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Software for Law Costs Draftsmen |
| Frequently Asked Questions - Using the program | |
| How do I limit the costs for a part? The dates for timed attendances appear incorrectly How do I make the disbursement appear before the description for a procedural step? |
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| How do I limit the costs for a part? | |
| This feature is currently under development and will be available shortly. In the meantime you will have to amend the Word document manually after exporting the bill. | |
| How do I apportion costs? | |
| Under development is a feature called Dynamic apportionment that will allow you to automatically apportion costs between parts and even bills. | |
| In the meantime there is a workaraound: For each Fee Earner whose work is to be apportioned you need to create a second fee earner (and associated category). For example Partner and Partner (1/3). The hourly rates for Partner would be £180.00 and £60.00 for Partner (1/3). You may need to make some small adjustments to the Word document after export. | |
| The dates for timed attendances appear incorrectly | |
| If the month and day are reversed you have a US date format selected in Windows. Open the Windows Control panel, double click on regional settings and make the appropriate adjustments there. | |
| How do I make the disbursement appear before the description for a procedural step? | |
| It is not possible to do this. If you insist ion the disbursement appearing first you must create a sepearate procedural step for the disbursement alone. | |
| Why does the directory in which I save my .cdc files fill up with files of the same name but with .c** extensions? | |
| These are files saved by the backup system. By default every time you save a file a copy of any previously saved version is made. This is done so that should you make a serious mistake you can revert to a previously saved version. The newest backup is given the same filename but with an extension of .c01, the second .c02 etc. | |
| The maximum number of backups can be set in the Other Options Window. By default this is set to ten in order to assist newcomers to CostsMaster who may make mistakes as they learn. As you grow in confidence you may wish to reduce the maximum number of backups. | |
| We find it useful to have a set of sticky tags (the same number as there are backups) which we use to mark the file each time it is saved. If we need to revert to a previously saved version we simply need to count back the appropriate number of tags.This has proved invaluable when we have missed a crucial date (such as a white CLS certificate). | |
| I cannot select a CLS schedule category for a 6 column bill | |
| First check that you have selected a 6 column bill type in the Bill Options window. If this doesn't fix the problem go to the Rates and Fee Earners window and click on the categories tab. You will see a list of your defined categories on the left. When you select a category its properties are displayed on the right. Ensure that Inter Partes Categories do not have the "CLS Costs" box checked and that all CLS categories do have it checked. | |
| When I try to double click a backup file I am asked what program I want to use to open the file and CostsMaster is not one of those listed. | |
| We do not recommend that you open backup files by double clicking them in Windows. Instead you should run CostsMaster, select File|New and in the dialog box that opens select "CostsMaster Backup files" from the type of files box. You can then select the backup file in the normal way. | |
| I have a 6 column bill where the inter partes rates change for each part but the prescribed rates stay the same. Is it possible to define only the inter partes rates in the part rates and have the CLS rates use the global rates? | |
| Unfortunately not, at least not at the present time. This would make it extemely difficult for you to see exactly which rates were being used. We do understand that in these circumstances entering the same prescribed rates for each part is tedious and a future version will facilitate this process greatly. | |
| How do I stop rates appearing in the "Rates Utilised" sections for categories that are not used within a particular part? | |
| Rates are displayed for a part if the hourly rate for that part is greater than zero. If you have rates appearing in parts where there is no work at that rate, simply set the hourly rate to Zero in the Rates and Fee Earners window. In Version 1.1 and later you can optionally suppress the description for a set of rates even when the hourly rate is non-zero. | |
| I cannot use the Alt+F6 shortcut for parties | |
| This is a problem for machines running Windows 95/98/ME. On these machines the operating system prevents other programs from trapping this key combination. A future version of the program will not offer this combination. For now we suggest assigning the shortcut to a blank party in order to stop the program offering you the shortcut over again. | |