What are contacts and why would you use them in Fees?
Article ID
ias-11972
Article Name
What are contacts and why would you use them in Fees?
Created Date
5th May 2015
Product
IRIS Time and Fees
Problem
What are contacts and why would you use them in Fees?
Resolution
Contents
- Introduction
- Main and Billing contacts
- Contacts for Trusts/Business Clients
- Contacts for Personal Clients
- How to insert the tags on to your template.
Introduction
Contacts are used as a way of writing to a specific person or department. For example, you may have a client called “Joe Blogs and Partners”, and the contact of the company is Mr Joe Blogs.
Contacts may be used for a number of reasons. In Fees, contacts are used to insert a person’s name on a fee document. For example, when sending an invoice to a client, you would like the name of the client to be above the address; and to use the Formal/Informal salutation after the word “Dear”:
Mr J Blogs
Joe Blogs and Partners
The salutation of the letter can be set to
- Formal: e.g. Dear Mr Blogs or
- Informal: e.g. Dear Joe
Contacts may need to be set up depending on the type of client. Personal clients will automatically have contacts set up when they are created. Business clients/ Trusts will not have contacts set up automatically and it is recommended that you create contacts for them to be able to address letters to a specific person of the business.
Main and Billing Contacts
Contacts may be given the property of either the “Main contact” or the “contact for Billing”. By setting a contact as main or billing means that it can be used by AutoMail or Fees to insert tags, or Data Mining to search for contacts on clients.
- Main Contact
The Main contact is used by most AutoMail letters and is typically where most of your correspondences.
- Billing contact
A Billing contact is the person that is allocated to be contacted for any billing queries. The contact for Billing is mostly used in IRIS fees, whereby the allocated person is sent the billing documents and any queries regards to them.
To set up Main or Billing contacts, you need to first set up the contact then indicate whether they are Main, Billing or both.
Contacts for Business Clients/Trusts
To be able to insert tags to the template, please view KB IAS-6785.
The knowledge base article explains how to set up contact details on a client.
For example, the name of the business is Bloggs, Doe and Partners, and the main contact for the business is Mr J Bloggs. You would need to set up Mr Bloggs as a Main contact of the business.
Once you have the entered the contacts and set them as either “Main” or “Billing” contacts, you are ready to insert the contact tags into your template.
Contacts for Personal Clients
When creating a Personal client, the database automatically sets up the contact of the client in the contacts tab. To change or look at the contact details:
- Log into IRIS Fees from the IRIS Main Menu.
- Select: File | Clients
- Highlight a Personal client and click on the ‘View’ button.
- The Client Maintenance screen will be displayed; click on the ‘Contacts’ tab.
- The contact will automatically be set up when creating the client.
- Highlight the contact and click on the ‘View’ button.
- This contact will default to Main contact, and the relevant box will be ticked to display this.
- Ensure the required details are entered. For example, Title, Initials, Surname, Formal/Informal Salutation.
- Click on the ‘OK’ button to save the changes.
Once you have the entered the contacts and set them as either “Main” or “Billing” contacts (by ticking the appropriate box), you are ready to insert the contact tags into your template.
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