Clients in Casefriend

Client management is a critical aspect of managing a law office, especially a Workers' Compensation defense firm. Unlike a traditional civil defense firm, a single TPA or insurer can have multiple offices and multiple billing rates. Ensuring that your clients are structured correctly ensures your invoices accurately reflect client billing guidelines. This article reviews how Casefriend structures clients and how to setup and manage your client list. Learn how to add/manage clients here.

Jump to a Section:
The Casefriend Client Hierarchy
Client Elements
Billing Rules

The Casefriend Client Hierarchy

Casefriend's Client Hierarchy is designed to eliminate redundancies and mistakes in a firm's client list. Casefriend allows you to group multiple client locations into a single Client. This allows you to apply billing guidelines across client locations and streamline the invoicing process

Client - A client is merely a common name for multiple client locations with common Bulling Guidelines. A Client must have at least one Location.

Example: AmTrust may restrict attorneys billable hours to 10 hours per-day across all its cases. By Setting up a single AmTrust Client, the billing guidelines will automatically be applied to all AmTrust Client Locations.

Client Location - A client location is an office where Client Reps work and from which they assign cases to your firm. Client Locations inherit billing guidelines of the Client at set-up but these guidelines can be customized. the billing guidelines of the Client Location are automatically applied to the cases assigned to it

Example: AmTrust has 4 office locations: Irvine, Covina, San Diego and Concord. Each office has different billing guidelines. When you add a case as assign it to AmTrust Covina, the billing guidelines for that location will be enforced when attorneys enter time and when the billing department creates an invoice. 

Client Elements

The following is a list of the unique values which comprise a Client

1. Client Type - Insurer; TPA; Company; Individual. Most of your clients will be a TPA. When selecting a TPA you can add an insurer in the Client Info section of a case.
2. Client Name - This is typically the familiar name your client is commonly known by, e.g.: AmTrust, Zurich, etc.
3. Location Name - Typically the city or region your client is located
4. Client Short Name - This is optional and can be added to quick reference throughout Casefriend
5. Address - This is the primary physical address of the Client. You can add a separate billing and mailing address
6. Comm Counters - default is 30 days
7. Billing Rules - The Billing Rules of a Client are set here

Billing Rules

Casefriend automatically enforces billing rules at Time Entry and Invoicing. This allows you to create more accurate invoices that are less likely to be cut. You can set your client's billing rules here.

1. Billing Template -  Your client's preferred method of invoicing, e.g.: PDF, LEDES, Litigation Advisor, etc. Casefriend Support can help customize LEDES templates
2. Billing Type - your client's preferred method of billing. Hourly is the default
3. Frequency - The minimum time required before you can send an invoice.
   • By Days - prepare invoices after a set number of days
   • End of Month (default) - invoices are available to bill at the end of the calendar month
   • Quarterly - prepare invoices quarterly
4. Time Entry and Billing Limitations - these limitations are required by your client and enforce by Casefriend.
   • Time entry character limit - default = 255 characters
   • Max billable hours per day - default = 10
   • Alert when billable hours reach - default = 8
   • minimum invoice amount - An invoice may not be submitted to the client until the invoice total meets or exceeds this amount - default = none
   • Caps lock on time entry - default = yes
   • Rewquire matter id - default = no
   • Supplemental docuement to invoice = no
5. If you have a PDF listing client billing guidelines, you can upload it here

 Permission

The ability to create and manage clients is typically reserved for firm administrators. If this feature is not available to you, and you believe it should be, please contact you firm administrator.