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Timeslips is a product of Sage Software, Inc., and Sage and Timeslips are registered trademarks of Sage Software, Inc., or its affiliated entities.
Sage Timeslips
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Timeslips - Options for transfer to QuickBooks
While the link with QuickBooks can be set as either cash or accrual basis, the author recommends using cash basis for the transfer method and letting Timeslips track the AR balances.
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Timeslips - Link Timeslips to QuickBooks
Using TAL Pro, you can link Timeslips Clients to QuickBooks Customers or Timelslips Client.Project to QuickBooks Customer.Job
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Timeslips - Transfer to General Ledger
You can specify whether payments are allocated to QuickBooks General Ledger accounts based on timekeeper, activity/expense, or client and time and expenses are defined separately.
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Timeslips - Post Transactions from QuickBooks
A big improvement in Timeslips 2014 is the ability to create slips from checks and bills entered into QuickBooks.
When All You Need is Billing...Timeslips:
In our last article we wrote about software for law firms. If you have identified your needs and you want to use QuickBooks for your accounting but need a more powerful billing solution, Sage Timeslips may be the answer.
Timeslips does billing, and it does it well. Timeslips offers two ways to track matters – Client.Project and references. Each Client.Project is separate matter within a common client, equivalent to Customer:Job. In Timeslips each Client.Project (Matter) will have its own AR balance, separate IOLTA/Trust Accounts, and separate rates if desired. However, you can run a bill that consolidates all the related Projects and shows the totals across all Projects for a Client.
If you want one AR balance and one IOLTA/Trust Account, but a breakout within the Client, you can use References. These can sort and subtotal within an invoice or reports but are not paid separately.
Powerful rules for managing rates are a key feature of Timeslips. The rates can easily come from the client being worked on, the person doing the work or the activity being done. Combinations are possible making for an almost endless number of rate scenarios. Of course just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should, and it is generally a good idea to keep rate structures simple.
A unique feature of Timeslips is the ability to enter time and expenses that are split across multiple clients for billing purposes. You certainly can’t do that with QuickBooks alone.
Within Timeslips you have the ability to customize bill layouts extensively and to show a variety of data including timekeeper, task, description, hours, rates and amounts. You can create a cover page that includes a timekeeper summary for the invoice and also shows payments and prior balances. You can also include IOLTA activity in summary or in detail. Layouts are assigned to each Matter. Matters can also have email templates assigned, making it easy to email bills (working with Outlook) to multiple clients with just a few clicks. Bills can be created individually or for many clients at once.
Additional functions of Timeslips include the ability to charge interest, offer discounts, create numerous custom fields of specific types, generate statements and create electronic bills in multiple formats. (Note: Electronic billing requires a one-time extra fee that provides access to all supported formats.) Time and expenses can be marked as billable, non-billable or no charge, and there are a number of flat fee options to meet many needs.
Timeslips allows creation of Pre-bill worksheets and the ability to review bills before finalizing them and locking them from changes. Within Timeslips there are extensive reports for reviewing and analyzing data as well as the ability to create custom reports with calculations.
Timeslips offers multiple data entry options. The most commonly used entry method is creating a slip with the appropriate data. If you do repetitive work the weekly time sheet is another viable option. Timeslips offers a calendar, which synchronizes with Google calendar, and can be used to track your schedule and create time entries. If you don’t have a firm wide calendar, this is a useful tool. Slips can also be created from Outlook or with an outside app called iSlips on the iPhone. Timeslips offers import capability to easily importing time from a CSV file. For those who want to create time and expense slips from the cloud Sage offers E-Center, a monthly subscription cloud-based platform that easily synchronizes with Timeslips.
All of this makes Timeslips sound interesting for billing purposes, but what about accounting, how does Timeslips integrate with QuickBooks? Prior to Timeslips v2014 the link was okay, but had some fairly significant limitations. With v2014 the link no longer requires apologies.
While the link can be setup on a cash or accrual basis, I generally recommend using cash basis and letting Timeslips track your AR balances. (See slide 1) When using the link, called TAL Pro, you link Timeslips clients to QuickBooks customers and optionally Client.Projects to Jobs. (See slide 2) You can specify whether payments are allocated to QuickBooks General Ledger accounts based on timekeeper, activity/expense, or client and time and expenses are defined separately. (See slide 3)
When setup properly, payments received in Timeslips are sent to the QuickBooks Undeposited Funds Account and the Income is assigned to the appropriate GL accounts for Fee Income, Reimbursed Client Costs and/or Suspense for overpayments. Trust Account receipts are allocated appropriately to Undeposited Funds or the Bank Account and the Trust Liability Account. It is easy to create reports in both Timeslips and QuickBooks to make sure that Trust balances match. This, combined with bank reconciliation in QuickBooks, helps insure compliance with State Bar Association rules.
A key new feature in Sage Timeslips v2014 is the ability to have Timeslips send over Refunds, Payment from Account and Withdrawal from Account transactions to QuickBooks as to be printed checks. This saves lots of time. Refunds and Withdrawals from Account are always made out to the Timeslips customer, so modifications may be needed in QuickBooks if the payee is different. Payment from Account transactions are made out to your firm with a name you specify and Timeslips will create one check for each payment or group multiple payments into one check if you prefer.
Another big improvement in Timeslips 2014 is the ability to create slips from checks and bills entered into QuickBooks. (See slide 4) Slips can be created one at a time or in bulk using the information entered in QuickBooks to minimize the need to rekey. This capability insures that you don’t forget to bill a client for expenses incurred on their behalf.
While Timeslips offers custom fields, a calendar and some ability to attach documents to clients, it is not a practice management system. If your firm needs practice management software you will need to look at other solutions. Timeslips can exchange data with practice management software like Amicus Attorney and Time Matters thus giving you a choice of solutions. However, if you want prefer a single vendor for Time & Billing and Practice Management, you should look at alternatives. We will investigate these options and products in future articles within this series.