What's New: Neos December 2023

Take a break from chowing down on office holiday cookies and take a peek at the latest Neos release features. Watch the New in Neos webinar recording at your leisure.

New Features

• Approval Process for Invoiceable Entries
• Time & Value Manager
• Checklist Completed Date

Enhancements

• Time and Value Sync Enhancements
• Invoice Template Changes
• Ring Central Enhancement
• Daily Report Subscription Enhancement

Improvements and Updates

• Value Enhancements for Advanced Search

New Features



Approval Process for Invoiceable Entries

Approve and lock invoiceable time and value entries with new permission-based statuses that limit editing rights. Employees can easily submit their billable time and values while Firm Admins or Attorneys have the power to approve these entries; both statuses (approved and ready for billing) will be indicated. With designated permissions, entries can be locked for billing, ensuring accuracy and preventing unauthorized edits. Locking and adding a status for invoiceable entries will provide admins further control over the billing process.

• A Firm Admin will have the ability to lock their time entries when they select the "approved" status. This will indicate that the entry is ready for billing.
• When an entry reaches a “Pending” status--as a result of being included in a pending invoice--users with the correct permissions can still edit any fields.
• When a time entry is in an "Invoiced" status because of being included in an approved invoice in Neos, the invoice will need to be voided to edit. When invoiceable value entries are submitted, this indicates they are ready for review.

How to use it

When the time and value approval firm preference is enabled, a status column will display on time and value tab lists.

• When time/value approval firm preference is turned on, a special permission for "Time and Value Approval" will be visible
• Permission defaults to "enabled" in Administrator permission group
• Permission defaults to "enabled" for all existing staff if they have value modify permission enabled
• Initial status on creation will be "draft"
• Status of non-billable items will be "-" N/A
• Other statuses include "submitted," "approved," and "rejected"
• Can query by status in Advanced Search under time and value primary searches

Submitting an entry unlocks the "approve" and "deny" options

• Permission to submit/approve/deny must be enabled
• Once the entry is approved, it will be locked for editing





Time & Value Manager

We've added two new tabs in the Accounting section that show all time and value entries across the firm, providing an aggregated view of records across cases to make enterprise billing more efficient. It also makes it much easier and more efficient to review many invoiceable records to identify any inaccuracies prior to invoicing.

• Attorneys will be able to efficiently add and edit time and Value records by having the ability to quickly add one record after another.
• Firm Admins will be able to see all time and value entries across the firm and have the ability to make bulk changes to the invoicing approval statuses of time and value entries.

How it Works

Global Value tab

• Displays all records from the Value sections of all cases.
• Single click opens side pane, double click opens the record within the case
• Permissions: Users have access to this tab if they have access to the Case Value tab and accounting tab.
• Must have case value or case time modify permissions to edit or submit entries for approval
• Must have the Time and Value Approval special permission to approve or deny submitted entries, or edit/delete approved entries
• "Invoiced" items remain locked to editing to all users

Filter by:

• Case (single select search)
• Staff (multi)
• Approval Status (multi)
• Value Code (multi)
• Provider (single select search)
• Case Open/Closed (toggle)
• Service Date (range)

Global Time tab

• Displays all records from the Time sections of all cases
• Single click opens side pane, and a double click opens the record within the case
• + Add Time button allows you to add a new time record
• Permissions: You have access to this tab if you have access to the Case Time tab and Accounting tab.
• Must have case value or case time modify permissions to edit or submit entries for approval
• Must have the Time and Value Approval special permission to approve or deny submitted entries, or edit/delete approved entries
• "Invoiced" items remain locked to editing to all users

Filter By:

• Case (single select search)
• Staff (multi)
• Approval Status (multi)
• Task Code (multi)
• Activity Code (multi)
• Case Open/Closed (toggle)
• Billable (toggle)
• Bill Date (range)





Checklist Completed Date

Track and report on the actual completion date of Checklist items separately from the Due Date, enabling firms to gauge whether items are completed early, on time, or overdue.

New Columns:

• Completed Date - Read-only date of when a checklist item is marked as complete. Completed Date will be reset if item is re-opened
• Available in Case and Summary Checklist grids
• Adv. Search ready - added as a default column to Checklist searches
• Completed By - Staff code of the user who marked the Checklist item complete
• Available in Case and Summary checklist grids
• Adv. Search ready - added as a default column to Checklist searches

How it Works

Due Date Behavior:

• When a Checklist item is marked as complete or N/A, the due date will no longer automatically update to the current date
• Newly created child items will calculate their due dates based off of the completed date of the parent instead of the overwritten Due Date
• Due dates can still be manually updated if desired
• Manual changes to the Due Date of a parent will still trigger a re-calculation of the Due Dates of children based off of the newly selected due date (+/- specified days).
• Repeating items - When the item is marked done and the option to reset is selected, then the new Due Date is calculated based on the Current Date (+ specified days)
• LIM items Due Date behavior will remain the same





Enhancements



Time and Value Sync

Value item that is linked to time will update the time when value is modified (deleting one will also delete the other and copying/moving one will also copy/move the other). The updated value details screen will provide all the time entry details if there is time associated with the value. Manage default time value code and provider under firm preferences.

How it Works

• When creating a Value entry with time type code we will show time details in the Value entry
• When creating a Value entry with time type code it will create a time entry within Time tab and vice versa
• If you delete a Value/time entry that has an attached time/value entry you will encounter a modal letting you know that both the Value and time entry will be deleted
• You can choose to delete or cancel
• If you update a Value entry that has a time entry attached it will also update the time entry and vice versa
• If you copy or move a Value entry that has an attached time entry to another case, that time entry will be copied/moved as well and vice versa

Invoice Template Changes

Updated design template to include line-item memos and dates on invoices. Other additions include a staff hours summary, billable hours that populate from the Quantity/Hours section, and chronologically ordered start of services under invoice for each category.

Now when creating a billable time entry, the description from the time entry will populate in the description field for the corresponding value entry AND the memo field (which is used for invoicing). Post record creation, the description fields in the Time & Value entries are synced but the memo field is not. So you'll be able to update the text in the memo field for billing purposes while maintaining the description field for internal records.

Ring Central Enhancement (customer request)

For this customer request, we removed unnecessary notifications and enabled users to configure their own notification preferences; also, Notes created from phone calls will use the phone call date as the Note date.

Daily Report Subscription Enhancement (customer request)

Subscribe to Advanced Search reports on multiple, specific days of the week.

How it works

• The "Day of week" drop-down for Weekly subscriptions now allows multi-select
• Reports are delivered each selected day at the selected time

Improvements and Updates

Value Enhancements for Advanced Search

• Provides quick and efficient access to an advanced search for a case's Value items
• Additional calculated columns added to Advanced Search value items for total payments and total adjustments.
• Additional columns for balanced due and balanced amount that will accurately display positive or negative based on whether an item is a credit or debit so users can accurately sum and aggregate value amount and due.

How it works

• When in the Value Tab, click Actions > "Reports for case" to open a report for Value items
• You can add "Balanced due" and "Balanced amount" as columns to any value query via the "Add or Remove Columns" drop-down (these columns can be summarized and aggregated)
• You can add "Total payments" and "Total adjustments" as columns to any value query via "Add or Remove Columns" drop-down (these columns cannot be summarized or aggregated)







Questions?

Contact your customer success manager if you have questions about this release, or sign up for one of our monthly Neos demos for a full product refresh!

For detailed instructions on these enhancements, click the Help icon (question mark) in Neos to access the Self-Serve Portal and Knowledge Base.