Before you begin

Closing Matters in LPG is a manual process requiring the Matter Manager to update the status of the Matter.  A Matter can only be closed if:

• All documents have been approved
• All mandatory surveys have been completed
• All deliverables have been completed and closed
• All invoices have been approved and paid
• All engagement orders have been completed and closed. Engagements can only be closed if all the previous actions have been completed. 

Even if all these actions have been done, the requirement for a manual closure is resulting in 60% of Matters in LPG still being open, some with creation date dating back to LPG implementation.

Closing off Matters where no further work is required will enable Matter Managers to focus on those Matters that do require their attention,  providing shorter, more manageable worklist.  It will also ensure that reporting from LPG is more accurate by cleaning up the long tail and providing more accurate statistics around Matter periods.

Procedure

1. On the LPG menu, select Reference > Customer Configurations

The Customer Configurations screen appears

1. In the Customer Configurations screen, click on the Automatic Matter Closure tab
2. Click on the  icon next to Add New Rule. 

1. Select an Invoiced Entity (Scheme Agent) that you wish the first rule to apply to. This is a mandatory field.  If you wish the same rule to apply across the board, you will need to define it for each Invoiced Entity.
2. For the selected Invoice Entity, you can create different rules for each of the different types of work handled by that Invoiced Entity. This is optional and if you leave it blank, this rule will apply to all Matters managed by the selected Invoiced Entity.
3. You need to specify the period, in weeks, since the last order within the Matter was closed and the triggering of automatic Matter closure. For most LPG work, we would suggest that the period should generally not be less than 12 weeks.
4. Finally, ‘Enable’ the rule before saving it. A table of all saved rules will be displayed on the screen. 

4. Once your rules have been saved, nothing further needs to be done. Each night, LPG will check Matters belonging to Invoiced Entities that have enabled rules.  If all orders within the Matter are closed or cancelled, the LPG processor will check the date of the most recently closed or cancelled order and if this is outside the period defined in the Automatic Matter closure rule, the Matter will be closed. 

Tips & Troubleshooting