CARET Legal Feature Releases 2020
January 2020
- Favorite reports
- Favorite reports that you view several times a week
- Available from any page of your CARET Legal account
- Manual entry for credit card transactions
- Credit card entries can now be recorded manually
- Create expenses from credit card transactions
- Record Costs charged to Credit Card Accounts (via manual entry or through downloaded bank activity)
- Option to pass the expense along to a client
- Bulk download LEDES invoices
- LEDES invoices can now be downloaded in bulk, allowing you to process invoices across matters with one click
- Billing contact available on printed invoices
- When printing an invoice, the Billing Contacts Name/Information is now included on the invoice
- Edit contact tags
- Contact Tags can now be edited under Firm Settings (limited based on permission level)
- New task status
- A Task can now be labeled as “Not Started”
- Users can also now search by assigned date and completed date
- Vendor box dropdown
- When adding a Vendor, you will now find there is a new Vendor Box dropdown field to indicate the corresponding Box for 1099 filings
February 2020
- NetDocuments integration
- Access matter-related files stored within NetDocuments right in CARET Legal’s platform
- Upload/download document, perform advanced searches and access workspaces
- Email management enhancements
- Auto-selection of matters for inbound emails from matter-related contacts
- Prompt to create a time entry upon saving an email to a matter (to capture time spent reading messages)
- Blue dots more clearly display unread emails
- Firm contacts are automatically added to the suggested recipient list and float to the top, right after matter-related contacts
- Timekeeper Goal report
- Firm admins can set, and track billable hours and/or total billing goals for members of their firm
- Metrics can be viewed year to date or by prior month and prior week’s progress toward those goals
- Custom payment allocations
- Firms can now specify how incoming payments should be applied
- Secure payment links
- Invoices sent via email can now include payment links that allow clients to make payments (through LawPay) without the need to log into Caseway, CARET Legal’s client portal
- New LEDES formats
- CARET Legal now supports 1998B Alpha, Case Litigator and a Tymetrix version
- UniFLOW expense importer
- If you use devices that output Uniflow format, CARET Legal can now import those expenses under the Time/Expense section
- Faster intakes
- Fields for first name, last name, company, email and phone can be entered directly in the New Lead window
March 2020
- Vendor Bill updates
- Ability to assign User, as well as Expense and Task Codes when creating/editing Vendor Bills to facilitate LEDES billing
- Efficient document uploading
- Faster upload speeds when uploading documents via CARET Legal Caseway
- Upload files up to 4 GBs
- Flat Fee Productivity report update
- Flat Fee Productivity Report can now show data for individual services to enable firms to identify best and worst performing flat fee services, independent of a matter
- Additional submatter billing options
- For Split Fee Matters, users can now adjust Matter Number, Matter Name, Billing Notes, Invoice Note and LEDES information for submatters
April 2020
- Revamped phone call notes
- Add tags
- Create a new task
- Option to open in a new window
- When you select a contact under the “Spoke With” dropdown, the contact’s business, mobile and fax numbers appear
- Filter phone call notes by tags with advanced search functionality in the Matter’s Communications tab
May 2020
- Color-coded matter-related contacts roles
- Customized color codes can now be applied to each Matter Role
- Matter-related contacts can also be favorited, floating them to the top of the list
- Matter option on Billed and Collected report
- View Billed/Collected amounts grouped by Matter
- Credit card expense updates
- When creating and editing Credit Card Expenses, you now have the ability to assign a User, as well as Expense and Task Codes
- Configurable discount column
- Additional customization options when it comes to generating invoices
- Updated custom date ranges
- Custom Date Ranges can now be typed directly into the From and To date fields when publishing invoices or generating reports
June 2020
- Bulk Billing Center
- Print and/or blast Invoices or Statement of Accounts in bulk more efficiently
July 2020
- zDrive for Mac
- This tool allows users to edit documents and save them back to CARET Legal automatically (no uploads required)
- Once downloaded to a user’s Mac device, files stored in CARET Legal are browseable directly in Finder and can be quickly accessed in the Task Bar
- LEDES budgeting
- Set a budget for individual LEDES codes within a LEDES-based matter
- See billed amounts against the total budget as the case progresses
- Effective Rates report
