Receipts for fees are allocated by working timekeeper. When fee compensation rules are defined, Tabs3 Billing also tracks what percentage of fee receipts will be allocated to the firm, and/or one or more originating, primary, or secondary timekeepers. When tracking fee compensation information, the portion that applies to fees will be allocated based on the defined rules. Any remaining amount will be allocated to the working timekeepers.

When allocating payments to fees, in order to determine the timekeepers' fee compensation amounts, Tabs3 Billing first checks to see if any fee compensation rules have been defined for the client. If so, Tabs3 Billing uses the fee compensation rules to allocate the payment as fee compensation amounts. If there are remaining payment amounts after the allocation, or if fee compensation rules have not been assigned, Tabs3 Billing then allocates amounts to working timekeepers as normal.

Rules allow fee payments to be allocated to:

Rules allow fee payments to be taken from working timekeepers based on:

Creation of fee compensation rules is entirely optional. You can set up a fee compensation rules table for one client, several clients or all clients. You can add fee compensation rules for all timekeepers or specific timekeepers. The fee compensation rules table can contain multiple fee compensation rules per timekeeper. If a timekeeper's fee compensation rules change, new fee compensation rules can be specified along with a cut-off date that indicates which statements that payments will be able to allocate to using the new fee compensation rules.

When defining fee compensation rules tables, you can

The difference between copying and sharing a fee compensation rules table is how the tables are stored. When using a shared fee compensation rules table, Tabs3 Billing simply stores a "pointer" to the shared fee compensation rules table and only the original table's rules can be modified. Therefore, if you make changes to a fee compensation rules table that other clients are sharing, the changes made will affect their rules as well. When using an existing table, you are able to use another client's table as a basis for the rules, thus allowing you to add, edit, or delete rules in the current table without affecting the original table.

Note: When using fee compensation rules tables for clients with multiple matters, you can set up a separate fee compensation rules table for each matter or you can assign a shared fee compensation rules table. Allowing separate fee compensation rules tables gives you the flexibility of using different fee compensation rules for each matter. However, it is much easier to maintain shared fee compensation rules tables. For example, if one timekeeper's percentage changes, it is much easier to change it only once in a table that is shared rather than change it for all clients.

Note: Fee compensation rules that include a statement date range can only be defined for clients whose Receipt Allocation by Invoice check box is selected.

Tip: If your firm uses consistent rules for clients, you may want to consider setting up an administrative client and matters with the desired rules. Then share the appropriate client matter's table with your other clients. Therefore, if you need to make a change to the rules, you would only need to make the change once to the appropriate administrative matter's fee compensation rules table.

Note: Keep in mind that changing a client's fee compensation rules table that is shared by other clients will affect all the clients that use that table. Thus, you may want to print a Fee Compensation Rules Report before changing a fee compensation rules table to determine which clients will be affected by the change.

Note: You cannot delete a fee compensation rules table if it is being shared with other clients. You can, however, delete individual rules in a table as long as at least one rule remains in the table.

See also:   Examples of Rules
  How Fee Compensation Rules Affect Reports
  How Fee Compensation Rules Affect General Ledger Integration
  Credit Transactions Technical Notes