The left-hand screen of the Practice Manager is a tree view of your clients and their cases. From this screen you may add, update or delete client, non-client and case information. You may also view cases for a particular client or view all of the cases for all of your clients. To the left of the list of clients are tabs that you create for Contact Associations. You can use these tabs to group clients and non-clients by their association (e.g., create a tab titled witnesses for easy access to your witnesses’ phone numbers, address and other personal information).
Figure 4-2, List of Contacts
Showing and Hiding Cases
When you start SOS and view Practice Manager, the Contact Name list will only display the names of those contacts associated with the Clients tab. Non-clients will not show up on this list, unless you forgot to check the Not a client box when you created the contact’s file.
For now, make sure that the Clients tab is chosen. At the top of the list of Contact Names are two buttons: Hide Cases and Show Cases. Click Show Cases to expand the tree so all cases for all clients are showing as in Figure 4-3 below. To return to a tree view without cases showing, click Hide Cases. If you want to view the cases for one client in particular, click the plus sign to the left of the client’s name.
The cases for that particular client appear under the client’s name.
Figure 4-3, Tree View of Contacts and Cases
Contact Categories
In Chapter 3 we demonstrated how to create Contact categories. If you added tabs for Contact
categories, they will appear on the far left-hand side of the Practice Manager. If you have not yet created any Contact categories, two tabs will appear, All and Clients. Clicking on one of these tabs will show you a list of all contacts related to that tab. Therefore, if you click the Clients tab, you will get a list of clients only.
Figure 4-4, Tabs for Contact Categories
Adding Contact Information
Practice Manager is the starting point for entering client or non-client information in SOS. Once you have set up the client or non-client in the Practice Manager, you can start using their information to track cases, meetings, billing, create notes and other important tasks. Practice Manager is the
backbone of the SOS system and must be utilized in order to maximize productivity. It is a good practice for you to enter all client and non-client data in the Practice Manager to make it easier to view and/or process information.
The Contact will be Added Box
The first time you use SOS you should enter client information. Client and non-client information is originally created and stored using the New Contact box. There are three tabs along the top of the Contact will be Added box. The three tabs represent the Contact information, Billing and Categories screens, which are discussed below.
To open the Contact will be Added box in Practice Manager:
1. Click File ® Practice Manager.
2. Click New Contact.
3. The Contact will be Added box appears with the Contact information tab selected.
Contact information
The Contact information tab asks for the contact’s ID, whether the contact is a private contact for the selected staff member (user), date the contact is closed (for after the contact is no longer active with your firm) name, address, e-mail address, website address, phone numbers, salutation with full mailing
address, information related to any custom fields you may create and an override check box to allow you to save documents for this contact to the location of your choosing.
Figure 4-5, Contact information Screen Entering Contact Information
Contact information includes information regarding clients, non-clients and cases. Maintaining records for this sort of information makes it easier for you to locate and process information regarding clients, their cases, business contacts and your office. You may enter personal information for your contact on the Contact information screen.
NOTE: If you enter contact information for a person who is not a client, you should check the box titled Not a client. There is a tab on the left of the Practice Manager titled Clients. All contacts entered will show up as a client unless you check the box titled Not a client.
To complete the Contact information screen:
1. Provide a Contact ID. Contact IDs are your firm's unique identifier that you make for your contacts. Most firms use a contact or case ID to index their information.
Optional - If you checked the Private Contacts box when adding the highlighted staff member, place a check in the box titled Contact private for [sign on name of user] if you want to have this contact show up only on the contact list of the staff member whose initials you selected when assigning the private contact.
2. The Close date field is provided so you may close the contact from your active list of contacts.
Click the Calendar icon and highlight the date you want to use as the Close date. After a contact is closed, you may still view the contact's information by clicking Tools ® Closed Contacts and Cases.
3. Fill in the name fields. Prefix examples are Dr., Mr., Mrs., etc. Suffix examples are Esq., Jr., Sr., etc.
a. If the contact is a business, place a check in the box titled Business name. The Name field appears for entering the business' name.
b. If the contact is not a client, place a check in the box titled Not a client. This disables the New Case button that appears on the Practice Manager screen.
4. In the Address section, type the contact's address. The first two fields are for the street address.
You also have fields to input the city, state, zip code, e-mail address and web site address.
5. In the section titled Phones, add any phone numbers that you have for this contact.
a. Click New or Update to add or change phone numbers.
b. A drop-down arrow appears in the Type field. Clicking the drop-down arrow will display a box with the different phone types.
c. Click the phone type you want.
d. Enter the phone number for that phone type.
6. In the section titled Correspondence, enter a salutation (e.g., Dear Mrs. Doe), the Full Envelope Address for the contact will show up after you click tab or Refresh. The contact's mailing address will appear in the Full Envelope Address field.
7. If you have set up any custom fields, you may input the information in the corresponding field.
8. If you would like to override where your documents for this contact are stored, place a check in the Override box and enter the directory that you want the documents saved under in the field titled Folder.
Billing
The Billing tab is where you enter a contact’s basic billing information. This screen is disabled if Billing has not been enabled in Setup. If the contact has a billing address that is different from their main address, there is a section in which you may enter the billing address so the contact’s bills are sent to the correct address.
To complete the remaining fields on the Billing screen that were not automatically completed when you entered information on the Contact information screen:
1. Click the Billing tab.
2. Enter the billing address if it is different from the address you provided on the Contact information screen.
3. Place a check in the Hold Flag box if you want to place the contact's billing on hold.
4. Place a check in the Pro bono Client box if you are providing this contact Pro Bono services.
5. Place a check in the Suppress Delinquency Message on Bill box if you do not want delinquency messages to appear on this contact's bill.
6. In the Client Hourly Rate field enter the amount that you are charging the contact for your services on an hourly basis.
7. You may change the billing messages that appear on your bill by clicking the Client Billing Messages button and changing the messages in the box that appears.
8. In the box titled Primary attorney or staff, click the drop-down arrow and choose the person that you want to manage this case (e.g., when a pre-bill is printed or viewed, the primary attorney or staff member's sign-on name will appear on the printout so they may be given the bills to review).
Figure 4-6, Billing Screen
Categories
The Categories tab allows you to associate contacts with cases. This is very handy when you want to know which contacts are involved with the case on which you are working.
To complete the fields on the Categories tab:
1. Click the Categories tab.
2. Click the Select button that appears in the Categories section of the screen.
3. The Select Categories – Click to select… box appears.
4. Highlight the category or categories that you want to attach to your contact.
5. Click OK.
6. Your contact is now associated with those category tab or tabs you chose that appear on the left side of the Practice Manager. Next time you are in the Practice Manager and click the category tabs that you associated the contact with, you will be able to more quickly find the contact.
To exit the Contact Information box, click OK.
Figure 4-7, Categories Screen