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= Issue 1/2007

7 March 2007

A Newsletter from LegalSuite Software

LegalSuite Software is hosting a series of seminars around the country which are aimed at improving the profitability and business management of legal practices in South Africa.

We will be discussing some interesting management concepts and will be demonstrating some practical management techniques that can be applied by a legal practitioner who wants to increase profitability, decrease costs and improve disbursement recovery at their firm.

Some of these topics include:

*	How to double your profits within the year:	Setting 3 easily attainable goals will almost guarantee a doubling of profits within 12 mont= hs.
*	Managing a Law Firm effectively:	Practical tips and techniq= ues on how to manage a law firm like the profit-based business it should = be.
*	Striving towards a paperle= ss office:	Boost your productivity by placing electronic information at your fingertips.
*	Effective Reporting to Cli= ent:	We will show you how to automate this tedious yet essential function.
*	Disbursement Recovery:	Recording every disburseme= nt is a daunting task faced by every law firm. We will discuss methods to track these costs and ensure they are billed for.
*	Managing your (business) debtors & creditors:	How to ‘collect early and pay late’ - the secret to improving your cash flow.<= span style=3D'mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"'>
*	Break free from the clock:=	Increasing productiv= ity is one way for a time-based professional to earn more by working smar= ter, not harder. We will discuss ways to achieve this.

= The seminars in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town got rave reviews and the next ones in Pretoria (27th March 2007 at the Centurion Lake Hotel) or Bloemfontein (24th April 2007 at Kopano Nokeng Country Lodge) should no= t be missed.

If you would like to attend, ple= ase contact us on: 0861 711 150 as= soon as possible because seats are limited at some of the venues.

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In this issue:
Tip of the day - Financial = Year End helpful tips
Know your program - <= /span>Importing Section 78(2A) interest transactions
New Feature- Default role of a party
Newsflash - Postage inc= reases
Thought for the day<= br> Bits and Pieces
Humour Dept
Employee Profile - Lance Claase

Tip of the day

Financial Year End helpful tips

The financial Year End = is normally a busy time for accountants as they need to make sure all the year's transactions have been posted. This can be a stressful time, but= we hope these tips will help you to perform a faultless Year End procedure= .

Financial Year End tips:

You need to run your Period End as normal - the Financial Year End will be run automatically wh= en you run your 12th period end.

As with all period ends you need to print out the following as they can't be reprinted at a later date:

*	The Age Analysis. It cannot be re-printed for this period again - A report showing the matter balances for this per= iod can be created later but it will not include the ageing.
*	The Payment VAT Report (if you are on the payment basis)

At any stage your Matters in Debit must add up to your balance in y= our Debtors Control account from your trial balance, and your Matters in Cre= dit must add up to your balance in your Trust Creditors Control and = to the Total of your Trust Funds account from your trial balance.&n= bsp;

If there is a difference, th= is difference will equal to the transfer currently available on your system. Therefore it is very important to keep the Age Analysis and Transfer Listings printed at month end.

= The year end procedure transfers the bala= nces of the income and expenditure accounts to the Distributable Reserves account.

Unlike many other systems LegalSuite keeps all historical transactions which means that we can create reports for any = year and any period.

Data Integrity checks:

It is recommended that you run a Verify Data procedure be= fore doing the Year End. This will allow you to confirm that your data conta= ins no errors and avert any major data-related errors. To do this:

*	Go to File
*	Select Maintenance<= /span>
*	Select Verify Data<= /span>
*	Click on Ok<= span style=3D'mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"'>
*	Once the Verify has finish= ed running, close the screen and continue with the Backup

Backup:

Before you start the Year End procedure a separate backup (clearly marked 'Pre-Year End 2006') must be made. This is separate from your daily backups.

To prevent loss of data due to fire, flood or theft backups should be removed from the premises to ensure no damage to the backup.=

If you do not have a backup plan in place you can contact our offices on 0861 711150 and speak to one of our techn= ical support consultants and we will gladly assist you.

