The dossier is the basis of all operations you can perform in timeSensor LEGAL. Every natural or legal person needs a dossier so that you can add cases, link relationships, or create invoices.

Think of the dossier as the entirety of all information you have about a person. Every opponent, every authority, and every connected lawyer also needs a dossier. 

Since sensitive data can be changed in the dossier, it can only be opened with write access on one workstation. If another person in your firm is already in a dossier, you can still open it in read-only mode or ask the person via chat to close the dossier.

To add a new dossier, go to the "Contacts" area and select in the function bar to which category of contacts the new dossier should belong. In our example, we will add a new client.

The list with all client dossiers opens. In the title of this window, you can see how many dossiers you have already stored under the clients.

By clicking on the large blue plus icon at the bottom left, you add a new, empty dossier.

You can now fill in all relevant fields manually. If you have received a vCard from the new client, you can drop it into the label field so that tSL automatically reads the information and fills the corresponding fields.

Each master sheet has six contact fields available. You can customize these individually. So if you have two email addresses for a client but no fax number, simply set two of the fields to "eMail W" or "eMail H." Note that the first contact field is always the main contact and is displayed as "Communication 1" in the list overview. You can change the order of already filled contact fields by pressing cmd (macOS) / ctrl (Windows) + arrow keys.

Each dossier gives you the option to store a second address. For natural persons, you can store a "Work" and a "Home" address; for legal entities, a "Legal Address" and a "Shipping Address." One of the addresses must be marked as the main contact. This is chosen by timeSensor LEGAL as the recipient for any letters and invoices. You can recognize the main contact because it is displayed in bold in the label field.

To change the main contact, click on the small triangle in the gray area and select "Main Contact." The displayed address will then be marked as the main contact.

timeSensor LEGAL has a convenience function to add employees of a company. This saves you from typing the company address and contact details. Make sure that the company's dossier is already in the client list and is complete. 

Select the company and click on the large blue plus icon at the bottom left. You will then be asked if you want to add employees to the company.

Click "Yes" so that the shortened contact dialog appears. Here you can now record up to five employees. These will also be automatically linked to the company according to the relationship you select. In addition, the dossier of the added employee receives the same code as the company.  

This function saves you the tedious typing of contact data and the manual linking of the two dossiers.

Did you create the address in the wrong category?

You can represent different relationships of addresses. This way, it is immediately clear whether a company, for example, still has subsidiaries or which employees of the company are relevant for your work. 

The addresses you link on the master sheet are relevant for the person and will later be displayed in all case folders. So only link the addresses here that apply to the person and thus are correct for every case. Adding case-specific relationships is covered in the article "How do I open a case."

To link two dossiers, click on the blue plus icon at the bottom left of the master sheet to open the selector.

In the selector, you will now find all addresses available in the database. If you know that the address to be linked is not yet in the database, you can add it by clicking on the small blue plus icon. Please note the radio buttons in the header of the selector, which show the same address categories as in the program's GUI. 

As soon as you have found the address to be linked, you can drag and drop it into the "Related Contacts" area in the master sheet. timeSensor LEGAL will then ask in what relationship these two addresses stand to each other. 

In the master sheet, you see the label field next to the six contact fields. Here you see the formatting of the address as it will later appear on drafts and invoices. If you change the information in the master sheet, the label will also be adjusted automatically. The available formats are determined by the country settings of the address. 

For each address, you have three options to choose from, which are explained in the following table:

A yellow memo appears where you can store the information. The memo is saved when you close it. 

As soon as such a memo is stored in a dossier, it is automatically displayed every time the dossier is opened. You can also recognize the presence of such a memo by the fact that the field with the dossier code is now yellow and shows a small paperclip.

 

If a memo is no longer valid, you can delete it by clicking on the trash icon.

This memo function can be found not only in the dossiers but also in the invoice records and in the case settings.