seaBILL Legal Billing Software

BSA Pro legal billing software - Import clients from Timeslips

Importing clients and matters from Timeslips version 9.1 and greater into BSA is simply a matter of making an ASCII text file of your client information in Timeslips and then importing from that file into BSA. Unfortunately, Timeslips makes the process of creating an ASCII text file somewhat complicated.

To make it easier for Timeslips users, we've created a free Report Template file which you can download. Also, we've created a free BSA Import set up file you can use. Have a floppy disk handy and then follow the steps below. The report template we've created in Timeslips exports your client name, address and phone number information as well as the 'In Reference To' field. In BSA, the 'In Reference To' information is normally used as the Matter Description.

Please keep in mind: You don't have to use the templates we provide. They are here simply to make the process easier.

First - Make sure you have the latest version of BSA Pro. If you're using BSA Pro version 4.3 or greater, you can download a free update to the latest version by Clicking Here.
Then, Download the FREE BSA/Timeslips Report Template files by clicking here. After you have updated to the latest version of BSA, you can extract the two report files (ts91exp.rpt and bsats9im.txt) by double clicking on them and saving them to a floppy disk. These files allow you to quickly and easily create a file listing all your client names, addresses, phone numbers, etc. from Timeslips and then to quickly and easily import the client information into BSA.

Once you've downloaded and extracted these two small files, follow the detailed steps below. Note: The steps shown are for Timeslips version 9.1. The steps for version 10.x are virtually identical.

In Timeslips v9.1 and greater

1.	Click on Reports

2.	Click on Reports from the drop down list that appears

3.	Click on the Client tab near the center of the many tabs in the Reports box

4.	Click on the 'User Defined Client Listing' Report under the Description column heading

5.	Click on the 'Set up this Report' button near the bottom of the Reports box

6.	Click on the Formats Tab

7.	Find the 'Report template file path' row

8.	Find the small button on the far right of the row and click it

9.	Find the 'Look In' box near the top and select the down arrow to select the location and file name of the Report Template File you downloaded. It's called: ts91exp.rpt

10.	If you extracted the Report Template File to a floppy, locate the floppy drive and select it. Then select the ts91exp.rpt file.

11.	This is how the box should look after you've selected the file. Click the 'Open' button.

12.	This is how the row showing the report template file path should look assuming you're using the A: drive.

13.	Find the down arrow in the 'Print To' drop down box in the lower right of the Set Up Report Box.

14.	Select the 'File - comma delimited (CSV)' option in order to print the client list to a text file.

15.	Select the 'Print' button.

16.	A 'Save As' box appears that will let you save the client information in a text file with a name and in a location of your selection. If you need to change the location where the file will be saved, click on the down arrow to reveal the drives you can save it to.

17.	Type the name you want to give the file in the 'File name' box. You can name it whatever you want but you will need to find it later so give it a name and a location you can remember.

18.	Select the Save button.

19.	A small box appears showing the progress. When it's done, it will disappear. At this point, you can quit Timeslips and start BSA.

Now, In BSA

1.	From the Home Menu, select Utilities

2.	Select ASCII Import/Export

3.	Select ASCII Import

4.	Select Clients

5.	When the Select Client Fields box appears, select the Open button

6.	The 'Open List Template' box appears. Make sure you have the proper drive selected. If you downloaded the file to a floppy, select the proper floppy drive.

7.	Once you have the correct drive selected, click on the name of the BSA Template file you downloaded, bsats9im.txt, in the list of files on the left side.

8.	Click on the OK button to open the BSA Template file which will then select the proper fields in the proper order.

9.	Click on the OK button in the lower left to close the Select Fields box and allow you to complete the import.

10.	Click on Start Import button.

11.	An 'Import from text file' box opens up to allow you to select the file you created in step #17 in Timeslips.

12.	Once complete, a box appears to advise you of the number of clients imported.

If you get an error message such as:

"Problem at line 1 you specified 13 fields for import but 12.5 fields were found on this line "

Then, there is a problem in the text file you created in Timeslips. For example, this error indicates that a closing quotation mark is probably missing at the end of a line.
You can fix problems such as this by opening your Timeslips export file in NotePad or WordPad and looking at the line number shown in the error message. In this case, you'd look at the first line. Count the number of quotation marks in the line. You should have 2 for each field. In this case, you should have 26 quotation marks. Chances are you have 25 marks which would imply there are only 12.5 fields. So, you'd have to either manually add the missing quotation mark or check to see if something went wrong with the Timeslips export process and try it again.
Our experience is that you can quickly see the problem if you look carefully at the file created by Timeslips.
If you're having trouble see the problem, try exporting only one client from Timeslips and then looking at the text file. With only one line to look at, you can quickly see if there's a problem. If the file looks good to you, try importing it into BSA to prove to yourself that the import will work when the file is properly formatted.
Once you've gotten one client imported successfully, you can review your entire Timeslips export file for errors. If you have more than 100 clients, you might want to break the file into several smaller files with only 100 clients in each file. That way, you can more easily review each file and correct any errors and then import it.

Congratulations! You have successfully imported your Timeslips clients into BSA!

Please Note: Timeslips uses only one field to hold both the first and last names of clients. This causes problems since BSA (and most billing programs) uses a separate field for the first name and one for the last name. As a result, BSA employs a proprietary algorithm to split the first and last names from Timeslips. No such automatic algorithm is 100% accurate, however. So, after the import, please take a moment to look at your client list in BSA and make any changes or corrections.