= Once the backup has been run successfully you need to copy the backup file t= o a removable device such as:

*	CD - Fast and reliable. Requires a CD writer.
*	Optical drive - Fast and reliable. Ideal for larger, long-term backups.
*	Zip drive - Fast and relia= ble. Ideal for larger, daily backups.

What the Year End Procedure does:

Once you have completed your Year End, you will see the following results:

*	For Income and Expense accounts, the current year balance moves to last year
*	For Balance Sheet accounts, last year balances are kept as one total amount and the current balan= ce moves to last year
*	Current year balances are = set to zero, except your opening balances for balance sheet accounts
*	The income and expense accounts are cleared to Distributable Reserves
*	This year’s transact= ions become last year’s transactions

= If you need to run your Year End but you are not in period 12, please contact = our support call centre on 0861 711150 and speak to Cindy or Stacey.=

= To view the LegalSuite Year End guide, click here.

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Know your program

Importing S= ection 78(2A) interest transactions

According to the new credit act, Section 78(2A) Interest transact= ions need to be captured on a monthly basis. Many firms have large amounts of investments and LegalSuite has an Import function which can be used to import these transactions into the program. Files can be imported from excel, comma delimited files or xml. It is very important to remember t= hat the files can be imported ONLY IF they are in the correct Format.

FORMAT FOR INTEREST TRANSACTIONS <= /p>

When imp= orting data using the exc= el format, the first line is the heading line and must contain = the names of each field. The first field must always have the word “<= b>BatTran” in it. BatTran Records cannot be updated, they can only be added.

Below is an example of what the Interest Import must look like in:

EXCEL

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COMMA DELIMITED FILE

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FIELDS:

BatTran
BookType	I (For Interest)
Matter1	The Matter to be debited Use FileRef, @OldCode, %AlternateRef or #RecordId
Description1	Description e.g. Interest<= /span>
Voucher	Voucher Number
Option1	1 (Must always be 1)<= /span>
Amount	Insert amount without the = Rand sign=
Investment Account =	Description of the Section 78(2A) as it appears in the business ledger in LegalSuite

Please note: LegalSuite cannot separate Interest Transactions for a matter that has separate Investments with t= he same investment bank.

HOW TO IMPORT THE INVESTMENT TRANSACTIONS:

Go to the “File” menu and select “Import/export”. Select Import Data.

The following screen will appear:

Enter the name of the file you wish to import. Valid files a= re files ending with the following extensions:

.xml      -           xml files=
.xls       -           excel fil= es
.csv      -           comma delimited files

Click on the

=

button to complete t= he import.

For further assistance with importing or exporting, click on the

=

button on the import

screen or phone our support call centre on 0861 711150.

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Newsflash

Annual Postage updates

Please note that the annual increase in postage takes effect from 1 April 2007. Please make sure th= at you run a live update on Monday, 2 April 2007 in order for this change = to be effected on your systems.

The increases are as follows= :

Ordinary post: Increases from R1.85 to R1.93

Registered Post: Increases from R13.05 to R13.59

= Please do not hesitate to call our support call centre on: 0861 711150 should you need any help in this regard.

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New Feature

Default Role of a Party

You can now specify the Default Role a Party plays on a Matter. It is particularly useful if = you are<= o:p>
constantly adding the same person to the "Parties for a Matter" (F4)	<= span style=3D'mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"'>	screen and they always
play the same Role in the Matters, e.g. the attorney.

This is found under the Miscella= neous Tab of an Address Book entry.

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You can now specify this Role in= the Address Book and the program will automatically allocate the Role to th= is person when they are inserted into the "Parties for this Matter&qu= ot; (F4) screen.

Note:

In order for us to accommodate this change we had to shuffle some Fields around. We have creat= ed a new Financial Tab in the Address Book which looks like this:

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These changes are available in V= er. 4.342.976 or higher of the program.

