Activity Categories Flashcards
Firms use Activity Categories to streamline the creation of time and expense entries.
This ensures that you’re always associating the correct rate for the work that you’ve done, reducing the amount of manual entry done and saving time by minimizing typos or errors. The ability to filter Time entries based on Categories can also provide you with valuable insights into how your firm’s billing hours are distributed
Any user is able to create Activity Categories and they can be shared with everyone in the firm to take benefit from
Alternatively, Activity Categories can also be assigned to Groups if they are not intended for everyone at the firm
Time entries can be created from several areas:
- In a Matter’s Activities tab
- The main Activities page
- Through the global Create New button
- By activating the Timekeeper in the Clio banner
Breakdown of the fields
1-10 as follows
- Duration
input a minute or hour amount in either a decimal format or a time format to track how long you have spent on your task
- Timer
Click to start a timer to run in the background for this entry as you continue to work in your Clio account
- Matter
include a Matter to ensure the Time entry can be billed to your client. Any Matter can be selected in this field (if you create your Time entry within a Matter’s Activities tab, the Matter will already be filled out)
- Activity Category
Select from a list of predetermined rates to apply to your entry. Activity Categories can utilize a custom billing rate, and include text to further describe your entry
- UTBMS task code
if you have opted to use UTBMS billing then a Task code can be applied to your entry. More can be read in the UTBMS Codes Support article
- Description
Further describe the entry you are creating by adding details into the Note open text field
- Date
The current date will populate by default. Click in the field to change it
- Firm user
Track time for yourself or on behalf of another user in your account. Click inside to change the user associated with the Time entry
- Rate
See the rate as determined by the rate hierarchy, or input how much should be charged per hour for your Time entry
- Non-billable
Track time that won’t be charged to the client or appear on a bill
Non-billable Time Entries
Marking time as non-billable, or any type of matter, will allow you to track time and activities for matters without having them appear on bills or charge to your clients. This is valuable for tracking productivity and costs
Time entries can be logged for any of your matters including flat rate matters
Any hourly time entries associated with billable flat rate or contingency matters will default to non-billable, but this default can be adjusted on individual time entries or for all time entries
You can adjust an individual time entry to billable by unchecking the box next to Non-billable when creating a time entry
You can also adjust your settings so that all time entries associated with flat rate or contingency matters default to billable:
- Go to Settings
- Click on Billing
- Scroll down to find the Non-billable Time settings
- Uncheck the box next to Set hourly time entries on flat rate and contingency matters to non-billable by default
As this is tied to the Firm’s Billing Setting, this should only need to be unchecked once by an Administrator
Using the Timer
You can also create time entries as you go by using the timer. Click the timer as soon as you start working. When you’re done, stop the timer and complete your time entry. You can also pause the timer if you’re taking a break and restart it when you’re ready to continue with the activity you had started. It’s important to know that when you start a second timer in Clio, the first will stop. You cannot run multiple timers simultaneously
Continuing work on something you were doing yesterday?
You can create a new time entry with all the details copied over by restarting that time entry from a previous day
Other ways and places to capture time
Aside from standalone time entries, you can also associate time with specific elements in Clio. If you are tracking the time spent on drafting a document, why not have your time entry linked to that document directly? The same situation might apply to a client meeting on your calendar. This next video will quickly show you how and where you can associate time entries with other Clio elements
Creating Expense Entries
Expense entries are reimbursable costs that will be recouped by billing your client. They may be for charges such as court fees, medical reports, postage, or photocopying
We can log Expenses from:
- The Activities tab in a Matter
- The main Activities page
- The Create New button in the Clio banner
