Settings - Appliance
- Karen McDonald
- Former user (Deleted)
- Queenie Flores
Appliance wide settings for legal practices. Covers Firm, Matters, Time Billings, Budget, General and Licensing.
Please note not all users will be able to view appliance settings, only those with specific higher-end roles and rights enabled. To allow a user access to appliance settings make sure their current rights include 'View Appliance Settings' and/or 'Edit Appliance Settings'.
To access appliance settings select the tools and settings icon (the grey cog) from the top menu bar. From the settings screen, select 'Appliance Settings'.
Practice
The Firm Jurisdiction Country and the Firm Jurisdiction State will impact on the matter types for setting up of matter and also for the document precedents that are applicable.
The Director's Name will need to be the legal practice director name as nominated by the Queensland Law Society for Queensland firms and follow the law society conventions for other states.
The Firm Name is what will appear appear on all stationary, receipts and tax invoices.
The ACN only needs to be completed if the business is an incorporated company.
The ABN (Australian Business Number) will appear on all tax invoices.
The Street Address is the address for your main office.
The Mailing Address is where all correspondence is to be sent and can be a PO Box.
The Phone, Fax and Email are your normal business contacts.
The Email From Address is a particular address in that if the firm emails out a tax invoice to a client this is the email that will send it. If the firm has set up a link to an Outlook email and is sending stuff directly from Wise Owl Legal this is the email address that will be used. It doesn't necessary have to be a particular person's email address.
The Power User Name and the Power User Contact is the person who is the firm's system champion and who should be the main person to lodge support calls for the practice and should buddy up with any new users of the software.
Contacts
The first field in the contacts area, under Manage List Definitions, indicates the number for the next new contact. This numbering system controls the reset of the auto-numbering of the contacts. TEST
The reset shouldn't generally be used as contacts should each have a unique contact number. Therefore the contact numbers should just increase incrementally by one.
Field Name | Default Value | Description |
|---|---|---|
Contact Number Template | {auto} | Template defining how new contact numbers are generated. See below for a more detailed description. |
Reset Contact Auto-Number on Rollover | Unchecked | If your Contact Number Template contains both Auto Number and Calendar Year parts, the system will automatically reset your next auto number on the first Contact created in the new year. The person who creates this first contact is notified when they are creating the contact and after it is saved. If this is unchecked, a notification will appear, but the system will not automatically reset the auto number. The new auto number value is determined by the Contact Auto-Number on Reset setting. |
Next Contact Auto-Number | 1000 | The next auto number the system will use when creating a new contact. This number will increase as you create contacts. Setting this number determines the next number used when you create a contact. Important: as contact numbers must be unique, be very careful changing this value. Changing it to a lower number without also changing your Contact Number Template may cause errors when creating new contacts. |
Contact Auto-Number On Reset | 1000 | The auto number the system will use when the calendar year rolls over. This number will be the first used for the first contact in the new year. |
Contact Number Template
(NOTE: this will be identical to Matter Numbers and should not be copy-pasted there but a new page made with a link from here)
The Contact Number Template determines how automatically generated contact numbers are created. The auto generated parts are listed below:
Name | Template | Description | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
Auto Increment | {auto [ nZeros]} | An auto increment number. Each time someone creates a contact, the number is increased by one. Note that numbers are generated when a contact is saved, not when you open the new contact page. You can optionally specify the number of leading 0's, which defaults to 4. This number will roll over if you have checked Reset Contact Auto-Number on Rollover and also have a calendar year part to your template. If your auto number increases beyond 10,000, leading zeros will no longer be added, instead the number will expand. Only one auto number may be used in the template. | {auto} => 1000{auto:5} => 01000{auto} => 12345 |
Calendar Year | {calYr[:2|4]} | The current calendar year when the Contact is created. By default this results in a 2 digit year, but you can override it to show a 4 digit year. A calendar year ends on the 31st of December. The first contact in a new year will reset the auto increment number if you have Reset Contact Auto-Number on Rollover checked. | {calYr:4} => 2013 |
Year Ending | This is the same as the Calendar Year except you can specify the month the year ends in. This allows you to roll over a year at the end of June rather than December. Again, you can ask for a 4 digit year. You specify the month in 3 letters. Specifying Dec as the month yields identical behaviour to Calendar Year. | ||
Anything Without Brackets | Anything not enclosed in a pair of parenthesis is copied exactly as is. |
Some common examples of Contact Number Templates:
{auto}- A simple auto-number.1000, 1001, 1002...
