Release 21.05 - May 2021

The Legalsense update of May 2021 has version number 21.05 and has the following changes:

Contacts / Clients/ Matters

• An organization's contact displays the status of the contact when the person is 'Archived' or 'Deleted'. This status is also displayed when the contact person is part of an organization as a contact on a matter.
• When performing a `Conflict check` it is possible to search on the VAT number.
• In the AML matter, under the Documents section, the field 'Verified by' has been replaced by the fields 'Verified locally by' and 'Verified externally by'. When adding a document, you can record the internal and/or external verification data and dates.

Billing

• It is possible to change the date or the invoice template for several draft invoices at once. In the Invoice list, the button 'Update draft' has been renamed to 'Update' and in the dropdown choices for this button you will find the option 'Update with new entries' (previously 'Update draft') and 'Update fields'. This option has been added to make it easier, for example, to update all drafts created on the first day of the month with the date of the last day of the previous month.
• The billing instructions are displayed on a finalized invoice under the additional information (button with icon "i"). For draft invoices, the billing instructions are still displayed at the top of the invoice and at the top of the invoice in edit mode.
• If there are several matters on an invoice, you can change the order in which matters are displayed (in the specification) by using the green arrow icons next to the matter name, when editing the invoice.
• In the billing workflow, it is now possible to set the client's account manager as the responsible user (who reviews the invoice) in the first or (optional) second step. For the first or second step (review) of the billing workflow, it is now possible to set: billing supervisor, matter supervisor (supervising lawyer/fee earner), and the account manager of the client. You can contact Legalsense support if you want to change the settings of the billing workflow.
• In the billing workflow, when one of the responsible fee earners, in the case of a draft invoice with multiple matters with different responsible fee earners, approved the draft invoice, the related draft invoice disappeared from the task list of the other responsible fee earners and moved on to the next step (e.g. 'Final Check Financial Administration'). The billing workflow has been adjusted so that if one responsible fee earner approves the draft invoice, the task will move onto the remaining responsible fee earners. When all responsible fee earners have approved the draft invoice, it will proceed to the next step (e.g. 'Final check Financial Administration'). This does not apply if you choose 'Bill later' or submit the invoice to another fee earner ('Pass responsibility').
• The export to Excel of the Invoice list has been extended with the column 'Due date'.
• Generating an invoice with a distribution over multiple debtors sometimes took a lot of time. The performance of this action has been improved.

Reporting

• The items (graphs/tables) that are displayed in the various dashboards can be configured individually. The available dashboards in Legalsense are Personal dashboard, Practice group dashboard, Leverage team dashboard, Firm dashboard. Please contact Legalsense support, if you want to change the current settings in the dashboards.
• In a similar way to the dashboards, the structure of the performance overviews (Performance report) can also be configured individually. This allows you to differentiate between what is shown on a personal performance overview and what is shown on a firm or group overview. Please contact Legalsense support, if you want to change the current settings in the performance overviews.
• In the dashboards, the graphs with cumulative billed revenue could also show the data from the previous year. In addition to the previous year, you can now add the data from two years ago to these graphs as well. If you want to activate this setting, please contact Legalsense support.
• In reports based on the billed amounts (report type: 'All billed amounts, including disbursements, advances and tax'), a filter and grouping field is added for the 'Invoice due date'.
• Under Reports in the main menu, the submenu 'User Rates' has been added. This view shows the current standard rate of all users. If you have Practice groups configured in your Legalsense environment, those are also shown.
• The filters for practice groups, leverage teams, and offices have been expanded with the option 'current user'. This applies specifically to the fields: "Matter supervisor - practice group", "Matter - practice group", "Timekeeper - practice group", "Leverage team", "Office, "Matter supervisor - office", and "Contact account manager - office". If a report is filtered based on this option, the user viewing the report will only see the data associated with his/her current practice group, leverage team, or office. This option is always based on the current group of the user.

Integration with financial accounting software

• The Exact Online integration is expanded with the option to have the debtor number determined by Exact Online instead of Legalsense. Because creditor and/or debtor numbers were issued by both Legalsense and Exact Online, this could result in a synchronization error with a message that the value already existed.
• The integration with Fortnox is expanded with the option to also send the invoices in PDF from Legalsense to Fortnox.

Miscellaneous

• A new email notification is available: 'Daily personal missing hours email'. You can set this email notification based on missing hours from 'Today', 'Yesterday', or 'Past five work days'. Customers who already have a daily missing hours email configured can contact Legalsense support to switch to this new version.
• In the search result when searching for Disbursements, a column 'Creditor' has been added when you use creditors in your Legalsense environment. This column is also included in the Excel export of disbursements.
• In the security settings the field 'Minimum password length' has been added so that you can configure this setting yourself. A password must consist of at least 8 characters and preferably 12 or more characters. The default setting is 12 characters. You can find this password length setting at 'Settings - Security - Account settings'. If an existing user chooses 'Forgot password' when logging in, the new password will have to meet the minimum length set within your organization.