New concept: Entities

Entities are people, companies, and places you work with. They include:

• Firms, such as law firms, insurance agencies, and any company that orders or pays for services.
• Contacts, such as lawyers, paralegals, and secretaries who work for firms that contract with you.
• Locations, such as hospitals, doctor’s offices, schools, or any place where records are kept.
• Business units, which could be your branch offices, affiliates, profit centers, or any other entities that you want to track separately in MR9.

In MR8 these entities are located in the Setup menu, but in MR9 they are grouped into their own module for easier access.

Client & location management

MR9 expands on MR8’s entity listings — for example email has become the preferred way of sending records and invoices so there are more email options in MR9. New options for managing contacts and firms include:

• Label firms, contacts, and locations with keywords or phrases to mark them as part of specific groups, which you can use for different purposes, such as monitoring or marketing.
• Addresses for all entities include links to Bing Maps and Google Maps so you can get driving directions to any of them. No more keying in or updating directions manually.
• Designate different email addresses for contacts to receive emails related to financial matters, orders, and repository files. Designate separate email addresses for locations to receive emails related to orders.
• Include detailed billing, order, and production information for firms and contacts.
• Enter important information about the client that will appear in red so you won’t overlook it when ordering records or billing.
• Enter firms’ retainers and view the history of their application.
• Record collection efforts on firms.
• Upload client related files to the repository in their listing.
• Save contacts’ important dates, such as birthdays and anniversaries, to have MR9 remind you. Then print out envelopes/labels from MR9 for cards/gifts.
• If you reward clients with points, manage their points here.

MR9 include many more client management tools in other modules, such as Invoice Inquiry and Client Activity in the Inquiry module and Aged A/R in the Receivables module. Bonus: In functions outside the Entities module client names are usually hyperlinked to their listing so you can view and update listings on the fly.

Visual trends for individual firms & contacts

A new feature in MR9 provides data about individual entities in line-graph form. Account Overview gives a month-by-month comparison of the revenue generated and order/parts scheduled/canceled for a firm or a single contact at a firm over the last 6 months, year or 2 years. The line graphs are interactive. Hovering over a point in a line displays that month’s total $ amount or number.

Above an individual entity’s line graphs is a table that displays total receivables since they became a client and their current active orders/parts.