Lawyer reports are based on fee distributions. Expenses and taxes are always automatically distributed to the responsible lawyer, but you must specify the lawyer to whom the fees should be posted, both for billings and for receipts. It is important that you distribute fees correctly. For example, if you distribute the fees on a bill to one lawyer but the receipt to another, your A/R Aging report will be incorrect. The report for the first lawyer will show the amount as still outstanding and the report for the second lawyer will appear as if the client has overpaid.
Manual distribution means that you can enter the lawyer number and then manually enter the amount of fees. You can enter as many lawyers as necessary until all the fees have been distributed.
The All to Responsible option means all the fees will automatically be distributed to the responsible lawyer, regardless of which lawyer has done work on the file. Prorating the fees means, in the case of bills, that the fee distribution will be based on the time posted to the file. For example, if four lawyers have worked on the file and each has posted 25% of the time that is being billed, the prorate option will automatically post 25% of the billed fees amount to each of the four lawyers.
Prorating firm receipts is similar, but the prorating is based on the manner in which the fees amount was distributed on the bill the receipt is being applied to. For example, if the bill was manually distributed with 25% to one lawyer and 75% to another, a prorated firm receipt will distribute using the same percentage.
