement with a gross amount of $3,000.00, the percentage field will automatically be calculated to 16.67% and vice versa.
This also means that if the gross amount needs to be edited after the amount has been entered, the legal fee amount and percentage will also update accordingly.
You can refer to the information you entered in the Damages section, to determine the amount for the Medical Cost field.
Fill in all information that pertains to the settlement and click Save. A settlement can be created without every field being filled out, and entered as a placeholder to be edited later.
Creating Invoices and Paying Bills
1. Once you have added a settlement, in the Ledger $ Tab > Settlements area of the personal injury case, select the New Invoice (Demand) button, located to the right of the Gross Amount section.
2. You will receive the following pop-up message, showing the total settlement amount in red. Click Create Invoice.
3. When you receive payments, go to the Ledger $ Tab > Client Account Ledger. Click the Add Funds button on the left.
4. Enter the amount paid, the payor, payment method, and other information. Select the Retainer/Prepayment checkbox and save.
5. In the Ledger $ Tab > Settlements, next to Legal Fee, click the New Bill button to create a bill for the attorney legal fees.
6. In the Ledger $ Tab > Client Account Bills section, select the blue button to the left of the line item. Click Pay Bill.
7. The Amount will default in on this page, based on the values in the Legal Fee (%) and Legal Fee (Amount) fields inside the settlement section. You can also edit the Amount here and enter the payment method, ledger description, ledger type, and more.
In the Ledger $ Tab > Client Account Ledger section, the Credit is the total amount of the settlement. The debit is the cost of the damages such as medical fees, loss of wages, etc. The balance is how much is left over.