Creating Operating In Transactions

In this article:

• Accessing the Operating In Screen
• Receiving a Payment for an Invoice
• Receiving an Overpayment or Operating Retainer
• Receiving Firm Receipts or Non-Client Related Receipts
• Receiving a GST/HST Refund for Canadian Books

The Operating Bank (General Bank) is where the day-to-day receipts and cheques are generated, Operating In allows you to receive payments to the firm.

Accessing the Operating In Screen

Go to Add Entry menu and click Operating In tab.

There are two sections within the Operating In screen:

1. Receipt Entry area is where you enter information about the receipt coming into the firm. 
2. Receipt Allocation section indicates where the entry will be allocated or posted.

Receiving a Payment for an Invoice

1. Go to Data Entry > Operating In.
2. Fill in the details for the receipt entry. 
   NOTE: Source field will show in Canadian books. To receive a payment for an invoice, Source must be set to Client Payment.
3. Search and select the contact (client) that you're receiving the payment from under the Contact field to auto-populate Received From field.
   NOTE: You can only receive payment for files associated on the selected contact (client). If you need to receive a payment from another saved contact, edit the primary contact/client under Contact Manager > Billing/File Defaults and add the contact under Additional Payee for Client field. If the payment is from anyone else and not a saved contact, manually type the name under Received From field.
4. Select the invoice or invoices you want to apply the payment to from the Select Invoices to Pay pop-up screen and click Ok, or click Auto Allocate to pay the oldest invoices first.
   
   NOTE: If you need to re-select the invoices, click the Select Invoices button to the right. Invoices will not display if receiving payment from anyone else that's not saved in the system.
5. Enter any notes regarding the receipt in the Memo field. 
6. Review the receipt allocation section that's auto-populated to confirm the details and allocation of the payment.
   NOTE:  If the payment is from anyone else that's not saved in the system, you need to manually search and select the file number, client number and invoice number to pay the invoice.
7. Click Save.

Receiving an Overpayment or Operating Retainer

If the client issued a payment more than the amount of the invoice, Legal Accounting will let you enter it as an Operating Retainer.

To do this:

1. Follow the steps for Receiving a Payment for an Invoice above, you will notice that the unallocated amount is separated than the invoice amount, or if there's no invoice to pay.
   
2. Search and select the file and contact that the overpayment or retainer is for under the receipt allocation section.
3. Toggle on Retainer. If the retainer column is missing, click the hamburger icon and check it from the list.
4. Click Save.

Receiving Firm Receipts or Non-Client Related Receipts

There are times you need to receive that are not associated with any client or file, Legal Accounting allows you to enter them as firm receipts. 

To do this:

1. Go to Add Entry menu > Operating In.
2. Fill in the details for the receipt entry.
   
   NOTE: Source field will show in Canadian books. To receive a firm receipt, Source must be set to Other.
3. Manually type the payor under Received From field.
4. Search and select the General Ledger account you want to allocate the receipt for under the GL Acct field.
5. Click Save.
   

Receiving a GST/HST Refund for Canadian Books

There are times when the CRA sends the firm a cheque for GST/HST refund and you can record it in Legal Accounting.

1. Go to Add Entry then Operating In.
2. Fill in the receipt entry details.
3. Set Source to GST/HST Refund.
4. Click Save.