{calYr}-{auto}- A two part number with a hyphen between the parts.13-1000, 13-1001, 13-1002...
The first contact created in January will reset the auto number part: 13-1234, 14-1000
C{calYr}-{auto}- A leading C to indicate clients, year ending in Dec and a 4 digit auto number.C{yrEnd:Jun:4}-{auto:5}- A leading C to indicate clients, 4 digit year ending in June and a 5 digit auto number.C2013-01000, C2013-01001, C2013-01002...
The first contact created in July will reset the auto number part: C2013-01234, C2014-00001.
Custom Fields
Custom Fields
Custom Fields are fields that can be used to record additional information about a contact.
To edit these custom fields go to Settings -> Appliance Settings -> Contacts Tab -> Custom Fields.
By changing the labels in this section, the new contacts page will default to showing these customised fields under the 'Additional Details' tab. The key should be the same as the label without spaces, this is an internal field name that is used to create document templates.
The custom fields can be useful for recording information which may be useful to your specific firm, or for specific matters.
Matters
The 'Appliance Settings' around matters are the things the firm wants to demand as their default.
If the firm requires that every matter has to have a conflict of interest check, power of attorney check , or trust account authority check the appropriate boxes would be ticked.
Here the firm can also reset the matter auto number, which is not recommended!
'Manage Jurisdictions' is where the firm would add in a new jurisdiction.Looking at the default list of jurisdictions some firms may need to add in ACT, if the practice resides in ACT and/or is operating under ACT law. Other jurisdiction such as Canada and the United Kingdom can also be added to the jurisdictions list.
It is strongly recommended that careful consideration is taken before adding in jurisdictions. If they are not going to align with the commonly accepted legal jurisdiction then the firm may encounter issues that on.
'Manage Matter Types' allows users to view, edit, and add matter types.
Documents
This tab will only appear if you are subscribed to the Documents Module within Wise Owl Legal.
These settings will be configured upon set up of Documents but can be edited at any time. Please contact the Wise Owl Help Desk for assistance in changing these settings
External Search Provider
This tab is to control the settings and login details for the External Search Provider searches within Wise Owl Legal.
These settings allow for integration of searches between the External Search Provider and Wise Owl Legal. They should not be changed.
Time
In the time drop down menu the firm can nominate how many minutes per unit.
Firms have been known to use 1 minute units, 6 minute units, 10 minute units and 15 minute units. At Wise Owl Legal we strongly recommend using 6 minute units, unless there is a good reason to use otherwise. Whilst 6 minute units may seem confusing at first, once it is understood it is extremely practical.
Units | Minutes |
|---|---|
1 | 6 |
2 | 12 |
3 | 18 |
4 | 24 |
5 | 30 |
6 | 36 |
7 | 42 |
8 | 48 |
9 | 54 |
10 | 60 |
Changing the default time units here will NOT affect the time billing default units for current users. It will only affect new users. To change the default time unit for current users go to settings -> my settings.
Budget
In order to keep the firm's productivity to a maximum, Wise Owl Legal has a handy tool for monitoring billable hours.
This can be set firm wide, or per user.
Days Per Week is the normal working days per week (default to 5)
Hours Per Day is the normal working hours.
Productive Hours Per Day is the number of hours per working day that is expected to be spent on billable work. This becomes each employees' daily target and their billable hours are compared against this.
As the parameters above are altered, the Monthly Budget and Annual Budget calculations automatically update. This can be useful in determining the Productivity Rate for your firm.
