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October 2014 Newsletter

Welcome to the CostsMaster newsletter.  In this edition:

Update to Version 4.2

We are pleased to announce that version 4.2.27 of CostsMaster is now available to download from our web site. This version has several bug fixes plus a couple of minor improvements.

Version 4.2.27 is a free upgrade for current subscribers and we would recommend that you update your copies to this version.

CCMS Update

The pilot of the bulk upload facility was due to be finished by now but due to the system being down for a considerable part of the test period, the pilot has been extended until November.

The feedback we have received from clients is that the files they are preparing with CostsMaster are being accepted into the system and they are finding the amount of time saved by using CostsMaster, as opposed to entering claims via the CCMS user interface, is considerable.

The LAA are inviting firms to move over to CCMS but at present we have not been given any indication as to when the upload facility will be made available to everyone. In the meantime any providers on CCMS who are not on the upload pilot will have to make claims manually via the CCMS public user interface.

Jackson Bill Update - The J-Codes

As hinted at in our previous newsletter, the J-Codes have now been announced and can be found here:

http://utbms.com/jackson-ew-utbms/

These codes represent the first step towards the new bill of costs. The intention is that these codes will be recorded by fee earners on their time recording systems and will form the structure to the new bill of costs. The codes are divided into three levels, phases, tasks and activities (expenses for disbursements), although it is only necessary to record the task and activity as each task is specific to a phase which is therefore implied. The phases represent the most general classification of work and are very close to the Precedent H phases.

The second part of the process, the bill itself, is now well advanced and we are currently working on the technical specifications that will allow the bill to be easily exchanged between systems.

The new bill will be fully supported by CostsMaster which will make it easy to get work from a time recording system, amend, alter, and split that work, and produce a high quality bill in both Word and Excel formats that still retains the personality of your company.
The End of the Road for CostsMaster 2

Whilst most users have long been enjoying the extra features and productivity improvements of CostsMaster 4, a small number are still using version 2. This version has been superseded for a number of years now and its feature set is becoming increasingly outdated.

With the impending new format bill, its usefulness is set to diminish even further and we have therefore taken the decision to end all support for version 2 from the end of 2015. From this date it will no longer be possible to obtain access keys to unlock the program. All subsequent versions of the program are able to open files saved with version 2 so access to your files will not be impeded by this.

Website revamp

We are now well underway with the redesign of the CostsMaster website and are concentrating on giving it a much more modern look whilst still retaining all the content.  Hopefully we will be launching it very soon.  It's looking good in testing and we're confident you will find it much easier to navigate and will approve of the new look!

Contact Us

Follow us on Twitter @CostsMaster for the very latest news on our software updates and releases as well as relevant industry comment and news. 

Please don't just follow us, talk to us too!  If you have a question or a genius idea that would make a difference to how you use CostsMaster then we want to hear about it so feel free to tweet us.  Your feedback is really important and helps guide our work on future updates and versions.
 
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