CCH Practice Management Version 2012.3 Release Notes
Legal Notice Disclaimer CCH Software has made every effort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of these Release Notes. However, CCH Software, its staff and agents will not be liable for any errors or omissions and use of the software is subject to the customer s licence with CCH Software. These Release Notes should not be relied upon as a detailed specification of the system or the software. CCH Software may make changes to these Release Notes from time to time. Copyright These Release Notes may not be copied, altered, edited, disposed of or distributed without the prior consent of CCH Software. The content is confidential. Unless indicated otherwise all elements of this software production are owned by Wolters Kluwer (UK) Ltd. 2012 Wolters Kluwer (UK) Limited (trading as CCH Software) Trademark Rights Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT, Windows for Workgroups, Windows 98, 2000, XP, MS-DOS, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft Office, are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Novell and NetWare are trademarks of Novell Inc. Citrix MetaFrame is a registered trademark or trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc., All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. CCH Software 145 London Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT2 6SR UNITED KINGDOM
Contents Release Highlights 1 Prerequisites 1 Software Enhancements 2 WIP Provision Approval 2 ITS 30662 VAT Invoice by Company and Office 3 ITS 42528 Multiple Debtors Statements 4 ITS 48069 -Licensing 5 New Fields to Client/Assignment Tab 6 ITS 50254 WIP & Debtor Provision Totals 6 Version Number 6 ITS 50126 Report: WIP: WIP Lockup Days 6 ITS 46477 Sales Day Book by Client 7 ITS 49975 Report: Fees per Client with Comparatives 7 ITS 50127 Report: Fees: WIP Billing Targets 7 ITS 39573 Report: Prebilling by Type 8 Quality Improvements 9 Known Issues 10 System Administrator 11 ITS 50126 Report: WIP: WIP Lockup Days 11 ITS 50127 Report: Fees: WIP Billing Targets 11 ITS 48069 -Licensing 11 Appendix A 12 Closing clients with automatic Debtor and WIP write offs 12 II
Release Highlights This release of CCH Practice Management contains the following enhancements: WIP Provision Approval WIP/Debtor Write off with automatic closure of assignments Licensing Versioning Reporting Enhancements Full details of these changes are included within this document. Prerequisites Hardware and Software Requirements CCH Practice Management v4.60 is required before applying this upgrade. Practices who are running an earlier version, please contact CCH Customer Care & Support for the correct upgrade procedure path. CCH Central v2012.3 is required before upgrading to CCH Practice Management v2012.3. Before performing any upgrade, a backup of your existing deploy and database should be undertaken. The backup process is described within the CCH Practice Management Installation Guide. Microsoft SQL version 2000 Support Sites running Microsoft SQL Server 2000 should contact CCH Customer Care & Support or their IT supplier to organise upgrading to a later version of Microsoft SQL Server. Practice Management v2012.3 is no longer supported on Microsoft SQL 2000. Note: This upgrade is not applicable to sites using Replication. All Replication sites should contact their Account Manager. CCH PRACTICE MANAGEMENT V2012.3 RELEASE NOTES - SEPTEMBER 2012 1
Software Enhancements WIP Provision Approval New functionality has been introduced allowing firms to select which mode of WIP Provision is entered at a practice level. The four modes are as follows: Standard VPM Assignment Provision Entry Approval Client Provision Entry Client Provision Entry Approval Upon upgrade the default setting is Standard VPM. To alter the default setting, select Maintenance Miscellaneous Miscellaneous and select a different mode for WIP Provision Approval. Note: Access to the Miscellaneous menu option is controlled by the existing security permission key. The table below provides a top level summary of Mode features Mode Requires Partner Approval Additional Input Screen New Homepage Control Standard VPM Assignment Provision Entry Approval Client Provision Entry Client Provision Entry Approval Note: Entry of WIP Provisions via any of the above modes is controlled by the existing #Assignment @Provisions security permission key. See the WIP Provision User Guide for further information on how to utilize the new WIP Provision features. 2 CCH PRACTICE MANAGEMENT V2012.3 RELEASE NOTES - SEPTEMBER 2012
