Sunday, August 14, 2011

Favourites Tab

The Quick Step menu in PCLaw has separate tabs grouping the buttons for everyday tasks into 6 major categories: Time/Fees, Client Costs, Trust, Billing, Client Receipts, and Accounts Payable (may differ on older versions). Many of these tabs have only two or three buttons, and you must flip between the tabs throughout the day.

The Favourites tab allows you to place all the buttons you use every day on one tab. Just right click anywhere on the Favourites page, “Add Button”, and scroll through the lists to find the one you want. The New QuickStep allows for up to 15 buttons. For everyday use, you might want:

1. General Cheque
2. Receive Payment
3. Trust Cheque
4. Trust Receipt
5. Fee Sheet
6. Create Pre-Bill
7. Create Bill
8. Quick Bill
9. Expense Recovery.

You might want to add:
1. Quick Timer
2. Undo Bill
3. Past Due Notice

These are suggestions only – every firm is different. If you never use Quick Bills, there is no point in adding it to your Favourites. Likewise, if you only rarely undo bills, do not place the button on your Favourites page. Of course, all of these buttons still appear on the other tabs or the pull down menu, if you need them. The idea is to have only the buttons you use frequently, and not to allow for every possibility.

You can also add reports too, like General Bank Journal, Trust Bank Journal, and Accounts Receivable Reports. Basically, add anything you use on a regular basis.

My suggested list above has 12 buttons. Did you know that you can also add other applications like Word, WordPerfect, etc. to your PCLaw tabs? Right click on the page, “Add Button”, and scroll down to “Application Launcher”, then browse to the program file you need. Everything you use on a daily basis can be placed in this one convenient location.

As always, I invite your comments and suggestions for future posting topics. Next week – Keyboard Shortcuts.
Clyde

1 comment:

  1. I would like to offer my analysis and a predicament on the issue of Quick Step from my experience.

    The Quick Steps fall into the following categories:

    1. Classic - with buttons (Ver 7 and prior versions). These were based on "functional" style.

    2. New Quick Step - these appear in "icon" form and not "button" form. The New Quick Step has an option to switch between "functional" style (Ver 8) or "Workflow" style (Ver 10) when one right clicks and clicks "Default".

    I have discovered the following:

    For firms that have been using PCLaw for a long time (from the days of Ver 6/7/9) and they migrate their old databases to Ver 10, they can switch between "functional" style (that most old users are used so that groups features on the left according to each function - Time/Fees, Trust, Billing, etc), or "Workflow" style (Accounting, Daily Tasks, etc) in the new Quick Step. In both cases the access is via icons and not buttons. If a user tries to switch to Quick Step Classic the screen goes blank.

    I wonder what would happen if new firms install PCLaw 10 and want the "functional" view (does not matter if it is in icon or button form) since the Quick Step Classic option is no longer available/working in Ver 10. Would they still be able to get a "functional" view using the New Quick Step?

    If functional view is not an option I guess one would have to get rid of the Help panel on the right to accommodate as many tasks as one needs under favorites.

    Thanks

    HAM

    ReplyDelete

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