🧭 Understanding Client Setup in Casefriend

Client management is a critical part of running a Workers' Compensation defense firm. Unlike traditional civil firms, TPAs and insurers often have multiple offices and varying billing rules. Casefriend’s Client Setup system is designed to help your firm structure clients accurately, enforce billing guidelines, and streamline invoicing.

This guide covers:

• The Casefriend Client Hierarchy
• How to set up Client Groups and Locations
• How billing rules are applied and customized

👩‍👧‍👦The Casefriend Client Hierarchy

Casefriend eliminates redundancies and errors by organizing clients into Client Groups and Client Locations.

🏢Client Group

A Client Group represents the overarching entity (e.g., AmTrust, Zurich) and allows you to apply shared billing rules across all associated locations.

Example: AmTrust limits billable hours to 10 per day across all cases. By setting up a single AmTrust Client Group with a 10-hour daily cap, this rule is automatically enforced across all AmTrust locations.

📍Client Location

A Client Location is a specific office where cases are assigned. Locations inherit billing rules from the Client Group but can also have customized rules.

Example: AmTrust has offices in Irvine, Covina, San Diego, and Concord. Each location may have different billing rates or rules. When a case is assigned to AmTrust Covina, the Covina-specific rules are applied during time entry and invoicing.

👨🏼‍🏫 Example

In this example, the law firm is handling 10 cases for Big TPA across 3 locations with different rates. Big TPA also limits billing to 10 hours per day, per case, across all locations. Any billings greater than 10 hours/day will be cut by Big TPA!

🧩 Client Setup Elements

Each Client Group and Location includes the following fields:

🔸 Client Group Fields

• Client Type – TPA, Insurer, Company, or Individual

‼️Client Type is assigned only to the Primary Location of a Client Group.

• Client Name – The familiar name (e.g., AmTrust)
• Client Short Name – Optional shorthand used throughout Casefriend
• Billing Rules – Shared rules applied across all locations

🔸 Client Location Fields

Client Locations inherit key values from the Group, but can be modified to suit Client Billing Guidelines. 

• Client Name - inherited from the Client Group
• Location Name – Typically the city or office name (e.g., Covina)
• Client Short Name – Optional shorthand used throughout Casefriend
• Billing Rules – inherited from the Group, but can be customized to suit. 

📋 Billing Rules

Billing rules are enforced during time entry and invoicing to reduce cuts and ensure compliance. You can set rules at both the Client Group and Location level.

🔹 Common Billing Rule Fields

1. Billing Template – PDF, LEDES, Litigation Advisor, etc. This is the default billing tempalte used when creating an invoice.
2. Billing Type – Hourly (default), Contingent, or Pro Bono
3. Frequency – This setting is used to determine when Time Entires are mature, and ready to invoice: End of Month (default), By Days, or Quarterly
4. Number of Days in Billing Cycle – Used if Frequency is set to “By Days”

• Time Entry Character Limit – Default is 255 characters
• Max Billable Hours per Day – Default is 10
• Alert When Billable Hours Reach – Default is 8
• Minimum Invoice Amount – Set a minimum invoice dollar amount when preferred by your Client. This setting prevents submission when Time Entries are below the set dolalr threshold
• Caps Lock on Time Entry – Default is Yes
• Require Matter ID – Optional
• Supplemental Document to Invoice – Optional
• Edit Timekeeper Rates – Set rates at the group or location level

💡 You can upload a PDF of client billing guidelines directly to the Client record.

🔐 Permissions

Creating and managing Clients is typically reserved for firm administrators. If you don’t see this feature and believe you should have access, please contact your firm administrator or Casefriend Support.