ITS 30662 VAT Invoice by Company and Office Practices are now able to create a VAT invoice per company and/or Office, using the functionality that was introduced in Practice Management version 4.60 (Linking Bill Templates to Company and Office). Upon upgrade the Tax Invoice Path is removed from the Document Style Defaults location and the path is added into the standard Document styles screen with a new Type of VAT Invoice. The Enabled option is ticked by default. The VAT Invoice template (with the type VAT Invoice) is automatically available for all companies. Additional VAT Invoices can be added in the standard manner, ensuring that the Enabled option is ticked and the Type is set as VAT Invoice. By Company Practices that are multi-company after upgrade should access the Maintenance Document Document Styles Company/Office window and remove the irrelevant VAT Invoice template from specific companies. When a new company is created within CCH Central, users are required to access the Document Styles Company/Office window and make available the relevant VAT Invoice templates against the new company. When a new VAT Invoice template is added to the Document Styles section or an existing VAT Invoice template is set to Enabled, users need to assign the VAT Invoice template to a specific company(s). By Company and Office Practices that have changed the Document Styles Templates setting to be By Company and Office are then required to access the Maintenance Document Document Styles Company/Office window and remove the irrelevant VAT Invoice templates from specific companies and offices. When a new company is created within CCH Central, users are required to access the Document Styles Company/Office window and make available the relevant VAT Invoice templates against the new company and existing offices. When a new office is created within CCH Central, users are required to access the Document Styles Company/Office window and make available the relevant VAT Invoice templates against existing company(s) and new office(s). When a new VAT Invoice template is added to the Document Styles section or an existing VAT Invoice template is set to Enabled, users need to assign the VAT Invoice template to a specific company(s) and office(s). CCH PRACTICE MANAGEMENT V2012.3 RELEASE NOTES - SEPTEMBER 2012 3
Multiple VAT Invoices Determining the Style Regardless of the system setting applied (By Company or By Company and Office) if multiple VAT Invoices have been made available, a pop-up box appears with a drop down selection when the user chooses either the Preview or Print option from the Task Bar within the VAT Invoices to Print Screen No VAT Invoice Option Where a VAT Invoice Template has not been made available, the following message appears when selecting either the Preview or Print option from the Task Bar within the VAT Invoices to Print Screen Add the The VAT Invoice Template into the Available column for either the Company, or Company and Office. ITS 42528 Multiple Debtors Statements Users are now able to select a different Debtor Statement when in the clients Sales Ledger. The Statement option has moved from Common Tasks to a new task bar option called Debtor Statement. 4 CCH PRACTICE MANAGEMENT V2012.3 RELEASE NOTES - SEPTEMBER 2012
Select Template: Click Select Template then select the appropriate statement from the drop down box. Click OK. The statement description below Select Template changes to reflect the new statement name. Click the Statement option to run the client specific Debtors Statement. The selected statement is retained for each client. Note: When initially accessing the Client Debtor Enquiry Screen the default statement layout is determined by the value entered against the Debtors Statements Configuration Key under Maintenance User Defined Configuration. Debtors Statement Maintenance System generated Debtor Statements are now able to be deleted enabling practices to display relevant layouts only. This is achieved from the Reports Option > Debtors > Debtors Statements. Note: Debtors Statements Balance Forward and Debtors Statements Multicurrency are currently not included within the Statement Template selection option. ITS 48069 -Licensing This release of Practice Management has re-introduced licensing for timesheets employees. As per the earlier licensed version of Practice Management, the licence count is applied to each Active Timesheet employee. The licence details can be found under Help About Licensing In this instance, the Practice is licensed for 1003 employees, of which only 4 employees are currently utilising a timesheet licence. Where the maximum licence has been reached, no new employee can create timesheets, a message is returned advising that the count has exceeded. Firms can either make an employee inactive (where required) or contact their Account Manager for additional licences. When a firms practice management licence has expired or is terminated, employees can continue using Central, but are unable to create new timesheets, a message is returned advising that the licence has expired. Firms can contact their Account Manager to resolve where required. Note: Practice Management licensing is only updated when a new timesheet is created. CCH PRACTICE MANAGEMENT V2012.3 RELEASE NOTES - SEPTEMBER 2012 5
