e-Billing is a process to review & approve the outside counsel invoices. The invoice information is further used in analyzing the in-house legal spending, in the form of reports. e-Billing systems are specifically designed to accomplish these goals.
e-Billing has been a part of the legal world for a while, and it offers many advantages. The biggest is that it allows an in-house legal department to catch billing errors much earlier in the invoicing process, thus facilitating the saving of time and money.
The simple act of checking invoices thoroughly, and automatically means that billing guidelines and budgets are respected, and that alone can save a legal department large sums every year.
e-Billing is also an important tool for data analysis. It facilitates a legal department to see spending patterns, which acts as guide for annual budgets, as well as negotiating rates with the law firms.
The primary reasons for implementing e-Billing are to gain effeciencies when it comes to controlling costs and streamlining the invoicing process. With e-billing, those days of in-house staff going through heaps of paper invoices, and physically re-typing invoice line-item information, into worksheets are gone for good.
Ask yourself this question: How many hours have you and your coworkers spend, looking through detailed line items sent in by outside attorneys?
How many crosschecks are needed to identify repeat entries? How many times have budgets been exceeded, or downright ignored?
All of this is eliminated with electronic billing. It is a system that simplifies the invoice review process, saving countless hours.
The process starts with the outside counsel uploading the invoice through an e-Billing portal. An invoice record is created in Legal Track and a notification is sent to the legal department. The electronic billing software comes with a number of preset rules, also known as billing guidelines.
These rules are automatically applied against any invoice, outside counsel uploads for payment. The system lets you adjust your own rules as well. All you’ve got to do is assign a matter to your outside counsel, and let the system handle the invoicing review process.
Legal Track uses sophisticated artificial intelligence technology to evaluate all outside counsel invoices.
This includes budget limitations, duplicate entries, bundled time entries and other parameters set by the legal department. If any line item(s) is flagged as unacceptable, the invoice is routed back to outside counsel for correction.
Once the invoice issues are remedied, the invoice is resubmitted. The system is also capable of routing invoices for manual review. Upon final approval, the invoice is sent for payment.
By creating a streamlined electronic process, e-Billing increases the work efficiency, ultimately resulting in cost savings.
In reality, there are no major barriers to electronic billing. Most law firms are familiar with the processes involved in submitting an e-Billing invoice. It is now the legal department’s turn to take charge and simplify their invoice processes once and for all.
