Make sure to allocate time to plan your implementation. Consider factors such as who will be able to see Accounting information and who will be able to create new Billings. If you are unfamiliar with either AdvoLogix or Accounting Seed make sure to review the requisite documentation before getting started.
Install the Package
The AdvoLogix Accounting Seed integration is provided to AdvoLogix customers as an individual install package and is available upon request. The prerequisites for the integration are:
- AdvoLogix Matter Management 1.68.3 or greater
- Accounting Seed Financial Suite 3.79.0 or greater
Customize & Assign Page Layouts
Account Layout (provided by the Accounting Seed package)
- If you haven't already done so, assign this layout to the Accounting User profile or merge the required fields onto your custom Account page layout(s).
- Optionally, consider adding the Create Billing button provided by the integration package.
AdvoLogix Matter Layout (provided in integration package)
- The Matter fields added to the layout (and are required for the integration) are the Billable checkbox, Project lookup & Primary Account.
- The Billing related list and the Create Billing button have been added to this layout by default.
- Assign this layout to the Accounting User profile or merge the required fields (button and related list) onto your custom Matter page layout(s).
Accounting Seed Billing Layout
- Consider adding the Matter Name to the Billing layout.
- Consider modifying the Billing Line Items related list.
Customize Lists
Your organization may optionally create Billings by tagging Accounts or Matters from their respective list views. To implement this use case consider adding the Create Billings button to either (or both) of these lists.
Customize Sidebar Link
To use the global batch process for Bill creation, you will need to link the Create Billings custom link (provided by the integration package) to your sidebar custom links component, found under Setup >> Customize >> Home >> Custom Links.
Setting Up Existing Data
If you have been using AdvoLogix and subsequently installing the Accounting Seed integration package, please review this section as it pertains to the Matter/Project relationship and existing Time and Expense records.
Setting Up Matters
After your page layouts have been setup to accommodate the integration, you may now establish which Matters will become Billable. It is important to note any Billable Matter must have an Account and an Accounting Seed Project.
When enabling the Matter's Billable checkbox, if an Accounting Seed Project is not specified, a custom trigger will automatically create the Accounting Seed Project and link it to your Matter. Alternatively, you may specify an existing Project by using the Project Lookup on the Matter page layout.
You can use this process to establish your billable Matters. Alternatively, you could use a batch process which accommodates the requirements mentioned above.
Time & Expense Considerations
All Time and Expenses entered prior to AdvoLogix 1.43 will not have a value in the Disposition or Status fields. The integration uses these fields to select records for invoicing during batch invoice creation. For the purposes of this integration, a blank field is treated as Unprocessed and Billable.
The Create Bills process handles these records with a Status of Unprocessed and a Disposition of Bill. If this is not the desired behavior you should update the Time and Expense records with the appropriate values. In other words you may wish to mark all Time and Expenses with a Status of Billed or Not Billed. This will prevent them from being processed when creating new Bills.
This is not applicable to new implementations or Time and Expenses entered after AdvoLogix version 1.43.
Version 1.12.x of the Accounting Seed integration introduced the No Charge Disposition option. Existing AdvoLogix implementations (prior to AdvoLogix 1.68.3) will need to add this picklist value (No Charge) to the corresponding Disposition field in the Time and Expense objects.
Setup the Integration Options
The Accounting Seed integration options can be changed using the Options button on the Create Billing dialog or from the Integration section in AdvoLogix Setup.
- If you would like to use the custom Billing Format provided by the integration you may do so by creating a new Accounting Seed PDF Format. Assign the AdvoLogixBillingPDF as the PDF Format's Visualforce PDF Page. Accounting Seed provides several places to assign this new format, at minimum you may assign this PDF Format as to be used specifically for Billings created by the integration.
- You can customize your currency and numeric output to generate 2-decimal places using the Billing Format provided by the integration or from the respective Billing record.
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Numeric Format & Currency Format fields on the Billing Format provides a way to customize your default number and currency field outputs when generating a PDF or LEDES Export from a Billing.
For example, if you want to generate your LEDES Export file with 2-decimal place output, then save your Billing Format record (either in AdvoLogix Billing Options or on the respective Billing record with the following numeric and currency format values:- Numeric Format: #,###,###.00
- Currency Format: $#,###,###.00
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Numeric Format & Currency Format fields on the Billing Format provides a way to customize your default number and currency field outputs when generating a PDF or LEDES Export from a Billing.
For more details on AccountingSeed PDF Format, follow this article.
- When you create a new Billing, via the integration you will have the option to specify the GL Revenue Accounts for both Fees & Expenses. Make sure to set these according to the GL Accounts used by your firm.
- You may optionally map the Billing Line Item fields “Date / Comment / Rate / Quantity / Employee” to the field(s) of your choice from the Time or Expense records. You may also add additional field mappings (to the required mappings) using the Add Mapping button.