Who can use this feature?
👤 Clients who have the Spend Management capability enabled
🔑 Needs the 'Time administrator' permission enabled
Time management enables you to review the time batches posted by your in-house legal team, and convert them into PDF invoices.
In this article:
Working with Time Batches
First, ensure that you have the "Time administrator" enabled for your profile.
You will also need to have Spend Managment enabled for your organization.
To get started, click the Time Management icon in the left admin bar. Learn how to enable time entry permission by clicking here.
A list of time batches is displayed, along with the current status of each batch. An active batch can have time posted against it. An open batch is not able to receive new time entries, but can still be worked on for invoicing. A closed batch is one that is no longer in use.
There will always be an "Active" batch for receiving new time entries. When you open a new batch, it automatically moves the previous batch from Active to Open.
Use the ellipsis buttons on the right to adjust the status as required.
Select the time batch you wish to work on. Within the batch, you will see the individual time entries along with the status of each of these. Check out this article to learn more about time entries.
Within the active time batch, click on the matter name to edit the time entry. Alternatively, if you wish to remove any of the time entries from the batch, hover over the Matter name for the relevant time entry and click the ellipsis button to display the Unpost option.
How to generate invoices from time batches
To create an invoice, select the desired time entry. You can select multiple time entries for different matters at once.
With the time entries checkbox(es) selected, click the Create Invoices button.
Once the invoice has been generated, you can open the invoice batch.
At the bottom of the invoice batch, select each individual invoice to display a range of action options, allowing you to either Send, Download, or Delete the invoice.
Hitting the Send button conveniently enables you to email a copy of the invoice directly from here.
Click the Post batch button in the top right to post the invoices contained in this batch to their respective matters. LawVu will notify the relevant matter owners and billing contacts. Alternatively, you can save the invoice batch and easily access it later if necessary.
The invoice is now visible within the Invoice Tab of the relevant matter/s.
Once the invoice has been posted, it is listed as Pending until approved by the relevant Matter Owner.
Within Time Management in the left-hand admin bar, the Time Entry Administrator will now see the invoice batch listed as Billed until payment has been received and the invoices have been approved by the Matter Owner. Once this occurs the batch will display as Paid.
The PDF invoice can be reviewed at any stage by clicking the little invoice icon to the right of the matter name.
How to create a single invoice from multiple time batches posted against the same matter
It may be that you wish to compile a single invoice for an entire matter in order to calculate the total cost of the matter. To do so, use the following method.
1. Click the Time Management icon from the Admin bar on the left side of the screen, and select All Time to display a list of all the time batches that have been logged.
2. Use the tick boxes on the left to select the applicable time batches belonging to the same matter, and click the Create Invoices button located at the top of the list.
3. Click the Open invoice batch button once the invoice has been generated.
4. Fill in all the required fields, then post it to the appropriate matter.
Please note that posting a batch will prevent any further modifications to the invoices it contains and that the relevant matter owners and billing contacts will already be notified.
Set up recipient billing details to invoices generated from time entries
If you need to set up specific recipients to receive invoices generated from time entries against each matter, go to Settings / Legal service providers / Billing and click the +Add New button under Internal invoice recipient billing details
Enter the recipient's details and hit the Create button.
The Invoice Recipient you have set up can now be added as a field to the relevant matter types.
Once the Invoice Recipient field has been added, simply go to the Matter Details tab and select the appropriate recipient from the dropdown menu.
The Recipient's name will then appear on invoices created from time batches against this matter.