New Fields to Client/Assignment Tab Two new fields are available from the Field Chooser within the Client/Assignment Tab. Provisions Net WIP The provisions field returns the total amount of provisions for that assignment, while the Net WIP field displays the current net position (after taking into consideration provisions) By default these two fields are not automatically displayed. ITS 50254 WIP & Debtor Provision Totals Two new fields have been added to the Provisions Tab found under assignments. Total WIP Total Debtor Users are now able to determine at a glance what the WIP and or Debt total is for each Assignment provision. Note: Total WIP is inclusive of approved and unapproved WIP Provisions. Version Number A change has been made to the way all products within CCH Central are versioned. Previously each product had their own version number, which was confusing for anyone wanting to keep track of when products were released and what was the latest version. All products now display the year and quarter of release. E.g. 2012.3 (year = 2012 and 3 = Quarter 3 [September]) ITS 50126 Report: WIP: WIP Lockup Days A new report section and layout has been added under Reports WIP called Lockup Days; The Lockup Days report section allows users to report on the WIP/Debtors balances and the respective outstanding days. Lockup days are calculated as follows: WIP Days Outstanding WIP WIP added for year x 365 Debtor Days Debtor balance Fees for year x 365 Lockup Days Total of WIP & Debtor Days Note: See Administrators Section for details on the new permission key. 6 CCH PRACTICE MANAGEMENT V2012.3 RELEASE NOTES - SEPTEMBER 2012
ITS 46477 Sales Day Book by Client The Recovery Rate field has been added to Sales Day Book by Client report. ITS 49975 Report: Fees per Client with Comparatives The following fields have been added to the Fees by Client with Comparatives report: Client Parent Name Closed ITS 50127 Report: Fees: WIP Billing Targets A new report section and layout has been added under Reports Fees called WIP Billing Targets. The WIP Billing Targets report allows users to report on target amounts to be billed compared with actual billed amounts within a specified date range. The target amount is calculated as a percentage of the previous months WIP (Net WIP At). The Target percentage is set via a configuration key within the system. A new configuration key is required to be entered to specify the practice wide billing target percentage. WIP Balance Net WIP At Balance as at report end date Balance as at 1 month prior to report end date Billing Target Net WIP x Target % Billed Billing Variance Total billed for specified date range Billed minus Billing Target Bill Variance percent Billed Billing Target x 100 Target Recovery Recovery Variance Value as per configuration key Billed total change in WIP Recovery minus Target Note: See Administrators Section for details on the new permission and configuration keys. CCH PRACTICE MANAGEMENT V2012.3 RELEASE NOTES - SEPTEMBER 2012 7
ITS 39573 Report: Prebilling by Type The following field has been added to the Prebilling by Type report: Job/Schedule Upon upgrade, the Pre Billing by Code Type report will be over-ridden with the new layout which includes the Job/Schedule field. Note: The Prebilling report By Type is accessed from the Assignments Tab and selecting the By type option from the task bar. 8 CCH PRACTICE MANAGEMENT V2012.3 RELEASE NOTES - SEPTEMBER 2012
Quality Improvements The following quality issues were resolved in CCH Practice Management v2012.3: ITS 47707: Purchase Ledger: Reallocate function Previously, the re-allocation function on the purchase ledger was not being honoured. ITS 50250: Multicurrency: Purchase Ledger Allocation Errors Previously, when allocating a +/- purchase ledger entry the following error message was being returned Invalid object name dbo.closedledger. ITS 48797: Client Deletion and Miscellaneous charges Previously, users where unable to delete a client if an associated assignment had a miscellaneous charge attached. ITS 38624: Assignment Template not honouring set Recovery Rate Previously, when providing a different recovery rate (other than 100%) when adding the assignment from template option, the recovery rate was setting the recovery rate to 100 regardless. ITS 50515: Homepage: Aged WIP/Debt Inability to access Practice Option Previously, when selecting the Practice Option on either of the Aged WIP or Aged Debt homepage controls, Central would appear to hang. ITS 48647: Homepage: Aged WIP/Debt Error when setting Department and Office Previously, the following error message was being returned Object reference not set to an instance of an object when setting either the Department or Office Option on both of the Aged WIP or Aged Debt homepage controls. CCH PRACTICE MANAGEMENT V2012.3 RELEASE NOTES - SEPTEMBER 2012 9
