Setting up Flat Fee Billing for Phases of a Case

If you simply need to display a one line flat fee amount and description per Phase, this may be accomplished in Bill Prep by writing up/down the individual entries tagged with the same Phase/Task Code to the correct total amount for the Phase, then choose Off Invoice for the transactions you do not want to display. You may choose to use the description on the last Fee Entry listed in the phase grouping to accomplish presenting the total for the Phase on the Invoice.

Note that if you do not have a special style set up that sorts by Phase/Task Code it may be hard to accomplish the layout you want unless Users have input the Fees in the correct order.

If you are displaying the hours for each Phase on the Invoice, this would require manipulation of the bill hours on each Entry in the Phase to make sure the Invoice totaled to the correct billed hours. For example, if you had three fee description entries for Attending Trial you could choose Off Invoice for the first two, if needed, change bill hours to zero on the ones that will not be displayed, and then write up the third entry to the hours/amount you need.

If you are not presenting hours itemized on the bill or in the total, you may just need to mark the Fees that you do not want to display as Off Invoice, and it may not be necessary to manipulate the bill hours on the Entries that are not displayed because they would not be seen.

In some cases a special invoice format style that summarizes totals for hours and amounts by Phase may need to be created and installed. The standard report off of the Task Inquiry button may also suffice for printing out totals needed. The above method may work for simple formats and bills. Keep in mind if you manipulate billed hours you will be affecting billing realization reports and it may be important to whom you give credit for certain fees billed. Note the creation of custom Invoice Styles is considered a billable service by Orion.

See other articles on Flat Fee billing concepts: Flat Fee Time Transactions and Flat Fee Paragraph Styles.