We're very excited to release MerusCase 5.0!

Version 5.0 includes powerful new features for firms of all sizes and specialties, as well as improvements to the existing features you know and love.

Easily track your cases with Case Progress. Every case file now has a customizable timeline in the Case Details screen. You can read more about this feature in our Case Progress blog post.

Create custom rules for your firm’s billing practices with the new Billing Rules feature. To read more about this feature, check out our Billing Rules blog post.

Attention Employment Law firms! Employment cases have been upgraded with a special ‘Employment’ tab. This new tab provides easy tracking of wage claims and other vital information for an employment case.

We’ve got something special for Family Law firms! Family Law – Custody cases have a new Child Support Calculator. Just enter the financial information, and MerusCase will do the math for you.

Search all your messages with ease with Full Email Search. Your firm’s case-related emails can now be searched for content in the message body.

• Documents: Combine tool can now be used on Documents and Messages. PDF versions will be created for any selected messages.
  
  

• Phone Call activities now display the name of the associated contact even if the contact is not in the firm rolodex.
  
  
• Event activities now display the time in the time zone of the creating/editing user.
  
  
• Attempting to view deleted activities will display a notification.
  
  
• Improved handling of documents with very long names.
  
  

• Billing Rules are here! Easily create rules and guidelines for your firm’s billing processes. 
  
  
• Billing rules can control individual ledger items based on:

• Minimum or maximum time per ledger item
• Excluding or allowing specific user roles
• Excluding or allowing specific users

• Matching or excluding text in the ledger description
  
  

• Global Billing Rules can be enforced based on:

• Total amount billed per user
• Total per case file
• Total per Case Phase / Budget Group (see Case Progress below)
• Total per Billing Contact, for specific users
  
  To read more about Billing Rules, check out our Billing Rules blog post.
  
  

• Ledger entries are now validated against any active Billing Rules.
  
  
• Invoices can now be assigned a Due Date. Invoices that are open past their Due Date are shown as Past Due.
  
  
• Invoices can be filtered by their Past Due state.
  
  
• Late Fees can now be applied to Open Invoices.
  
  
• Rounding is more consistent for ledger entries with fractional penny rates, such as the 2017 IRS mileage rate ($0.535).
  
  
• Other improvements:
  • Improved display of PDF invoices with very long ledger descriptions.
  • More consistent behavior when marking invoices paid by applying a credit balance.
  • Better sorting and filtering of Hrs/Qty and Rate/Unit Cost columns.
  • Improved audit logging when exporting charges.
  • More consistent response when viewing a reviewed, exported, or invoiced ledger entry and exporting charges or creating new ledger entries.
    
    

• New Feature: Case Progress timeline now appears on the Case Details screen. Case Progress is an easy way to track the history and current state of your cases. For more details, check out our Case Progress blog post.
  
  
• Employment Law cases now have an Employment tab, complete with Wage Claim tracking. The included fields can even be used to auto-fill Employment court forms!
  
  
• Family Law - Custody cases now have a Child Support calculator in the Custody tab. Just plug in the financial information, and MerusCase will calculate the amount of child support due.
  
  
• In Workers’ Compensation cases, the Remove Injury button has disabled for General Staff users.
  
  
• You’ll also notice other improvements to:
  • Creating document archives for cases with very long names.
  • Combining cases with multiple injuries and/or duplicate parties.
  • Interacting with form-related buttons in the Immigration tab of Immigration cases.
  • Viewing body parts and case numbers for Workers’ Compensation cases with a jurisdiction outside of California.
    
    

• Contact Merging is back and better than ever. Use the Contact Merge tool to consolidate your contacts and simplify your rolodex.
  
  
• LEDES options can be updated when a case’s default billing party is changed.
  
  
• The Cases tab in a Contact record can now be filtered by the contact’s Hidden or Visible state
  
  
• Other upgrades include:
  • Better behavior when editing contacts with an attached company.
  • More responsive interface when deleting a contact’s Previous Addresses or Employment History.
  • More accurate notification when a contact cannot be unlinked from a case.
  • Viewing body parts and case numbers for Workers’ Compensation cases with a jurisdiction outside of California.
    
    

• New Invoicing section in Systemwide Settings:
  • Late Fee Percentage field sets the percentage used when calculating late fees.
  • Invoicing Terms field sets the number of days before an invoice is considered Past Due.
  • Other Invoice-related fields have been moved from Time Tracking settings.
    
    
• General Staff can no longer edit or add custom statutes in Automation Setup.
  
  
• Improved layout of Workflow screen.
  
  
• Default Calendar View (Month, Week, Day) option available in My Preferences.

• Searchable Emails: Message bodies can now be searched via Search Firm Documents or Search Case Documents.
  
  
• Message subject displays when hovering over a message.
  
  
• Messages are sent more consistently even if the associated email account has connectivity issues.
  
  
• Better behavior when linking messages to cases or using the Send & Delete button.
  
  

• Settlements Report now includes all settlements on a case and includes the Settlement Date.
  
  
• Cases List with Injury Detail report behaves more consistently when filtered by Status or when returning a small number of cases.
  
  
• Improved behavior when running reports using the Since the beginning of time or Everything (including the future) date options.
  
  
  
  

• Forms & Documents:
  • Better behavior when hiding/showing built-in templates.
  • Improved interface when editing forms on very small screens.
  • Improved use of Injury Code 700 on California Workers’ Compensation forms when more than 5 body parts are associated with an injury.
  • More consistent response when sorting Recent Firm PDFs by the Activity/File Name column.
  • Macros are now stripped from MS Word documents that are uploaded to MerusCase.
    
    
• Mobile
  • Improved column layout on various screens when viewed on mobile devices.
  • My Billable Time graph now hidden on small screens to allow easier viewing of ledger entries.
  • Better behavior of navigation menus.
  • Username field on login page now uses e-mail keyboard on mobile browsers.
    
    
• Misc:
  • All-day calendar events behave more consistently when dragged or resized.
  • Improved syncing of calendar events to mobile devices when events have ending dates/times in different time zones.
  • Improved performance of e-mail address auto-complete.
  • Better layout of list rows after adding or editing an item.
  • More accurate calculations for the Most Ambitious Billers graph.
  • Other changes for a better, more efficient MerusCase experience.

We hope you enjoy MerusCase 5.0!