Apperio emerges as mission-critical legal tech platform amid regulatory tailwinds

Data has emerged as legal operations' most precious asset, but its value has been limited by spend data only being available retroactively at invoice stage - after work is already complete. This opaque approach is becoming untenable as the regulatory environment intensifies its demands for rigorous tracking, analysis, reporting and disclosure of detailed legal expenditure across organizations' global footprints.

The SEC's new private fund rules taking effect August 2023 exemplify this shift (New SEC private fund rules – increased Compliance regulations), requiring funds to overhaul processes and infrastructure to efficiently collect, scrutinize and report comprehensive performance, fee and expense metrics with utmost transparency. In parallel, the market's escalating complexity with novel products, strategies and persistent rate inflation is driving an urgency for firms to achieve transparency and real-time visibility into costs across their external advisory ecosystem, spanning legal spend but also expenditures in areas like consulting, audit, tax and more. Without this holistic clarity into third-party costs, risks and overspending can remain hidden.

In this new environment, proactively managing legal spend has become mission-critical not just for compliance, but as a strategic imperative for cost optimization. Organizations of all stripes - from financial firms to multinational corporations – will need to invest in robust data infrastructure, advanced analytics capabilities, and automated reporting processes to retain a competitive edge. As regulations governing financial accountability and transparency continue tightening across sectors globally, Apperio’s purpose-built legal spend and analytics platform is uniquely positioned to address these market tailwinds. Apperio’s solution represents a vital cog in the operational machinery of enterprises, providing the essential real-time visibility into external legal spend, advanced insights and granular controls required to drive transparency, ensure compliance, and maintain a crucial competitive advantage over peers.

Apperio’s recent product enhancements are already delivering significant results, proving solutions directly address enterprise compliance and spend transparency demands

In recent months, building on the unique foundation of real time spend data, Apperio has accelerated its strategic shift towards becoming an essential enterprise platform through key product enhancements designed to deliver the compliance capabilities and spend transparency that organizations desperately require. These new functionalities like Invoice Approval Workflow, Outside Counsel Policy (OCP) monitoring, Advanced Reporting, and Professional Services Spend Data Capture are already achieving significant results - demonstrating Apperio is building solutions addressing critical market needs, with wider applicability across use-cases and industries beyond the traditional focus on legal spend.

The Invoice Approval module has reimagined e-billing with a fresh, engaging user experience, driving a 600% increase in log-ins, 100% customer retention of those using it, and a 40% average ARR uplift. With an upside of around 80% of Apperio's existing ARR base having the potential to onboard this module, there is broad relevance to a wide range of customer types.

Apperio's OCP/OCG policy flags, a strategic enhancement to increase value for customers, have already been deployed to 87% of the customer base, impacting value and retention while enhancing workflow efficiency. 

The Advanced Reporting feature, unique in providing real-time accrual/WIP data down to individual time entries, delivers rich client-specific insights improving retention and representing an 18% ARR average upside opportunity.

Perhaps most notably, Apperio added real-time spend capture, ahead of the invoice, for external advisors beyond just law firms in 2023. This comprehensive spend visibility, critical for compliance in areas like private funds and acquisitions, has seen 44% year-over-year growth while adding 21% incremental ARR on average. With 60% of Apperio's current ARR yet to be tapped for this service, the potential remains tremendous.

These product enhancements extend Apperio’s value proposition beyond just legal spend into a truly enterprise-wide solution for firms to efficiently manage and optimize their total external advisory ecosystem spend, in real-time, ahead of invoices. The significant customer results validate Apperio is strategically building capabilities addressing the right segments and pain points.

Apperio continues to further roll-out its product roadmap to cement market leadership as mission-critical solution

While making considerable strides with recent product enhancements positioning Apperio as an increasingly integral part of customers’ compliance toolkit, the company shows no signs of slowing down. Apperio plans to unveil further groundbreaking innovations aimed at revolutionising legal data collection and analysis across the entire e-billing market.

Two transformational new features slated for launch will redefine how businesses harness and interpret legal data. This unwavering commitment to empowering organizations with unparalleled insights, actionable intelligence and compliance protection is core to Apperio’s mission.

The rollout of three tiers of data connectivity represents a pivotal enhancement that will enable Apperio to comprehensively cater to the full spectrum of client requirements across enterprises of all types. No other spend management application offers these tiers. Apperio is setting the data standard for real-time legal and external spend visibility, now with versatility and customization capabilities that will revolutionize the landscape of regulatory data acquisition. This unmatched flexibility helps enterprises and customers meet any compliance and spend transparency objectives, whether big or small.

Furthermore, Apperio has an ambitious AI/ML roadmap to roll out second-generation capabilities in the coming months aimed at setting the golden standard across legal and compliance industries. The nuances and complexities of billing guidelines and legal invoices make manual review cumbersome. Apperio's enhanced AI will complement existing features like Outside Counsel Policy monitoring to help customers and external providers ensure invoices are clean, accurate and fully compliant.

This robust AI roadmap will encompass various future developments like generative BI and natural language reporting to further enrich the customer experience and maximize the value of Apperio's rich, real-time data insights. Such bold innovation reaffirms Apperio’s position as the premier external spend management solution for enterprises worldwide.

"With increasing regulation around advisory spend, Apperio is now considered a critical part of our customers business processes. Our new functionality allows them to automate compliance reporting, and ensure they are protected at all times. The inclusion of tax and professional services spend has also had a huge impact on customers, allowing them to manage spend on large and complex projects proactively and in real time. Increasingly, we’re seeing legal and finance teams across the corporate world use Apperio to collaborate on the accruals process - getting automated and accurate monthly accruals for more precise forecasting and cash flow management."

Chris Perry VP Sales, Apperio