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Thought for the day

"A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without spri= ngs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road. "

Henry Ward Beecher=

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Bits and Pieces

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LegalSuite Account Payments

We are curre= ntly experiencing more and more incidents of people depositing money into our account without supplying us with proper references.

To avoid con= fusion or misplaced funds ,please assist us by entering your full invoice numb= er or correct firm name as a reference when doing direct deposits into LegalSuite Customer Services account.

= Your co-operation in this regard is highly appreciated.

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ATTORNEY CIRCULAR NO. 1/2007

FIDELITY FUND CERTIFICATES AND PROFESSIONAL INDEMNITY COVER - = 23 JANUARY 2007

All firms who have not yet submitted their renewed Professional Indemnity Cover and 2007 Fidelity = Fund Certificates please fax immediately to FAX NO. 0866 182 381.

Should you have any queries in this regard please contact your Regional Attorney Liaison Consultant.

= &n= bsp; = ; *For security reasons this attachment has been removed*

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ATTORNEY CIRCULAR NO. 3/2007

FNB HomeLoans “SPECIAL PAYOUT PROCESS” - 5 FEBRUARY 2007

FNB HomeLoans will consider= the advance draw down of funds prior to registration of further loans in in= stances where the conditions of grant clearly state that the funds are not to be held in retention pending building operations being completed.

In order for us to consider these customer requests we require = the following:

Signed lodgment documents to be in our possessi= on
Aforementioned documents must be scanned into o= ur system
Customer to be FICA compliant=

Requests for p= ayout prior to further loan registrations are to be routed to our Contact Cen= tre number 0861 334490.

Please allow us 24 hours from logging the request with our Contact Centre to assess the request and where approved effect the necessary payout.

&n= bsp; = ;

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DIRECTOR CHANGES

= Please note that there have been some changes to the directors for ABSA and AB= SA CPF. Please run a live update on your systems as soon as possible in or= der for these changes to reflect on your documentation.

= Please do not hesitate to call the support call centre on 0861 711150 s= hould you need any assistance in this regard.

ABSA CPF STANDARD DOCUMENTATION

Please take note that CD's issued by ABSA direct to attorneys are no longer to= be used as the basis for producing documents for Absa CPF, and we request = that you download the documents from the relevant web sites.

All ABSA CPF documentation will = be regularly updated on the web, and we also request that the attorney fir= ms contact the relevant vendor’s web sites on a continuous basis. The web sites will advise attorneys of Circulars from Absa CPF as well as inform attorneys of any changes to standard Absa CPF documentation. No further updates will be sent directly to any attorney and the sole mechanism for receiving future updates will be from the vendor packages= .

= &n= bsp; = ; *For security reasons this attachment has been removed*

= We are receiving constant changes for the ABSA CPF documentation and suggest t= hat you update your program on a regular basis.

= Please do not hesitate to call the support call centre on 0861 711150 s= hould you need any assistance in this regard.

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Humour Departmen= t

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E= mployee Profile

Lance Claase

Lance started working for LegalSuite in August 2006. His knowledge within the IT field spans more than 7 year= s. He previously worked for various IT companies as well as lecturing for Damelin and Varsity College.

Lance is in Technical / Back-Office Support and is responsible for the in-h= ouse maintaining of Computers and Networking as well as Research and Development.

Favourite food:

"Mac & Cheese&q= uot;

Favourite movie:<= span style=3D'mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"'>

"Lord of the rings"

Hobbies:

"Scuba diving"=

Favourite saying:=

"No problem!"<= /span>

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Yo= u can view back issues of our Newsletter and the Attorney circulars from the financial institutions on the website at www.legalsuite.co.za.

If you have= any questions, queries or comments about this newsletter, please contact Susan Brown: = susan@legalsuite.co.za

To unsubscri= be from this newsletter click here

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