|
InfoPro Home > PowerInvoice™
LexisNexis® PowerInvoice™ Service Center
About LexisNexis® PowerInvoice™
LexisNexis® PowerInvoice™ couples the convenience of the Internet with the power of the LexisNexis® services to provide you with instant access to both current and historical financial data related to your LexisNexis accounts. PowerInvoice™ maintains 24 months of invoice information and six months, plus the current month, of billing information. Billing data is provided 24 — 48 hours after use and utilizes 128-bit SSL (Secure Socket Layer) protection.
Searching in LexisNexis® PowerInvoice™
Using the PowerInvoice search facility you can quickly locate reports that contain the information you want. When you access PowerInvoice, you'll notice an Invoice and a Billing tab on the top left section of the page. You will use the selections under these tabs to select the type of financial information you want to research. Then, much like using the LexisNexis services, you'll use a search facility to locate specific invoices or billing reports from the database of information for your organization. Once the report(s) have been retrieved, you can review those reports online, print copies of the ones you want, and download them to your PC in a variety of formats. This lets you review reports offline at your leisure or import them into financial management applications.
Using the Custom Billing feature under the Billing tab, you can generate a variety of billing report items. Custom Billing provides flexible options you can use to invoice your customers using billing methodologies that fit with your firm's billing strategy and your clients' expectations. This feature lets you create one or more custom profiles. These profiles enable you to create, save, and apply the options to your billing report data creating a customized billing report that you can use when generating your customer's invoices.
The Reallocation feature, also located under the Billing tab, lets you identify and evaluate the non-billable LexisNexis charges your organization incurred over the timeframe you specify. These non-billable charges include the following:
- Fixed Charges -- These are LexisNexis charges that are normally billed once a month or on a one-time basis and may cover items such as subscription fees, equipment charges, and so on.
- Non-billable Services -- There may be some LexisNexis services that your organization chooses not to bill to clients.
- Non-billable Clients -- This refers to LexisNexis research performed for one or more internal or external clients for which the associated costs cannot be billed and thus recovered.
You can then select all or some of those non-billable LexisNexis charges and generate Reallocation reports that show how your billable clients' charges would be altered if those non-billable charges were to be equitably redistributed among them. You could then use this information when generating billing data for your billable clients.
Recent LexisNexis PowerInvoice Enhancement Information
PowerInvoice Enhancement July 2007
Alerts—You can now save a LexisNexis PowerInvoice search report as an Alert to run automatically on the schedule that you determine. Simply run the desired report and click on the “Save as Alert” button in the upper right of the screen. Complete the Alert form to indicate the name, schedule and format of the report. At the bottom of the form fill in the e-mail address(es) you want the report delivered to.
User Defined Report Format—You now have the ability to define which columns of PowerInvoice data to download. Click on the “User-Defined” button from the “Billing Data” tab to get started. Set up your report to include only the columns from your LexisNexis PowerInvoice report that you need to see, in the order that is most useful for you. You also have the ability to rename the report columns. This will provide the flexibility needed to match your time and billing system. Select the report most appropriate for your needs. Using CTRL-Click choose the columns that you wish to include from the list of Field Names. Click Include. Then use the Column Sequence feature to arrange the columns in the most helpful order.
View and Delivery Formats—Use the “E-mail Report” feature to deliver the report to anyone who needs to see it. You can send a copy to Accounting to facilitate payment; send a copy to end users to address incorrect client/matter number issues; send a copy to a librarian or office manager in another office of the firm. Click on the “E-mail Report” button from a report screen. Complete the form with the appropriate address(es), subject and message. Use the “Printable Format” link on the report screen to facilitate clean, easy printing from your browser.
Electronic Fund Transfer—Select the Invoice Tab then select “Register for Online Account Management.” You can sign up to have an automated bank transfer of funds pay the LexisNexis® monthly invoice. This can be set up to occur automatically or you can first review the monthly invoice and manually begin the fund transfer process. You can also elect to receive an e-mail indicating the firm’s monthly invoice is available in PowerInvoice, as well as opting to not receive the LexisNexis printed invoice.
PowerInvoice Enhancement March 2007—ID Maintenance Tool
LexisNexis announces the launch of its ID Maintenance Tool! The ID Maintenance Tool is a new tab located on the PowerInvoice product, giving firm administrators the ability to manage their users’ lexis.com™ IDs. Administrators can view their LexisNexis users and locate specific sets of IDs, view and edit an individual user’s record, and inactivate or add new IDs as needed. For example, if a user will be serving in a temporary position, the administrator can instruct the system to automatically deactivate that user’s ID on a specified date. Because the ID Maintenance tool is Web based, all changes are immediate. Additionally, this tool allows authorized administrators to view and reset passwords.