Settlement Calculator
This tab will only appear if you have subscribed to the Conveyancing Docpacks.
Note that these settings only apply for New Matters created after the settings are saved.
Terminology
The terminology tab is where the firm can decide whether they wish to call:
Outlays: outlays or disbursements; and
Practice: practice or firm
If the firm chooses to change these terminologies they will apply Wise Owl wide.
Trust Accounting
The List Definitions is an extremely useful
In Manage Chart of Accounts, a list of all the current trust accounts and their balances is available. New Accounts can be created from this page.
The warning balance for each bank account can also be added from here by selecting a bank account from the list and typing in a warning balance. When the bank account drops below this value a blue notification message will appear on both the Launch Pad and the Trust Register page.
In Trust Accounting there are a few of the error messages that can be customised to suit individual firms. They can be particularly polite or if the firm has problems with staff not taking in messages then the message can be customised to this audience.
'Can Backdate Trust Receipts' is an important feature and should only be used during the set up of the firm. We strongly recommend that once the set up is complete that the settings are changed so that trust receipts cannot be backdated.
talk about ref numbers
The Bank Rec Nag Days is the reminder that appears to indicate a the firm hasn't done a bank reconciliation. It is recommended that this be set between 28 and 31 days. However, it is important to remember to always reconcile to the last day of the month, regardless of whether the bank account has been reconciled to the day before or not. Auditors can be very strict on this, so ensure all trust bank reconciliations are to the last day of the month.
It is strongly recommended that the Default Reversal Date, be set at current date. There is the occasional situation where the original transaction date may be a useful option; for example when entering opening balances. Ensure once all opening balances are entered, that the reversal date is changed back to current date.
Allow Electronic Trust Cheques is available as some jurisdictions allow payment of trust monies by EFT. In Queensland firms are only allowed to have EFT transactions if they have been specifically approved by the Law Society, specifically for their firm.
If your firm does not have express permission in writing to use EFT transfers, do not tick this box.
Finance
Some firms will not have a need for the Approved Status hence an option to turn it off. This decision should be made on commencement of using WOL but can be changed at any stage.
1. Go to the Settings & Tools Cog on the top menu
2. Open the Finance Bar be clicking on it
3. Tick 'Hide Approved Invoice Status'
General
This section contains basic settings including how many days a week are worked, the default search page size and other such defaults.
Reporting
Upon setup of your company file, if you have provided us with a logo, it will be added in here. As a default all Wise Owl Legal reports will have the Wise Owl Legal logo if your company logo is not provided.
If you need to update the logo, you can use the Choose File option to upload a new logo. Once your company logo is uploaded click save changes, and the image should now be visible.
The Report Defintion List and Report Slot List should not be accessed unless you have received training on this from Wise Owl Legal. Changes to the reports can be suggested at any time to the Wise Owl Help Desk
Users And Access Rights
This section provides an overview of all users within the firm's Wise Owl Legal database.
Each user has a number of roles assigned to them, determining their level of access. These roles can be changed at any time depending on the specific circumstances of the firm.
This subsection can be quickly accessed through tools and settings icon > tools > manage users.
License
This section provides all the data pertaining to your Wise Owl Legal licence.
Important licencing information to note is the license status and the license expiry date. A countdown has been provided besides the expiry date, stating the number of days remaining. Your firm should watch this date, and when there are 30 days or less remaining should consider the renewal of your WOL license.
The number of Simultaneous Users allowed with the current license is also stated. The number of users in the system at any time can also be seen. This is valuable information, as there may be times where WOL needs to be in single user mode.
Product Version
Information relating to your current version of Wise Owl Legal is displayed here.
For your firm's purposes the most important thing to note is the version, to ensure it is up to date. To check if your WOL appliance is using the latest version go to release notes.
The Wise Owl Helpdesk may require this information, from you, when addressing any problems relating to your system.
Updates
The Wise Owl Legal Appliance automatically checks for new updates each night. You do not have to manually check for updates unless directed to by Help Desk Staff.