ProfitPoint Tech Tips

It's Worth a Mint

2010-06-17T22:36:00.000-04:00

http://www.mint.com/ - simply the best way, free, to manage your money online.

It's easy to use, secure and offers techniques to manage your checking, investments, credit cards and savings.
It even tracks your assets if you want. Learn where your money goes, set up a budget.
Use it on your iPhone and Android phone for mobile updates.

Time Matters Tip - Mine your database for Marketing Gold

2010-06-17T16:53:00.000-04:00

Use custom fields for marketing and demographic information. Make them required fields. Look for more on this later.

Capturing key information about your clients is the first step in the process to continually obtain new business. For example, an estate planning practice could capture data such as client's line of business, major asset type and the source of their assets.
Export the data along with the income you've earned from them and learn about your best clients. Structure your new marketing efforts to target those types of clients and drive new business that is continually the "best" client for your firm.

Amicus Tip - Stop repeating yourself: use Precedents

2010-06-17T15:21:00.000-04:00

Precedents. What are they? Similar types of events can be chained together to form a series of tasks and appointments without dates that can be applied to a file. When attached to the file, you supply the base date and all the related records will be assigned a date that is derived from the base date.

To create a new Precedent based on an existing set of events and to-dos, complete the following steps:

Display an Events brad view of a File Details window
Select the events you want included, click Precedents, and choose Save As Precedent in the shortcut menu
Type a unique name for the Precedent - e.g. "Attend Court"
Select and option to specify who should be assigned to each of the events, then click OK
If any of the selected Events is a Linked Event, and you have not selected all the Events that are linked, then a dialog appears asking you whether you want the other Events included. If you click Yes, all Events in the chain are included. Otherwise, they are not.
Enter a description of the Precedent and change the list of firm members assigned if needed
Click Save
Now you can assign the precedent to any other file

Timeslips Tip - Drop trailing zeros like a bad habit.

2010-06-16T17:45:00.000-04:00

Recipients of Timeslips invoices often confuse decimal values with whole numbers. For example, ".10" in the Hours column is interpreted as "10 minutes" or even "10 hours." To help reduce the potential for confusion, you can drop the trailing zero from decimal values.

From within the bill design mode, right-click on the Hours field in the Time Charges - Itemized section of the bill layout, and select Format.
Check the box marked "Drop trailing zero(s) from decimal values" and click OK

Timeslips Tip - Get a record count without all that counting

2010-05-26T17:38:00.004-04:00

Timeslips includes many dialogs that contain lists of data: client names, slips, transactions and others. To get a quick count on the total number of items in a list, right-click within the list and select RECORD COUNT.