Creating a New Matter

When a new case comes into the firm, you need to be able to create a new matter to keep up with what is happening in the case. This article will go through a couple of ways to create a new Matter.

Accessibility

"Allowed to Create Matters" must be checked within the System Settings for users who will be creating Matters. Access is defaulted to public to allow everyone in the firm to see the Matter. See Manage Users (PC Client) for more in-depth user security settings.

A new matter can be created in multiple ways.

1) From the "New" button

2) From a PNC record.

3) From the Matters tab of a contact/Client.

4) From Workflows ( This will be addressed in a separate article)

 

Creating A Matter From The "New" Button 

You will need to make sure that the item is set up in the item manager to show in the New button (Instructions on this can be found in the help center of the Windows Administration Tool)

From any page within Centerbase, you can click the New button and choose to create a Matter.

This will bring you to your Matter Form. Your forms are managed by your "Form Designer" and may look different than the image below. 

On the Matter form, you will fill out the desired information ( and any information your firm has deemed required as denoted by an asterisk).

You can search for an existing client or Create a New Client Record

You will see that the Matter Open Date fills in automatically.

Click Save and you have a new matter. 

You can see that there is some additional information that has been completed on the matter that you did not have to enter. This relates to Matter Numbering. 

 

Creating a Matter From a PNC

Additionally, You can create a matter from a Potential New Client record. 

From the PNC Record, you will click on the Workflow button and choose "Open a Matter" 

 

A dialogue box will appear that will allow you to either search for an existing contact or create based on the PNC.

Choosing Use PNC will create the client record in addition to the Matter. 

 *Your dialogue box may look different based on any changes your firm has made to the workflow*

This will open a matter for the PNC and create a Client record based on the information you already have from the PNC. 

You can now navigate to either the client or the matter and continue on with your file. 

Creating a Matter From an Existing Client. 

From the existing client record, you will navigate to the Matters tab

(See Turning Related Items into Individual Tabs)

Click on New

This will direct you to the same Matter form as above.