The ID Maintenance Tool performs these functions:
- Add new IDs (single additions only) – this feature is accessed through the “Create Similar” link. New IDs are created based on an existing ID, with user rights mirroring the one you want the new user to have.
- Inactivate (Delete) IDs – this feature deactivates the ID. The ID can be reactivated, if needed.
- Edit current ID record – this feature allows a user’s record to be edited, including name changes.
- Reset Password – allows the administrator to reset a user’s password. Once reset, a temporary password is displayed.
- Display Password – allows an authorized administrator to view a user’s password. For security purposes, the user will be notified via e-mail when their password is viewed.
If the firm administrator would like to have the ability to view user passwords, a Password Administration Service Agreement must be signed for each person requesting access to view user passwords.
Please contact your Account Representative or Librarian Relations Consultant regarding access issues and any additional questions.
PowerInvoice Enhancement June 2006
On June 26, 2006, online customers became able to set up e-invoice notifications and modify the settings for these notifications. This enhancement provides greater flexibility and allows users to manage their invoice delivery (electronic, print or both).
Some customers will be able to sign up for one of three options:
- Receive an e-mail when the invoice is available in PowerInvoice, but not receive an invoice in hard copy.
- Receive the print invoice via mail (no change from today).
- Receive print invoice via mail and also receive e-mail notification the invoice is available in PowerInvoice.
If no action is taken the customer will continue to get the print invoice as they do today.
A customer may sign up for the preferences by clicking the new “Register for Online Account Management” tab. Once selected, a person can make the selection for invoices and will need to enter an e-mail address to complete the registration for invoice e-mail alerts.
Frequently Asked Questions
What data will be available in the PowerInvoice Billing report? Why would the most recent date under Standard Date Range not match the date in the "Data has been processed through ..." note?
PowerInvoice will display the range of the data (usage) within the report. There may be a discrepancy in the date range and the processed date displayed above the Billing Search form. The date range indicates the dates of usage by the customer. The processed through date indicates the date all billing information for all customers was processed. (For example, if the screen states data has been processed up to Dec. 27 but due to the holiday, there has been no usage by the customer since Dec. 23, the Month to Date selection will only display up to the Dec. 23 date.)
Explain the PDF format available for Invoice reports.
PDF stands for Portable Document Format. It is a format available for use with Adobe Acrobat Reader® 3.0 or higher. It allows you to view and print your invoice in a format that closely resembles your hard copy invoice. You can download a free version of Adobe Acrobat Reader from Adobe's site at: http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html
Is there a character limit for the fields in the PowerInvoice Search forms?
Yes, but we do not have the ability to determine exactly what it might be because it is dependent on the browser you are using. There are two errors you could receive if you reach the limit:
- Netscape: Browser sent a message that the server could not understand.
- Internet Explorer: There is a problem with the URL. Please check the URL and try again.
- If you receive one of these errors, the only alternative is to narrow the search down. This may occur when you select a large range of clients.
Can you use wildcards or Boolean connectors within the fields on the Search Forms?
Yes. You can use exclamation marks, the "or" connector, the "and" connector, and the asterisk. If you only wanted to pull up clients that began with 9999, you could type in 9999! in the Client ID field.
Can you change the exchange rate for currency in PowerInvoice?
PowerInvoice uses the local currency file to provide billing data. However, if you change the currency option during a session, the exchange rate is used to display the data. This can be done by clicking on Options and selecting the currency you want to view in. The default is U.S. Dollars.
If you elect to view your detailed billing data in a currency other than USD, PowerInvoice uses information extracted from a non-LexisNexis program called Exchange Rate. PowerInvoice keeps track of the exchange rate from this program based upon the last day of each month. When you elect to view your detailed billing data in another currency, PowerInvoice calls the saved exchange rate for that currency and converts the data from USD to the currency.
When is Billing Preliminary/Final?
There are times when the Billing Data screen in PowerInvoice will show that the "Billing is Final." However, the Invoice screen may show that billing is still preliminary. When Billing goes final for the month, the Billing data in PowerInvoice is flagged first, indicating the data is final for the month in question. After that, another process runs which finalizes the data for the invoices in PowerInvoice. There is usually a day or two lag time, so you may see discrepancies in the Billing Data vs. Invoice Data screens.
Additional Questions?
Contact Customer Support! They are available 24 hours a day for any additional product questions. They can be reached at 800-543-6862.
Back to Top >> |
