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Appendix: CCH Axcess

Christa Mason
Updated

Summary

CCH Axcess has a few nuances that are important to understand in regards to how it functions with Aiwyn. This article will breakdown these uniquities and provide workarounds and tips for getting the most out of your Aiwyn integration.

 

Included in this article

 

DAU and daily data load

The Data Axcess Utility (DAU) is a CCH Axcess product that is required to have in place in order for the data to go from Axcess to third party vendors, such as Aiwyn. Think of the DAU as a "middleman" between Axcess and Aiwyn.

 

Axcess_to_DAU_to_Aiwyn.png

 

Data from Axcess loads into the DAU every 4 hours (starting at 5am eastern)

 

Because the DAU is updated every 4 hours, this means Aiwyn's connection to your data is NOT real time. This will affect ALL data you may change or interact with in Axcess, including:

  • Newly posted/sent Invoices
  • Contact record changes
  • New client records added
  • Non-Aiwyn payments reconciled
  • Invoice credits or adjustments

Any data change or record creation you make in Axcess will be subject to the data load schedule before said changes reflect in Aiwyn.

 

 

Click Here for more technical information regarding the DAU.

 

Invoice Sending from Axcess

Invoices sent from Axcess will direct first to your Aiwyn inbound email address (e.g. firm@inbound.aiwyn.ai). Following a data load from Axcess to the DAU, Aiwyn will "see" the invoice and then will send the client contact(s) their Aiwyn invoice email.

 

Things to keep in mind:

  1. The Aiwyn inbound email address is case sensitive! Make sure it is all lowercase letters.
  2. If you direct the invoice email from Axcess to something other than your Aiwyn inbound email address, the client contacts will NOT receive their Aiwyn 1-click invoice email.
  3. A change made to the contact(s) in Axcess may not reflect in Aiwyn until after a data load is sent to the DAU. As such, changes in Axcess may take up to 4 hours before they are reflected in Aiwyn.

 

Recommended Contact Setup in Axcess

You cannot set up your billing email contacts using the "Address/Phone" section of the client profile in CCH Axcess if you use/will use Aiwyn's Engagement Letters.

Instead, use the "Contacts" tab of the client profile to create contacts, this allows you to use first and last names and categorize the "type" of contact they are, which in turn appears in Aiwyn for that client's contact(s). 

CCH Axcess - Client Contact Profile - First and last name.png

  1. Open Dashboard, click Application Links on the navigation panel, and then click Client Manager under Clients.
  2. Add a new client profile.
  3. Click Contacts under Profile Information on the navigation panel.
  4. Add a contact. Click New on the button bar to add a client contact.
  5. Click Full Name to enter the contact's name. Full Name can include title, first, middle, and last names, and a suffix. First and last names are required.
    1. When searching for existing contacts in Axcess, use the last name as first name will not show results
  6. Click OK.
  7. Enter the client contact information on the General tab.
  8. Click Notes on the navigation panel to document specific information about this client contact.
  9. Click the client contact profile Save button.
  10. Click the client profile Save button.

Contacts pulled in to the Email Invoices section

Once all the contacts have been added under the Contacts section of the Client Profile, proceed to Practice > Billing Options > Email Invoices section.

  1. Select "+ click here to select" and choose your first real contact
  2. Select the Statement Flag ONLY (NOT THE INVOICE FLAG)
  3. Repeat these steps for all Contact emails that need an Invoice and Statement

Axcess_-_Invoice_Email_flag_section.png

 

Aiwyn Inbound Email pulled into Email Invoices section

  1. The Aiwyn Inbound Email Address (e.g. firm@inbound.aiwyn.ai) can be a "Shared Contact" that is made available for ALL Clients.
  2. Once it is shared across all Clients, on a Client Profile's Email Invoice section, pull the Aiwyn Inbound email as an additional recipient, with only the Invoice flag selected (as shown in the image above).

What happens as a result?

We created logic that interprets the "Statement" flag for a Billing Contact as "Contact Receives both an Invoice and a Statement".

  1. A bill is prepared and ready to send to a Client's contact(s)
  2. Select to send the invoice via email
  3. The Aiwyn Inbound Email will actually be the only contact to receive the email
  4. Aiwyn will recognize the Invoice and Client and will look at the Client Record to see which contact(s) have the "Statement" flag selected
  5. Contacts with the Statement flag selected receive the 1-Click Aiwyn Invoice Email after a data load from Axcess to the DAU.

 

Video: Understanding CCH Axcess and Aiwyn Email Invoices

 

 

CCH Axcess Contact Conversion

In order to allow invoice emails to flow from CCH Axcess to Aiwyn, as well as delivering these Contacts their Statements and Engagement Letters (if in use), changes must be made to the Contacts and Clients in CCH Axcess. Some of these changes can only be made when the firm is not emailing Invoices, and we recommend targeting to do the work the week before going live with Aiwyn to Clients for Payments & Collections (though that is not a requirement).

Contacts must be:

Created using the Contact section of a client in CCH Axcess

CCH Axcess provides various APIs through their add-on "toolkits", one of which can be used to create new Contact records in CCH Axcess when a new row of data is added to a specific spreadsheet. These APIs do come at an additional cost from CCH Axcess, however in a show of good faith, Aiwyn can help you put the Client Contact API and contact creation automation in place for your firm if you are implementing Aiwyn Engagement Letters.

Invoice/Statement Contact(s) added to the Email Invoice section of Client Profile with only Statement Flag Selected

CCH Axcess offers a Contact Conversion process they can run on your data in CCH Axcess in order to set up the contacts in the correct manner for sending Aiwyn invoice emails (i.e. with the Statement Flag selected only). This is run a few days before your firm's Aiwyn Go Live date. Please contact CCH Axcess for pricing. 

Axcess Email Invoices Best Practices:

  • When overwriting data on an existing row, Aiwyn is not able to capture new information.
    • This can cause issues with sending invoices to incorrect or outdated email addresses.
  • Any existing contacts needing to be updated by the firm will require adding a new row to the Email Invoices section within Billing Options while unchecking the Statement box and removing the Email designation of the old row.
    • This ensures that Aiwyn can read the most up to date contact details from the firm. 

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