Release 22.05 - May 2022 – Legalsense

The Legalsense update of May 2022 has version number 22.05 and includes the following changes:

Writing off time

Writing off time in Legalsense has always been possible by saving a time entry as ‘written-off’. As this applied to the entire time entry, writing off a part of an entry meant you had to split or duplicate the entry. In this update, Legalsense introduces the option to change the billable time of a time entry while keeping the written time unchanged. This allows you to write for example four hours on a specific matter and task, but only bill three of those hours. One hour will be considered written off.

This partial write-off can be made available when editing time entries or only in the billing process: when editing time entries on an invoice. The current ‘Time’ field is renamed to ‘Written time’ and a new ‘Billable time' field is added. The billable time value can only be equal to or less than the written time: you cannot use this to add more ‘billable time’ than what you have saved as ‘written time’.

If your firm is using the billing workflow, responsible users that are assigned to an invoice can be blocked from editing the written time and only be allowed to change the billable time.

On an invoice - in the default invoice templates - only the billable time is displayed.

If you would like to use this new functionality, please contact Legalsense support. N.B. If we activate this function in your Legalsense, we cannot deactivate it anymore.

legalsense-partial-write-off-invoice-edit-time-entries.png

Related changes:

When editing a time entry, a field ‘Billable time’ is available for users with the permit to write off time entries with billable time.
When editing time entries on an invoice, a field ‘Billable time’ is added next to the column ‘Written time’ (renamed from ‘Time’).
Two new permits are introduced: can_write_off_on_time_entry_with_billable_minutes and can_write_off_with_billable_minutes. The existing permits for ‘writing off’ have been renamed and are now called: can_write_off_on_time_entry_with_billable_status and can_write_off_with_billable_status. The permits that have billable_minutes in the name, control whether a user can edit the billable time value of a time entry. The permits that have billable_status in the name, control whether a user can write off the time entry as a whole: by changing the status of the time entry to ‘written off’.
N.B. the write_off_on_time_entry permits can only be used in combination with the other permits. In other words: in order to write off time when editing time entries, you need both the write_off_on_time_entry permit and the corresponding can_write_off_ permit.

Changing the ‘total minutes’ of a group of time entries on a draft invoice without changing the actual time entries is disabled, as this could cause problems in the correct processing of time. By using the new ‘partial write-off' options, you can still bill a different time value than what was written.

Flowmailer

The emails that Legalsense sends are processed by a third-party email provider. At the end of 2021, we added support for Flowmailer as a second email provider. In this update, we made it easier to switch between the two email providers: Postmark and Flowmailer. We recommend that all European customers change their Legalsense configuration to use Flowmailer. Flowmailer has been added as a ‘subprocessor’ in our default data processing agreement. If you switch from Postmark to Flowmailer, please note that you will be using Flowmailer through your usage of Legalsense, and be aware that they are a subprocessor. This information is to be read as a notification in terms of Article 4.2. of the DPA. Flowmailer is GDPR compliant. For more information about how to switch to Flowmailer, please refer to this article: Change email provider from Postmark to Flowmailer.

Billing

It is now possible to split invoices over multiple debtors and have that invoice consist of multiple matters. For example, you have a Notary and a Lawyer matter that you need to bill on one invoice and it needs to be split over multiple debtors. When using ‘billing groups’ in Legalsense, the debtor settings of the main matter will be used for split billing.
A column ‘Original’ is added next to the ‘amount’ column when editing time entries on an invoice. This column shows the value of the time entry as it was on invoice creation.
The button that is used to write off time on a draft invoice has been renamed from “Mark as non-billable” to “Write off”. This button is shown below the time entries when you edit these on a draft invoice.
We have made sure that when the “Send” button of invoice emails is clicked more than once in rapid succession the email is only sent once.
Organization numbers and Peppol ID’s are included in the UBL template of an invoice when available. Peppol ID’s can be added to a debtor in Legalsense when using the integration with eConnect.

Billing workflow

In the billing workflow, when viewing a single draft invoice, the responsibility of a task can be passed by the responsible user to another user by using the ‘Pass responsibility’ button. A "Back to me" checkbox has been added to the ‘Pass responsibility’ dialog which means that the invoice task will be assigned back to the user that checked the box instead of continuing with the next workflow step after approval.
It is now possible to make the comment field required when the invoice safety limit of threshold in the billing workflow is passed and the ‘Approve by boss' step is triggered. If the comment field is configured as 'required’, the user will be forced to add a comment before the invoice is sent for approval by the practice group head or managing partner. Please contact Legalsense support if you want to enable this option.

Clients,matters,contacts

Debtor contacts have multiple fields for email addresses and those emails can be ‘labeled’ as a specific type. To specify that an email address should be used for billing reminders (dunning) there is a type ‘Dunning to’. In addition to the ‘Dunning to’ field, a ‘Dunning cc’ is added to indicate who should receive a copy of billing reminders. Please note that both these values are only used when exchanging data with external accounting or dunning software. The ‘Dunning to’ and ‘Dunning cc’ fields are not used when sending invoice email reminders from Legalsense.
The 'dunning cc’ field is also added to the API.

Reports

The short name of a practice group can be used as a grouping in reports. This short name can for example be used when comparing data between Legalsense and accounting software.

Users

The Users section is re-styled into the same layout as the Settings section. This layout is more responsive and gives more flexibility. We are slowly changing the entire application to this new look and feel.
The User List has a search field for filtering on name. There is also a filter for ‘Status’. The result will show all users who match your search. The Excel export will also be limited to your search results.

Settings

Matter statuses and client statuses can be edited in 'Settings - Lists'. A user needs to have the right permission to manage this list. Please contact Legalsense support to add these permissions if needed.
Legalsense installations that use Chinese Walls for their practice groups can select a Chinese Wall kind when creating a new practice group. After the practice group is created, this value cannot be changed anymore.

Others

The integration with NetDocuments supports saving finalized invoices in the corresponding NetDocuments workspaces. If an invoice is in the NetDocuments queue but can’t be processed due to an error, it is skipped to continue with the other elements in the queue. The skipped invoices will be processed after the error has been resolved.
The password reset link you receive by email when using the “Forgot password” function, is valid for 48 hours instead of the previous 72 hours. This also applies to the link in the “Welcome email” that can be sent to (new) users.

API

APIv1 supports the ‘Peppol_ID’ fields for contacts. This field is relevant for firms that are using the eConnect (Peppol) integration.
A quick search option is added to the matter endpoint of APIv2.
The dunning_cc field is added to API v1 and v2.