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MyCosts is a software tool for lawyers designed to assist them in the preparation of high-quality bill of costs. The program is designed to be as quick to use as recording work with pencil and paper with the benefit of increased accuracy and control over the appearance of the finished bill
Mycosts is an online program which can be accessed anywhere using the link: www.mycosts.co.zm
Registration is a prerequisite and therefore you must register as a user and login before using the program.
To sign up, you must provide your name, email address, and proposed password. Alternatively, you can register using your Google account. The login details should be the email address and password provided.
Once you log in, the dash board below provides you with an interface to use the program
Click NEW BILL to create a new bill of costs. See Setting the Bill below on how to proceed.
Click OPEN BILL to continue an existing bill of costs
Click CLOSED BILL to view bills of costs who you have closed
Click MANAGE LAWYERS to set up the details of the lawyers who will be working on the Bill of Costs.
Click ADD NEW LAWYER to start the process of entering the following details of a lawyer or all the lawyers who have input to the Bill of Costs:
The input form below will appear
Enter the name of the lawyer and number of years
Select the category under which the lawyer falls. That is, Less than 5 years, between 5 and 10 years, between 10 and 15 years, above 15 years and State Counsel
THIS IS NOT FINAL. IN CASE OF MISTAKE, YOU CAN EDIT THE INFORMATION TO ADD ADDITIONAL LAWYERS OR REMOVE ADDED LAWYERS.
Once you have saved the details of the lawyers, proceed to click New Bill
When you click NEW BILL, the program will prompt you to enter key details explained below.
6.1.1. Name of File - This is what the file will be called for ease of accessibility or identification should you create more than one Bill. It can be any name and the name is at the discretion of the user.
6.1.2. Cause Number – Enter the Cause Number to which the Bill of Costs relates.
6.1.3. Court – Under this drop down, select the applicable court: High Court, Court of Appeal or Supreme Court.
6.1.4. Holden At– Under this drop-down menu, select the place of registry, Lusaka, Kitwe or Livingstone etc.
6.1.5. Date of Ruling or Judgement - insert the date of the ruling or judgment.
The details below are not mandatory, and you can save and proceed to preparing your Bill of Costs.
6.1.6 Date of Commencement of Matter– insert the date when the matter to which the Bill of Costs relates commenced
6.1.7 Number of Parties– insert the number of parties to the matter.
6.1.8 Lawyer– select the name of the key lawyer.
6.1.9 Font– select the preferred font
6.1.10 Bill format/Types– select the bill format of the Bill of Costs. The program gives you an option to decide which you require. If you do not choose, the program will create a Bill of Costs with seven column as required by Rule 15 of the Supreme Court Rules as read with Paragraph 17 of the Second Schedule of the Supreme Court Act Chapter 25 of the Laws of Zambia.
Once all the mandatory fields have been provided, proceed to click SAVE.
This is not final. In case of mistake, you can edit the information at any time.
7.1 Once you have saved the Bill Details – the program will take you to this page
Click ADD PARTIES in Blue to add Parties to your Bill of Costs by providing the following information:
And click SAVE. Repeat the process for all the parties.
Click ADD ENTRY in green to add details to the Bill of Costs by providing the following required information: using one of the two methods:
Entry by clicking add new entry- this allows you to save one entry at a time; and
Bulk Entry by clicking add bulk – this allows you to save multiple entries at a go.
The following information is required for both a single and bulk method:
7.1.1.1 Date
7.1.1.1.1 Insert date of the entry manually or alternatively you can pick a date using the default calendar.
7.1.1.1.2 The dates which are be permitted are the dates after 20 January 2017 or the date after the date you have indicted as the commencement of the matter.
7.1.1.1.3 The date is not mandatory. All entries without a date will be treated as entries relating to anticipatory costs of the Bill of Costs.
7.1.1.2 Enter Time
7.1.1.2.1 Enter the time using number in the format such as 2
7.1.1.3 Scale Head
7.1.1.3.1.1 Indicate the nature of the entry by using a drop-down menu which will contain the following.
7.1.1.3.2 Provide further details on the nature of entry through the use of Scale Head 1 and 2. The contents of the drop-down menu under this part are limited or determined by what you selected under Scale Head. e.g if you picked Institution of Proceedings under Scale Head, the drop-down menu for Scale Head Level 1 will be limited to the contents or words under Institution of Proceedings.
7.1.1.3.3 At this point you do not calculate the total fee to be taxed as the program will automatically calculate the applicable fee for each entry.
7.1.1.4 Description
7.1.1.4.1 The content of what you selected under Scale Heading Level 1 or Level 2 will automatically be pasted under this part for the user to edit.
7.1.1.4.2 You are free to edit the description in line with your preference.
7.1.1.5 Lawyer
7.1.1.5.1 Indicate the lawyer to which the entry relates. The names of the lawyers under this drop-down menu will be limited to the names of the lawyer entered under Managing Lawyers.
7.1.1.5.2 The default lawyer will be the lawyer you indicated as the lawyers under the Bill Details section.
Once all the information above is provide, you can proceed to SAVE: Repeat the process for all the other entries.
Click Add Disbursements in Maroon to add disbursements to your Bill of Costs by providing the date the disbursement was incurred and the amount incurred.
The disbursements can be added as a single entry or bulk entry by providing the date and amount.
Click Add Other Fees in Purple to add other fees such as Responsibility and Skill or Clients Expenses etc by providing the name of the lawyer, the description, the type of fees (i.e the proposed responsibility and skill fee or clients expenses) and the proposed amount.
Click View Summary to assess the total fees accrued on your Bill of Costs
Once you have entered all the details above and saved all the entries, you may preview the Bill by clicking on Preview Bill. The Bill of Costs is then produced with all the calculations and narrations. The default Bill of Costs generated is a seven columns, starting from the left-hand side of the paper, as follows:
First column for the Taxing Officer's deductions;
Second column for the serial number of the items;
Third column for Dates
Fourth column for description or particulars of services and time spent
Fifth column for the Tariff item numbers;
Sixth column for disbursements
Seventh column for the professional charges
If a user prefers a Bill with 8,9 or 10 column, you may change the settings under Amend Bill Details.
Under this part, you are required to verify the entries and makes changes to the details of the parties or date of judgement (circled in red). In addition, you are required to enter your address and the address of the other.
For any other details such as time, narrations, date, lawyer and applicable schedule, the you can only make the changes by going back [Click Cancel at the end of the Page] and clicking Add Entry.
Once you are happy with all the changes, you can proceed to client PRINT. A pdf version of the Bill of Costs will be generated which you can save and print.
