Bill Preparation Message asking if you Want to Perform Automatic Allocation

The answer to this question involves both the way Bill Prep does Automatic Allocation and the use of the special discount invoice style.

Orion attempts to prorate the write down that you specify across the transactions that you select.  If it is unable to hold the rate constant mathematically, it will prompt you to choose automatic allocation. The system will manipulate the bill hours or bill rate (or in some cases both fields) to come up with the amount you specified. This is what it means by automatic allocation.  Orion will do the math for you; however, there are times when, due to rounding, Orion is unable to produce the value you want without manipulating both bill hours and bill rate.

Now you may attempt to override Bill Hour or Bill Rate field if you choose to do so on particular transactions; however, the math on each transaction is bill rate x bill time = bill amount. In some cases, due to rounding and possibly billing being done in tenths rather than hundredths, it may be impossible only to edit the Bill Rate field to get to the number you want without manipulating both bill hours and bill rate. There will be a difference you may have to allocate by manually changing one field or the other.

When you use the discount Invoice Style where you want to show the discount on the bill itself, it is recommended that you perform automatic allocation.

If your attorneys are compensated on billed hours, you should use the Hold Time Constant Option when doing this particular Write Down.

The discount invoice style presents original hours and amount and the original rate. You do not need to be concerned with the Bill Rate field changing if Orion prompts you to do automatic allocation.

If Orion prompts you to do an automatic allocation even if you attempt to hold time constant, you may still need to look at the Bill Hours field to determine what is being adjusted and if the adjustment is what you want. Mathematically there may be no way to accomplish what you are attempting to do due to rounding.

The presentation on the discount Invoice Style should be the "original" hours and "original" rate regardless. The discount Invoice Style is a special Style designed to present the original hours worked at the original rate and then present the difference of the bill amount less the original amount as the discount. Holding the time constant in this case is all right because because you do not show the Bill Rate on the Invoice and you are showing the "original rate" for presentation purposes.

If you are using a standard Invoice Style that does not show discounts, you still may want to hold time constant when doing this particular Write Down. This would be important if you compensate attorneys on billed hours.