What Service/Activity Codes are Used For

Service/Activity Codes are used in Fee Entry and Bill Preparation as keystroke shortcuts and to track certain types of activity.  Each Service/Activity Code can represent up to 600 characters of information and can be set up with a default rate or a default amount of time.

Service/Activity Codes are used primarily for two reasons:

1.    It saves keystrokes when entering fees by assigning a short code to describe commonly used fee descriptions (i.e., telephone conference with client).  This cuts down on the amount of time spent entering fees and also cuts down on the number of spelling errors.  It also provides some consistency in the description of similar tasks.

2.    Service/Activity Codes can be used to track specific types of work.  For example, you can track how many hours are initially entered in the system as “No Charge” hours or how much time an attorney is spending in court.

With the Service/Activity Code feature, you may assign an hourly or flat fee to a specific type of service or activity allowing you to enter flat fee charges on a Matter set up for hourly billing.  This would typically be done in cases where the firm has established standard forms or has automated a process (i.e., simple wills, incorporations).

Service/Activity Codes are used by the system two different ways:

1.    When you are in Fee Entry and a code is entered in the Activity field, the description attached to the Service/Activity Code will populate in the Fee Description field.  If a Flat or Hourly Rate is assigned to the Service/Activity Code, it will be used in calculating the Amount of the fee transaction.

2.    When you are in the Description field of Fee Entry or Bill Preparation, you may “insert” a Service/Activity Code and the description attached to the Service/Activity Code will be inserted at the cursor.  In this usage, the only portion of the defined Service/Activity Code relevant is the Description.