virgo accounts release notes

Irwin Associates: Virgo Accounts

Release Notes

Virgo Accounts has been a stable product for many years now and even requests for additions have become no more than a trickle.

A few corrections and additions have been made since release 10.0 and a couple of interim releases have been made available for customers with a current support agreement to download from the support area.

Interim release 10.72 includes:

a new routine Cashbook Transfers which lists and totals transfers to and from a selected client cashbook between user-selected dates;
a new routine Summarise Detailed Time which prints a summary of detailed time entries.

Release 10.6 includes the following changes:

an amendment to allow negative amounts to be entered in Post Bill Credit to allow for the correction of bill credits;
an additional option in Client Account Enquiry to export the account’s transactions as a delimited text file;
the ability to change the directory to which files are written when using the print to file option;
some minor cosmetic changes.

Details of earlier releases are given below.

Release Notes 10.0

Release 10 of Virgo Accounts was released in summer 2003. The change in numbering was to celebrate its tenth anniversary. This release includes:

Bills Analysis also shows, for each category, the percentage of total bills and the percentage of total time billed;
Detailed Matter Listing now provides the option to list only clients, which may be useful for producing client address labels;
a new shortcut keystroke, F12 for Y <return>;
standing orders now have the correct effective date rather than the date that the day-end processing was run;
a new routine Post Creditor Invoice to enable purchase invoices to be recorded on the nominal ledger;
cheque and/or remittance advice writing;
the ability to set the web browser as the default print device;
in Post Bill it is now possible to remove an amount of time exceeding the WIP balance; this effectively creates an anticipated time balance;
Matter Balances Listing now has the option to omit closed matters;
now when a matter is closed as well as setting a date of closure a $ symbol is added to the matter description to help identify closed matters on reports and enquiries.

Release Notes 3.1

As well as fixing a couple of "bugettes", release 3.1 of Virgo Accounts includes:

On the Budget Variance Report the sequence of the accounts listed is changed and there are totals for income, expenses, fixed assets, current assets, current liabilities and long-term liabilities; when running the report the user can select which period the report is for;
on the Trial Balance, the sequence of the accounts listed is changed;
the Unpaid Bills Enquiry now shows the age of each unpaid bill;
print files and export files now have an extension of .txt (rather than .sps);
the option to print files to a web browser - this has the advantage that reports may be easily viewed on screen before printing, that there is no pagination and it enables reports to be printed to GDI and other printers that are not supported by DOS applications;
Transaction Search has been improved so that it is no longer case sensitive and it now also searches the cashbooks, historic disbursement entries and archived cashbook transactions;
in Bank Reconciliation, transactions are now highlighted as they are matched;
a new system parameter Default Charge Group, maintained in Maintain Parameters and used in Maintain Matter Details;
the ability in Maintain Client Details to update the client details and then input a new matter with one keystroke;
a new enquiry Daily Bank Transactions which lists for a specified date all transactions on a selected cashbook - or all cashbooks - giving a total for receipts and for payments;
in Post Bill, on the second screen, when marking disbursements to be written off or not, those marked to be written off are highlighted.

Release Notes 3.0

Release 3.0 of Virgo Accounts, which was released in July 2001, includes:

a new report Cash Received Analysis providing an analysis of bill receipts between selected dates;
the ability to change the default on bill posting so that disbursements are retained rather than written off unless specified otherwise; this involves a new system parameter and changes to Post Bill;
also within Post Bill if the amount of disbursements billed is greater than the amount of disbursements written off then the program creates an anticipated disbursement (a credit item) for the difference between these two amounts;
a new report Time Recorded by F/E which lists the time recorded by each fee earner between selected dates giving totals for each matter on which the fee earner has worked during the period, a grand total for each fee earner and a summary by analysis code A or B or by client;
the VAT Report now provides an option to list all the detailed transactions as well as the VAT summary;
Opened/Closed Matter List now has the ability to list Legal Aid matters only, exclude Legal Aid matters or list all matters;
ditto Work-in-Progress Analysis;
Legal Aid Work Analysis has been renamed Average Cost per Case; no other change has been made to the report;
a new Matter Progress Report which shows for each matter that has a budget figure, the budget, the work-in-progress and disbursement balances and the remaining amount.

