From reactive to proactive: Managing legal spend before the invoice with Apperio

Legal teams are no strangers to uncomfortable conversations about spend.

"We need to explain this unexpected invoice from last quarter," says Finance.

"The fees are higher than we anticipated," says your law firm.

The problem? These conversations always happen too late – after the work is done and the costs are locked in. By then, you're stuck explaining overruns to stakeholders rather than preventing them.

Most corporate legal departments still rely on spreadsheets and monthly updates to track their external counsel spend. They chase firms for data and hope they won't face surprises when invoices arrive.

But here's the thing: with Apperio, you don't have to work this way.

Apperio’s legal spend management software gives you real-time visibility into your external counsel spend before the invoice arrives. You'll see exactly who's working on your matters, spot potential risks early, and ensure you're getting value from your firms. One legal team cut their administrative time by 90% with Apperio. In this post, we'll show you how.

Why real-time visibility matters

Without real-time visibility, in-house legal teams face four key challenges:

Surprise invoices and budget overruns 📊

When you can't see spend building up, every invoice becomes a potential surprise. You're stuck explaining overruns rather than preventing them.

Misaligned resources ⚠️

Without real-time insight into who's doing what, you might discover too late that matters have the wrong timekeepers or too many people involved.

Value questions 💬

When Finance asks about return on legal spend, you need data to show how your firms are delivering value. Monthly invoices aren't enough.

Inaccurate forecasting 📈

Trying to predict spend without real-time and historical data means relying on guesswork – making it impossible to manage budgets effectively. Apperio captures historical and WIP data from the golden source—the law firm’s time and billing systems.

Real-time visibility is essential for effective legal spend management, ensuring you’re not caught off guard by unexpected invoices and have data-driven insights to keep matters on track. Apperio eliminates these challenges by showing you exactly what's happening with your matters right now. Let's look at how.

Take control of Work In Progress (WIP)

With Apperio’s legal spend management tools, you gain live insights into ongoing matters, helping you track costs as they build. Every day, your law firms' timekeepers log hours and progress matters. Without visibility into this work, you won't know the impact until invoices arrive weeks or months later.

Apperio changes this by showing you exactly what's happening now. Here's how:

See costs building in real-time 🚨

Apperio's dashboard shows your current fee earner work and therefore spend across all matters and firms. Track progress against budgets, spot unusual activity, and take action before costs escalate.

Have better conversations with your firms 💬

Instead of discovering issues at invoice time, you can discuss them while work is ongoing: "I see this matter is at 75% of budget and there is already 20% additional work in progress." "Can you explain why this phase is taking longer than expected?" "How do we work together to ensure we don't go over budget?."

Make informed decisions about in-progress work 💡

• Adjust scope based on current spend
• Ensure correct staffing/gearing–for example, not too much partner time if it's not necessary
• Check on any unusual peaks or increases in fee earners on a matter
• Keep budgets realistic and based on real data, or look to AFAs to prevent overspend

Keep stakeholders informed 🔀

When finance or business units ask about spend, give them accurate, current numbers. No more estimates or surprises.
In the next section, we'll show you how Apperio helps you spot specific risks in your matters.

Stop problems before they cost you

Think of all the things that can drive up legal costs: partners doing too much work, too many timekeepers on one matter, too much change of resources or swapping in new fee earners.

Without real-time visibility, you'll discover these issues weeks or months later – when the invoice arrives and it's too late to fix them.

Apperio alerts you to risks before they impact your spend:

With these insights, you can address issues while work is in progress – not after the invoice arrives.

Turn invoice surprises into working discussions

Think about the typicall legal spend conversation. It goes something like this: you receive an invoice, review the charges, and then try to determine if you got good value for money. By then, it's too late to influence anything.

Apperio flips this conversation on its head.

Instead of looking back at past charges, you're looking at work as it happens. That means you can have different, more productive conversations with your firms:

"I see you've staffed this phase with three senior associates. Talk me through the strategy here."

"This type of work typically costs us X. We're tracking higher than that—what's different this time?"

"We're halfway through the budget but only a quarter through deliverables. Let's discuss how we stay on track."

These real-time insights help you:

• ✅Ensure work aligns with your goals
• ✅Keep matters on track with agreed scope
• ✅Make informed decisions about resource allocation
• ✅Build stronger relationships with your firms

No more questioning value after the fact. You're actively managing it, every step of the way.

Real results: How leading legal teams use Apperio

Here's what real-time visibility means for legal teams using Apperio:

Marex: From hours of admin to instant insights

"Apperio gives us everything we need for monthly close, we can see clearly, fees, WIP, invoices," explains Zdenka Mala, Financial Planning Analyst. The results?

• 90% reduction in legal admin time
• 30% decrease in law firm invoice delays
• The finance team now self-serves for accrual data
• Real-time insight into current and future spend

"As a very easy to use, and data rich platform, the legal team, who aren't very technical, were able to give finance a log in to directly go in and get the numbers they needed to get."

Oil & gas corporation: Measurable impact

By implementing Apperio's spend tracking functionality, this legal team achieved:

• 16% reduction in annual legal spend within the first year
• 10.7x return on investment
• Completely eliminated manual spreadsheet tracking
• Accurate forecasting for all external counsel spend

"Apperio provides us with the ability to take command over the external legal spend and make informed, data backed decisions," says their General Counsel.

These aren't isolated examples. Legal teams using Apperio consistently report better budget control, stronger stakeholder relationships, and significant time savings. Read more here.📕

Take control of your legal spend with Apperio

Don't wait for another surprise invoice or difficult conversation with stakeholders. With Apperio, you'll see work happening across all your law firms in real-time.

No more chasing for updates. No more manual tracking. No more discovering issues too late to fix them. When finance needs data, it's ready instantly. When matters need attention, you'll know immediately.

The results speak for themselves. Legal teams using Apperio have cut admin time by 90%. They've reduced annual spend by 16% and slashed invoice delays by 30%. One team saw a 10.7x return on their investment in just one year.

Ready to see how Apperio’s legal spend management software can give you this level of control? Book a demo to see the platform in action. You'll see exactly how it connects to your firms, displays real-time spend data, and helps you stay ahead of issues before they arise.