- This report showcases a list of all users along with hours worked, fees collected and the effective rate for each
- Matter User Rate report
- This report shows, by matter, the Responsible, Originating and Billing Attorneys rate along with any additional Matter Collaborators
- Dedicated Timekeeper Goals setup page
- There is now a dedicated page to help you quickly create, edit and delete Timekeeper Goals for your firm
- Default time list option for non-staff accounts
- Users with Non-Staff permissions can now pre-filter the timelist for their own time entries
- Ability to sort notes
- Users can quickly sort Notes by created time
- Updated user list
- We’ve redesigned the Users & Groups page in Firm Settings
- Dedicated subject and body for State of Account emails
- Set a default email subject line and body copy when sending Statements of Account emails to clients in bulk
- Expanded Matterscapes billing options
- Customize your matter views with Origination Splits, Responsible Splits, Billing Type and Billing Group
- Default worktype
- Define a default worktype that will pre-fill when entering time entries
- Soft Cost quantity update
- When entering the quantity for a Soft Cost, CARET Legal now supports two decimal places to support fractional quantities such as mileage
August 2020
- Invoice templates
- Enterprise and Enterprise Plus users can now create multiple invoice templates that can be applied on the Contact/Matter level
- Split Billing update
- When assigning split billing percentages, Fee/Expense splits can be set using up to 4 decimal places
- Vendor reimbursement report
- A listing of unpaid Vendor Bill Expenses that have been marked as billable can now be generated with a click of a button
- Document Assembly and the CARET Legal/NetDocuments integration
- When generating a document via a template in CARET Legal, NetDocuments users can now quickly save the file to the corresponding Workspace
- Copitrak Importer
- A list of all Soft Costs (in XLSX format) can now be imported via Copitrak
- Invoice Unbilled Activity filters
- New filters on the Unbilled Activities page allow you to filter for matters which have a Total Time Greater Than and/or Less Than the entered amount
September 2020
- Settlement Management Tools for PI and Contingency Firms
- Efficiently manage settlement allocations and seamlessly generate settlement memos for all parties, even referring attorneys
- An accompanying customizable Settlement Statement is also generated with each Settlement Memo
- Conveniently track all expenses incurred by the firm and external parties
- New BI Metrics on the Admin Dashboard
- Income and Expense trends for a set period of time
- Previous Year Income Comparison
- Previous Year Expense Comparison and Expense Breakdown
- Billing group filter
- A Billing Group filter has been added to the invoice list so you can more easily sort during your billing cycle
- Bulk time entry rates
- Admins can change Time Entry Rates in Bulk, saving a great deal of time when updating many entries at once
October 2020
- Print 1099s in bulk
- Firms can bulk print hundreds of 1099-MISC and/or 1099-NEC forms for all of their vendors
- Updated Billed and Collected report
- This report now includes a “Display Hours and Rate” filter so your firm can view billed hours and an average Rate for the specified date range
- Firm user custom fields
- “Firm User” has been added as a field option to the Person/Company Custom Fields list
November 2020
- Firm budgeting
- Create firm-wide budgets to estimate revenue and expenses on a monthly, quarterly and/or yearly basis
December 2020
- Profit and Loss by Location report
- Administrators can view a Profit and Loss report where each column displays the numbers for each firm location
- Segment Revenue option on the Profit and Loss report
- Administrators can now see Professional Fees broken down by Location, Practice Area, Primary Responsible Attorney, Primary Originating Attorney and Timekeeper
- User bank account permissions
- Administrators can assign users to specific bank accounts, restricting access to the bank register and limiting the ability to create new checks
- Updated AR Aging Summary report
- Firm administrators can view AR grouped by Client, Timekeeper, Practice Area and Location
- Worldox integration
- Worldox users can automatically integrate Client and Matter data from CARET Legal
- Existing matters can be integrated with Worldox and Clients/Matters can be created in Worldox through CARET Legal
- Matterscapes enhancements
- Default 50 records, up from 20 records, on one page
- Matter Status is now an option, supporting multi-select
- Email enhancements
- Set custom font family, style and size for composing email messages
- Pane sizes for folder/email list section is customizable and persistent
- Folder open/close status is now remembered
- Email addresses can now be dragged between TO, CC and BCC