Task guide
Offices
The places the firm works from, who heads each, what is recorded at each, and closing an office once nothing stands on it.
The offices
Every place the firm works from is an office: the head office, its branches and any liaison office. Settings, Firm, Offices lists them, the head office first, each with its address and how many people work from it. Closed offices wait at the end of the list.
Open an office to see its page. The facts beside every tab say what kind of office it is, its code (printed in matter numbers where the numbering scheme asks for one), who heads it, when it opened and whether it is open.
What the office's page shows
The Overview leads with the figures a manager asks first: the people who work there, its open matters and how many opened this month, the clients of its live work, the time worked this month and the time not yet billed. Somebody who reads the firm's journals also sees what the office billed and collected this financial year and what its bills still wait to be paid.
The other tabs are the firm's own registers narrowed to the office: its people, matters, its clients, its time, its bills and receipts, where money paid on its matters goes, its storage places for originals, its petty cash and everything done to the office record.
Whatever is created from an office's tab starts in that office: a person invited, a matter opened, a client taken on, a money route, a storage place or a petty cash float. A client belongs to the office that took them on, shown on the client's Overview and changed there, and the office's Clients tab lists the clients it took on together with the clients of the matters it runs.
Work belongs to the office it was done in
Time, disbursements, bills, credit notes, receipts, client money and the postings behind them carry the office their matter was run from when they were written. Moving a matter to another office does not move the work already done: from the day of the move, new work is the new office's. A credit note, a write off or money applied to a bill belongs to the office the bill was written in.
The registers of time, bills, receipts and matters can be narrowed to one office, and the trial balance can be read for one office's postings. A journal that spans two offices, such as money moved between two matters run from different offices, leaves each office's side standing alone, as a branch's books show it.
Documents carry the office
A bill, credit note, receipt, payment voucher, client statement, payment plan letter or reminder letter prints the address, phone and email of the office it was written for, and the firm's name and its registered details (registration, TIN, VAT) as the law asks. A letter made from a template about a matter prints its office's details too, and templates can name them directly with {office.name}, {office.address}, {office.phone} and {office.email}. Where an office holds no phone or email of its own, the firm's is printed.
Secondments
A person can be lent to another office for a dated period without leaving their own: Second to another office in their menu, with the office, the first and last day and the reason. While it runs they are listed under both offices' People tabs, marked Seconded here or Seconded out, and a role reaching their office's records also reaches the office they are lent to. A secondment can be ended early with the last day and the reason; every secondment stays on their page.
Heads of office
Give the person who runs a branch the Head of office role. It does a partner's work and, for the office the person works from, reads its people's leave and standing, decides their leave, approves their timesheets and reads the client money of its matters. Move the person to another office and the role follows them.
Closing and reopening
Close an office from its page with the day it closed and why. An office cannot close while people still work from it, matters are run from it, a money route names it, a petty cash float is open there or its storage places hold originals; each is listed with a link to the tab that clears it. The head office is never closed: make another office the head office first.
Nothing is deleted. A closed office keeps everything recorded against it and can be reopened.
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Read next
- The people directoryEveryone who works at the firm in one register, and each person's page with their matters, time, leave, standing and figures.
- Set up your firmThe firm's profile, offices, bank accounts, logo and letterhead, completed before anyone else starts work.
- Roles, permissions and scopesWhat a person may do is decided by the permissions their roles grant, each at a scope, never by the name of their role.
- Money routesWhich of the firm's accounts receives each office's money, fund by fund and currency by currency, and the firm's own route where an office has none.
- Bank accountsOpening a bank account or mobile money wallet with its opening balance, accounts held for one client, changes to where an account is held that somebody else approves, and retiring an account.