Release Notes 2.9

Release 2.9 of Virgo Accounts, released in July 2000, includes the following enhancements and amendments. The major changes are as follows:

the report Opened Matters Listing has been changed to Opened/Closed Matters List and it now (not surprisingly) provides the ability to list either matters opened or matters closed between selected dates and by category;
the ability in Nominal to Disbursement Transfer to enter a negative amount to allow transfers from a matter’s disbursements to a nominal ledger account;
the ability in Maintain Nominal Accounts to set a budget for a nominal ledger account and a new program Budget Variance Report to report on actuals, budgets and variances;
a new program Maintain Standing Orders to enable you to set up regular payments and receipts, which are automatically posted by Day End Processing; another new program Print Standing Orders lists all regular payments and receipts;
Matter Search and Detailed Matter List now have the option to omit matters that have been closed;
Matter Search also provides the ability to find matters by description or narrative;
the printed report for Matter Transactions Enquiry now also shows the analysis codes and the nominal interest;
Exception Report now includes the option to report on client account nominal interest values;
an optional feature (available at an additional cost) has been added to provide a link to Amicus Attorney so that client and matter details may be exported to Amicus Attorney and time sheets may be imported from Amicus Attorney;
a new report Matters With No Transactions to list all matters that have no transactions on any account (client account, matter ledger or work-in-progress);
Unpaid Bills Enquiry now gives an indication if there are funds on client account for the matter.

Release Notes 2.8

Release 2.8 of Virgo Accounts included the following enhancements and amendments. The major changes are as follows:

Bank Reconciliation now sorts transactions by date (except for the ‘balance forward’ transaction, which is always first); this was requested by the Law Society’s Monitoring Unit;
also in Bank Reconciliation there is a new option to archive rather than delete matched transactions; the archived transactions may be viewed as "historical" items in Cashbook Enquiry;
a new program Transaction Search to help find that elusive transaction on the matter ledger, client ledger or nominal ledger; you may enter any set of characters which could appear in the transaction record (such as narrative, date, amount, etc.) – see the revised user manual for more details;
a new program List Action Dates which lists all matters with an entry in the Action Date field, in date order;
a new program Matter Transactions Enquiry, which is similar to Matter Account Enquiry except that in addition to current transactions, it also lists the historical entries (billed disbursements) for the matter, as well as the transaction narratives;
the despool program may now be accessed from the Miscellaneous Options menu, as well as by entering despool at the main menu (as before);
a new screen input for program Export Details to allow the selection of which details to export to ASCII text files for importing into a spreadsheet, word processor or database;
in data entry, ctrl+left arrow will move the cursor one word to the left;
a new "enquiries only" menu for use by non accounts staff; this may be accessed by running the DOS batch program looker (or, in Windows 95, looker95) – if you wish to use this option, please phone for details of how to install it;
it is now possible to post a transaction that would take a client account overdrawn; a new system parameter switches this facility on and off – this is only intended for use if this situation actually occurred so the system represents what really occurred (it has been added at the request of the Law Society’s Compliance Monitoring Unit);
List All Client Ledger Transactions now has an option to list only the client interest payments;
in all transaction enquiry programs, including Bank Reconciliation, pressing the Home key in the "Option" prompt will return to the first screenful of transactions;
the Bills Analysis report now lists the billed time, billed disbursements, total bill value, number of bills and average per bill, and number of matters and average per matter in each category; it is also possible to select this report just for Legal Aid matters, non-Legal Aid matters, or all bills, over the selected period;
Client Account Reconciliation now has an option to omit matters where the client account balance is zero to help save paper; it also prints, at the end of the report, a grand total of all client money held;
a new program Detailed Matter Listing, which is similar to Matter Search but lists the client name, address, phone and fax numbers and comments, and the matter description, action date and comments for all selected matters;
correction of an error in Client to Office Transfer whereby the program reported a credit on disbursement account even if the transfer was to pay a bill – whoops, sorry!
a new program Close Matter, which allows a closure or completion date to be entered for a matter – this has no accounting effect and does not inhibit the posting of any transactions; it merely allows closed matters to be omitted from or identified on certain reports;
yet another new program Legal Aid Work Analysis, which is similar to Bills Analysis except that it only includes Legal Aid matters and only includes bills for matters with a date of closure between the selected dates;
Matter Maintenance now requires the input of a matter opening date, which defaults to today’s date – note that if you amend an old matter an opened date will now be required;
a new report Opened Matters Listing, which lists all matters opened between selected dates by analysis code A, analysis code B or client;
another new report Matter Balances Listing showing the balances on the bills, disbursements, client ledger and work-in-progress accounts, as well as the date of the last movement on the matter;
a bug which did not allow a cashbook to be deleted has been corrected in Maintain Cashbook Details; this program also has the option to remove archived cashbook transactions (see above).