Attaching Receipts to Bills

Centerbase has the ability to attach receipts or other documents throughout the system for the purpose of keeping records together and so that you can attach receipts directly on to bills for your clients that require supporting documentation. This can be set with a threshold for receipt amounts, or it can be set to automatically attach all uploaded receipts.

The following are the places where you can attach supporting documentation to be automatically attached to the client’s bill:

1. Billing Entry Expenses – This was a previous feature that we have enhanced with a “Send with Bill?” checkbox.
   • If you do not see the document input box on your billing entry, please check your settings in System Settings > Billing > General. The “Show Document Input” option should be checked.
2. Vendor Bill Line Items
3. Check Line Items

You can also now attach documents to Journal Entries, which does not support your billing team but is a handy tool for keeping your records in order.

Set Up for Checks and Vendor Bills

If you would like to use this feature for checks and vendor bills, you will need to make updates to your Vendor Bill Grid Settings. This is found in System Settings > Config File Edit > Vendor Bill Grid Settings.

A few important things to know:

• Each different column on the check or vendor bill rows corresponds to a “Grid Column” in the Vendor Bill Grid Settings.
• The order of the sections in the Vendor Bill Grid settings dictates the order in which the columns appear on checks and vendor bills – you can reorder them by simply cutting and pasting any grid column set into the position you would like them to appear.
• Each section begins with <GridColumn> and ends with </GridColumn>.

To add the new “Document Upload” box and the “Send with Bill?” checkbox, you need to paste the following into your Vendor Bill Grid Settings in the position you would like them to appear on the row. You can copy and paste the text below this image.

<GridColumn>

      <Linkable>true</Linkable>

      <Filterable>false</Filterable>

      <DataField>DocumentName</DataField>

      <ItemType>3217</ItemType>

      <FieldId>32:3217</FieldId>

      <Label>Document</Label>

      <Hide>false</Hide>

      <ShowGroupTotal>false</ShowGroupTotal>

      <Width>14%</Width>

      <Printable>true</Printable>

      <LabelAlign>right</LabelAlign>

      <ValueAlign>right</ValueAlign>

      <Clickable>true</Clickable>

      <Required>false</Required>

      <TextOnly>false</TextOnly>

      <IsDetail xsi:nil="true" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" />

      <HideFromGroupRow>false</HideFromGroupRow>

    </GridColumn>

    <GridColumn>

      <DataField>SendWithBill</DataField>

      <Label>Send With Bill</Label>

      <Linkable>false</Linkable>

      <Filterable>false</Filterable>

      <ItemType>3218</ItemType>

      <FieldId>32:3218</FieldId>

      <Hide>false</Hide>

      <Width>6%</Width>

      <Printable>false</Printable>

      <LabelAlign>left</LabelAlign>

      <ValueAlign>left</ValueAlign>

      <Clickable>false</Clickable>

      <Required>false</Required>

      <IsDetail xsi:nil="true" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" />

      <HideFromGroupRow>false</HideFromGroupRow>

    </GridColumn>

Once you click Save, you can refresh Centerbase and you will now have these columns available for use.

Client & Matter Settings

You can set up automated receipt attachment at the client level, then edit as needed at the matter level, or just set it up at the matter level. The client level defaults to this feature being turned off. The descriptions and images below are from the matter billing settings.

Turn on Automated Receipt Attachment

1. In Matter > Cog > Billing, click the “Edit” button.
2. Scroll to the bottom of the page and uncheck “Use Client Settings”.
3. Check the “Include Receipts with Bills” box if you would like all receipts to automatically be printed with the bill.

1. If your client requires that receipts are only needed if an expense is at or over a certain amount, you can enter that amount into the Threshold for Receipts box – this will alert the team member making the billing entry that an attachment is required.

Note: The alert will not stop the team member from saving the billing entry, and the receipt can be added at a later date. This alert also currently only applies to a billing entry. Alerts associated with Vendor Bill and Check line items are on the roadmap for development.

Ad Hoc Receipt Attachment

Even if you do not have automated receipt attachment turned on, you can still attach receipts to bills when needed. This is done through a “Send with Bill?” checkbox that can be found on Billing Entries, Vendor Bill line items, and Check line items.

Billing Entry

Vendor Bill Line Item

Check Line Item

Bill Production

Bills will be produced as normal. Each attached document will be appended to the bill Web Copy or PDF. It is presented with the name of the document as the header of each distinct document.

When downloaded while e-billing, each set of attached receipts will be named with the bill number followed by _documents and will follow the associated bill so that they are easy to distinguish.