Activities

In Legalsense it is possible to create different activities (also called timekeeping codes). These activities can be linked to one or more activity group(s). Within Legalsense there is always a standard activity group present to which all active activities are linked. 

Adding an activity

Adding and editing activities is done in 'Settings' - 'Lists' - 'Activities'.

All active activities are visible here. 
To add a new activity click the button 'New activity'.

We will explain the fields below. The required fields are marked with *.

Name (Dutch): here you can define the Dutch description of the activity. 

Name (English): if so desired, you can define the English description of the activity here. When the language of the selected matter is set to 'English', the English activities will be shown in the time entries. In that case, these will also be included on the invoice.

Number: here you can assign a number to the activity, to be determined by you(r organization). When you choose to not fill this field, Legalsense will automatically assign a number.

Default rate *: a rate of at least € 0 must always be linked to an activity. For activities you want to see on invoices, you can set a separate (hourly) rate. See 'Activities separately priced' in Rates and pricing schemes in Legalsense for more information on how these rates are used in pricing. 

Rate factor: this field allows you to specify a factor that will be applied to the rate of the time entry. For example, if you handle an emergency outside office hours, you can create an activity called ‘Emergency Outside Office Hours’ and set a rate factor of 2.0. All time entries associated with this activity will have their rate doubled (the selected rate multiplied by 2). Conversely, if you enter a rate factor of 0.5, the value of the time entry will be reduced by 50%.

The factor field does not include a period selection, meaning any changes to the factor on the activity type will affect all time entries that have not yet been Billed (‘Work in Progress’). If you change the factor value for an activity, all related time entries will be recalculated using the updated factor. The recalculation occurs during the nightly job, when you resave the time entry, or when you create a new draft invoice. However, editing or resaving an already created draft invoice will not trigger recalculation of the time entries included in that invoice.

Separately on invoice: you can set an activity to be mentioned separately on the invoice. In that case, the time entries linked to this activity will be shown separately on the invoice at the set activity rate. The activity rate can be changed per client or matter (compared to the standard rate of the activity).

Default activity: when this option is ticked, the relevant activity will be pre-selected when entering time entries.

Availability: with this option you can for example prevent that a non-billable activity is used in a billable matter and vice versa that a billable activity is used in a non-billable matter. The options are: 'Always available', 'Billable matters only' and 'Non-billable matters only'.

Activity groups: if there is more than one activity group in your environment, you can link the activity to the desired activity group here. Within Legalsense there is always one default group of activities present to which all active activities are linked. A more detailed description of the functioning and setup of activity groups can be found in the article Activity groups.

Editing an activity

Via 'Settings' - 'Lists' - 'Activity' the active activities can also be edited. To edit an existing activity, you can click on the edit icon:

The screen to edit the activities then opens and you can make the desired changes.
You can delete an activity that you don't want to use in the future by clicking on the delete icon. In existing time entries the deleted activity will remain visible.