When a site upgrades to Fees, any fee actual that already existed under the earlier fees functionality is carried across automatically. Nothing is deleted and nothing needs to be done immediately. Existing fees stay visible, intact and untouched unless the firm chooses to act on them.
This tab explains what that looks like in practice, and the options available for bringing older fees into the new Fees model.
What is displayed after migration
Where a fee actual existed under the earlier fees functionality, it displays as a transaction in the new fixed fee list view. The list view displays all fixed fees, with a Fee Section column identifying the commercial model and fee section the fee relates to.
The same fees can also be viewed by commercial model on the Financial Frameworks widget. See How to view fees on a work item.
Fees created before the upgrade carry a billing status of Migrated and a lifecycle state of Approved.
Why fees are left in this state
The migrated status exists to give the firm a choice. These fees can be left exactly as they are. There is no requirement to do anything with them, and no functionality is lost by leaving them alone. Alternatively, some or all of them can be moved into the Fees model at a time that suits.
Editing migrated fees
A fee can be edited while its billing status is still Migrated, and it can also be deleted. This is an exception to the usual rule, which allows an edit only where the lifecycle state is Draft or Revising. See Editing rules.
Unbilled revenue
A new Unbilled Revenue global feature tracks unbilled fees in the chart of accounts. Whether fees post is decided by its Record unbilled fees in chart of accounts option, not by enabling the feature.
Migrated fees are not recorded in the chart of accounts. Tools are provided to add them.
Reclassify migrated fees
There are two routes, and they are not the same thing.
- The Reclassification Wizard works across every matter at once, by work type. It is for the upgrade itself.
- A bulk action on the fixed fee list view reclassifies the fees a user has selected. It is for tidying up afterwards. A single fee can also be changed by opening it from the list view.
The Reclassification Wizard
Go to Modeller > Global features > Finance > Fee Structures, find the Reclassify Migrated Fee Actuals section, then select Open reclassification wizard.
The wizard decides for itself which fees are in scope. It takes fee actuals whose billing status is Migrated, on matters in an open phase, with a non-zero amount. Closed matters are out of scope. Zero value fees are always excluded, whatever the display setting for zero value fees says, because the run moves money. Both fixed fee and hourly rate fee actuals are included.
The three target statuses
| Target | What happens |
|---|---|
| Unbilled | The value is recognised in the chart of accounts, so a chart of accounts entry is created. Check the Unbilled Revenue global feature is configured as the firm intends before running this. |
| Billed externally | The billing status changes and nothing posts. |
| Written off externally | The billing status changes and nothing posts. |
Migrated is not a target, so a fee cannot be returned to Migrated by this wizard or by anything else. There is no undo. A mistake is corrected by reclassifying the fee to another status instead.
Work through the four stages
- Scope. Tick the work types to include. All are ticked to start with. A work type left unticked is not touched at all.
- Configure. Set one target for every selected work type, or select Configure per work type to set them individually. Break down by phase then sets a different target for each open phase within a work type. This routes fees to different statuses, it does not narrow the selection.
- Preview. The wizard counts what it would do and writes nothing. It displays the number of fee actuals and the value against each target, says which of them post to the ledger, and counts those it cannot move under Not transitioned. Use Back to adjust the targets.
- Execute. Select Start reclassification. Progress displays as it goes, and the run can be paused and resumed. Closing the blade pauses the run rather than losing it, and it can be picked up again from the Existing Runs tab.
Keep the blade open and expect it to take a while
The wizard works through fifty matters at a time, so a large run takes several minutes. It is attended, which means it only progresses while the blade is open.
What the wizard leaves behind
A fee that cannot be moved is skipped and reported. The run is never refused as a whole, and each matter is handled on its own, so one problem matter cannot stop it.
| Why a fee is skipped | What happens to it |
|---|---|
| The fee is not at an Approved lifecycle state | Counted in the preview as blocked, and left unchanged. |
| Someone reclassified the fee after the run started | Skipped and counted as already reclassified. |
| The run hits a problem on one matter | That matter's fees stay Migrated and the run reports a failure count when it finishes. |
Re-running is always safe, because only fees still at Migrated are picked up. Anything that failed stays Migrated and is retried by starting another run.
Permissions
Running the wizard needs permission Finance - Fee Actuals - Bulk Override Across Matters. That permission widens the reach of a reclassification, it does not grant a new one: the user also has to be able to set the target status on a single fee. A target the user cannot set displays with a padlock and cannot be chosen, and a user who can set none of the three is stopped at the Scope stage.
| Permission | What it allows |
|---|---|
| Finance - Fee Actuals - Bulk Override Across Matters | Running the wizard. |
| Finance - Fee Actuals - Set External Billing Status | Overriding a fee actual's billing status from an external finance system, through the public API. Required for the billed externally and written off externally targets. |
| Fees - Change billing status | Changing a fee actual's billing status between unbilled and the external statuses from within the application, in either direction. Either this or Set External Billing Status allows the Unbilled target, because the two cover the same change from two different entry points. This is also the permission that returns a fee from an external status to unbilled, one fee at a time. |
All three are system permissions, granted to System Admins as delivered.
Reclassifying ends the ability to edit
Once the billing status changes from Migrated, the fee can no longer be edited. It sits at an Approved lifecycle state, which is treated as finalised. Decide what a migrated fee should become before running the wizard over it.
Tax sections
The Tax section type has been removed. Tax is now enabled at template level: a tax rate is selected on the template and applied automatically to any estimate generated from it. Individual elements can be overridden with a different rate where needed, so a court fee disbursement can be zero rated while standard fees use the default. See Section types.
Because the Tax section type has gone, any template that used it has had its tax section remapped to a Fixed Fee section. Where tax actuals already existed, these have been migrated to Fixed Fee as well.
Charge tax once
Where fees are set to unbilled, any associated tax actuals are set to unbilled too. When billing, make sure tax is charged once in total. Do not apply tax again on top of a net fee amount that already accounts for it.
Disbursement sections
The Disbursements section type no longer supports actuals. To preserve existing actual values, these sections have been mapped to the Fixed Fee type instead.
Where an element referenced a purchase rate card, that reference is no longer valid, because purchase item rate cards cannot be used on a fixed fee section. To preserve the value, the rate from the card has been copied onto the fee template element as a fixed amount. The element no longer references the rate card, so the amount is maintained on the template from now on.
New fees created after the upgrade
New fees default to a lifecycle state of Draft. The state model is Draft, Submitted and Approved, with Revising available off Submitted. A fee cannot be edited or updated once it reaches Approved. See Phases, states and statuses.