Supercharge e-billing and automate accruals for your finance team

Finance teams are under constant pressure to deliver accurate, timely financial reports. The problem is, traditional methods of managing legal accruals often fall short, causing delays and inaccuracies that can ripple through an organization's financial planning.

The good news is: there’s a better way to manage legal accruals to minimize the burden on finance teams.

And that’s where Apperio comes in: the only legal spend management software that gives factual system level accrual data. Apperio's groundbreaking, fact-based automated approach to accrual calculation is gaining momentum in the market. By providing system-level integration directly with law firms’ time and billing systems, Apperio delivers real-time, automated legal accruals, enabling:

• Up-to-the-minute accuracy in financial reporting
• Significant time savings on data collection
• Reduced risk of errors and audit issues
• Enhanced visibility into ongoing legal expenditures

For legal departments, it means less time chasing information and more time focusing on strategic matters.

Keen to learn more? We’ll talk you through why accruals are such a burden and how Apperio can help.

Outdated and overwhelmed: The pitfalls of traditional accruals management

Traditional e-billing systems—once considered the gold standard in legal spend management—are showing their age. These systems have several critical flaws—creating major headaches for finance teams:

❌Reliance on manual processes: Finance teams must wait for law firms to report work-in-progress (WIP) and accruals manually. This leads to:

• Outdated data
• Increased risk of human error
• Inaccurate financial reporting

❌Resource-intensive: The manual nature of traditional systems creates a significant burden:

• Finance, legal operations teams, and the external counsel law firm spend excessive time chasing and collating data
• Verifying accuracy becomes a time-consuming task
• Reconciling records is slow and error-prone

❌Audit and compliance risks: Inaccuracies in accruals can have far-reaching consequences:

• Increased audit risks
• Potential compliance issues
• Flawed earnings and expenditure forecasts

❌Decision-making bottlenecks: The delays and inaccuracies inherent in traditional systems:

• Hinder timely business decisions
• Prevent finance teams from being strategic partners in
• the business

These challenges highlight the urgent need for a more efficient, accurate approach to legal accruals. Automated solutions, like those offered by Apperio, are positioned to address these pain points and transform legal spend management.

📘Further reading: 6 signs you've outgrown your e-billing system

How Apperio helps get control of legal spend

Apperio’s groundbreaking approach to automated accruals works through system-level integration which changes how companies handle their legal accruals, leading to more accurate financial reporting, improved efficiency, and better strategic decision-making.

Here’s how:

Key benefits of Apperio's approach:

✅System-level automated accruals
Apperio is pioneering a fact-based automated approach to accrual calculation. It provides system-level integration directly to the time-recording data source, removing the need for manual recording of accrual data and fully automating the process end-to-end. This eliminates the possibility of human error in the collection and reporting process, providing finance teams with confidence in their accurate, up-to-date information.

✅Augmenting existing e-billing solutions
Apperio works alongside existing e-billing systems, as well as offering a standalone end-to-end solution. It connects to the "golden source" of billing data for legal spend, providing benefits that traditional e-billing systems cannot. For example, a recent client found that within 6 months of acquiring an e-billing system, their "automated" accruals reminder-based system wasn't delivering on-time accurate accruals, leaving them to chase accruals themselves. Apperio fully automates accruals at a system level, ensuring always accurate and up-to-date data.

✅Rich, real-time data for better decision-making
Apperio offers the richest set of real-time data covering both WIP/Accruals and billing data. This enables faster decision-making and deeper insights. Customers have immediate access to historic data, revealing trends like above-average rate increases. The Apperio insights team also offers recommendations for panel decisions and strategic decision-making.

✅Significant time and resource savings
Apperio's solution has reduced the time spent on manual accrual activities by up to 90%. It frees up all the manual time previously spent chasing accruals between finance, legal teams, and law firms. This allows more time for strategic discussions about value and quality.

✅Improved financial control and risk management
The system provides finance teams with an accurate, always up-to-date view of Accruals. This protects them from audit risk, improves forecasting, and provides better control over various cost centers. It addresses long-standing frustrations like lack of visibility into total spend, matter costs, and law firm behavior.

✅Improving relationships and cost savings
Apperio is helping customers deliver higher levels of cost savings while improving relationships both within their business and with law firms. It reduces manual work for law firms, legal departments, and finance teams in customer organizations.

Comparing traditional and new legal spend management

Here's how Apperio's approach compares to traditional legal spend management:

To sum up, our CEO says it best:

Real-world application: Better legal spend management across sectors

Apperio's automated, accurate accruals system is gaining traction across a range of industries, from technology and finance to energy, health, utilities, and Private Equity. This widespread adoption is bridging the gap between finance and legal departments. By providing precise, real-time data, Apperio builds confidence, boosts collaboration, and eliminates low-value manual work. As a result, teams can focus on strategic discussions about value and quality.

Here are three examples:

#1. A Tier 1 software company introduced Apperio to supercharge their e-billing system

The decision was largely influenced by:

• Accrual delays from the current system
• Additional manual effort required to help collect accruals with the e-billing email reminders not working to get the data
• Inaccuracy and out of date in accruals once received

#2. A major health company replaced their traditional e-billing system with Apperio

The decision was largely influenced by:

• Ease of onboarding all spend
• Unique real-time data capabilities
• Access to data months ahead of invoices, leading to:
  • Quicker insights
  • Better decision-making
  • Improved spend control

#3. A utilities company with no existing e-billing system adopted Apperio to address long-standing frustrations

• Lack of visibility into total spend, matter costs, and law firm behavior
• Frequent surprise invoices
• Need for better control over various cost centers

These examples highlight how Apperio delivers significant value, whether customers already have an e-billing system, lack one entirely, or are looking to upgrade to a more modern spend management solution.

Reshaping legal spend management: The Apperio advantage

To wrap up, Apperio's automated legal accruals solution is supercharging how companies manage their legal spend.

Here's why it matters:

• Automation that works: By integrating directly with law firms' systems, Apperio eliminates manual processes, reducing errors and saving time.
• Enhanced existing systems: It works alongside current eBilling systems, improving functionality for finance teams, lawyers, and eBillers.
• Real-time insights: Access to historic and up-to-date data enables faster, more informed decision-making.
• Expanding opportunities: Apperio is opening up new use cases across various sectors, potentially doubling the legal spend management market.
• Building bridges: The system fosters collaboration between finance and legal teams, freeing up time for strategic work.

As more companies adopt Apperio's leading approach, we're seeing a shift in legal spend management. Real-time, accurate data is becoming the new standard, leading to better cost savings and improved relationships with law firms.

Ready to get started? Reach your full potential with legal spend management software. Book a demo here today.