Known Issues The following are known issues: ITS 34853: - Company Nominal Accounts update with Multi Company Company Nominal Code update is not working correctly in a multi-company system. After moving across a nominal code for the first company listed, if you then select the second Company and then select the first company again, the nominal code (that should belong to the First Company) is moved to the second company and not the first. Workaround: Move all nominal codes across for the first company, click ok to save and exit, reenter and move the nominal codes for the second company. Repeat for additional companies. ITS 42599: - Incorrect filing of VAT Invoices VAT Receipts Algorithm (set within Maintenance Documents Document Creation Settings) is not using the correct path when saving the VAT Invoice word document. The VAT Receipts Algorithm is using the Documents Startup Path and not the Billing Startup Path. ITS 50688: - Draft Bills: Issue with previewing already open word bill If a draft invoice is previewed the read only word document is opened, if the preview button is selected again, an additional read only word bill is opened. In essence a read only word bill is opened each time the preview option is selected (and the previous read only word documents have not been closed). 10 CCH PRACTICE MANAGEMENT V2012.3 RELEASE NOTES - SEPTEMBER 2012
System Administrator ITS 50126 Report: WIP: WIP Lockup Days Access to the WIP Lockup Days Reporting area is controlled by a new permission key, under the Product of VPM, within Maintenance Security Task Permissions. Smart Reports Smart Reports-WIP-WIP Lockup Days ITS 50127 Report: Fees: WIP Billing Targets Access to the WIP Billing Targets Reporting area is controlled by a new permission key, under the Product of VPM, within Maintenance Security Task Permissions. Smart Reports Smart Reports-Fees-WIP Billing Targets A new configuration key has been added to enable practices to set the firms Billing Target. For practices who wish to utilise this functionality, the following configuration key needs to be set up under Maintenance User Defined Configuration Key Name Key Value Comments BillingTarget 88 Default Target percentage ITS 48069 -Licensing After this upgrade or if any additional licences are purchased, the system administrator is required to access Help About Licensing, select the PIN Numbers tab and click the download button. CCH PRACTICE MANAGEMENT V2012.3 RELEASE NOTES - SEPTEMBER 2012 11
Appendix A Closing clients with automatic Debtor and WIP write offs New functionality has been introduced which enables the system to create write-offs/bad debts for outstanding WIP and debtor balances when performing the close client routine. A new configuration key has been added to enable practices to choose whether or not to utilise the new client closure functionality. For practices who wish to utilise this new functionality, the following configuration key is required to be set under Maintenance User Defined Configuration Key Name Key Value Comments EnableAutomaticAssignmentClosure 1 Performs Debtor and WIP write-offs and closes all open assignments upon client closing EnableAutomaticAssignmentClosure 0 No change to existing closing client functionality. The Key value being set to 0 or not present, results in no change to the application. Note: The client closure ability is controlled by the existing #Client #Close Client security permission key. 12 CCH PRACTICE MANAGEMENT V2012.3 RELEASE NOTES - SEPTEMBER 2012
Client Closure When performing the close client routine, in addition, to returning the standard Reason and close open assignments option boxes, an exception list is returned when unposted WIP, draft invoices and unallocated receipts are found. These items are required to be addressed before the client closure process can be executed. Click Cancel to terminate the process. Click OK once all exceptions have been addressed Note: Click on the hyperlink to launch the item that requires to be addressed. The following screen appears only after all exceptions have been addressed or if the client has no exception items to resolve. Click Cancel to terminate the process (no write-offs or bad debts are created). Click OK to continue the close client process (which creates and posts the WIP write off and/or Debtor bad debt entries). CCH PRACTICE MANAGEMENT V2012.3 RELEASE NOTES - SEPTEMBER 2012 13