Is your inbox overflowing with bill deadline reminders from clients or eBilling vendors? If the answer is no, then you should be asking ‘whose inbox are they in’? Who is responsible for ensuring bills are submitted on time and in accordance with client billing guidelines (often referred to as outside counsel guidelines or OCGs)? How important is it to receive payment this year versus next?
We understand the stress this puts on your firm and billing team this time of year. Here are the 5 ways BillBlast can help you relieve the burden of the year-end bill push:
1. Understand Client Requirements & Year-End Submission Deadlines
Understanding and adhering to client requirements is an ongoing battle for law firms. Beyond day-to-day submissions and compliance monitoring, the year-end introduces more requirements that firms need to comply with to ensure payment. BillBlast allows you to identify issues before they become client-facing, whether that be removing risk of non-compliance with OCGs or avoiding missed submission deadlines to get paid before the new year. BillBlast instils confidence that client requirements are being met and money will come back in the door.
2. Get Your Bills Out the Door
With BillBlast, bills are published to a dashboard and users are notified when they are ready to be sent to the client. The bill is then automatically produced with the client required electronic format, eliminating the need for manual uploads, and ensuring accuracy before leaving the system. Billing teams can work with confidence knowing the risk of human error and back and forth between vendor sites are mitigated and reduced. Additionally, with powerful features such as Group Email Send, firms will benefit from producing and sending multiple invoices in a single email! Time saving features such as these have a huge impact on whether bills get out the door before the new year and in time to collect and report as current year revenue.
3. Track Bill Status & Identify Submission Issues
Just because an invoice is successfully submitted does not mean that’s the end of the road. Once the bill has gone through review and sent to the client, the reviewer may identify issues in the submission and push it back to the firm. It is critical firms have a solution in place to identify and alert the team of invoices that require further handling at any point in the billing life cycle. As we edge closer to year-end, firms can’t afford to be left in limbo on the status of their bills. BillBlast gives firms the confidence to know where their bills stand while overcoming the ever-growing list of submission issues, for example:
- Missing Matter Data
- Over-Budget
- Incorrect Narrative
- Incorrect Rate or Timekeeper
- Missing Documentation
4. Prevent Future Rejections & Write-Offs
It is vital that firms leverage data to identify the root cause of their submission issues. BillBlast allows you to dig into the why:
- Why are bills being reduced and written off?
- Do my timekeepers have a clear understanding of the client guidelines?
- Do they need re-educating on time entry narratives and non-billables?
- Have you checked your clients bill frequency policy – is it monthly, quarterly, or on a certain day of the month?
As small as these differences may be, they can have a huge impact on your firm’s revenue and ultimately prevent your bill being paid at all.
It is essential that firms have a comprehensive understanding of client requirements and ensure those involved in the billing process have the tools and visibility to apply necessary adjustments to maintain billing compliance. As we close out the year, look back at your firm’s reduction and rejection rates – what can you do to improve?
5. Manage Collections & Appeals – Get Money in the Door!
BillBlast highlights invoices that are ready to be chased for collections, as well as invoices that clients intend to reduce or not pay – so firms can quickly review, pursue, and request reconsideration for payment. Rather than sifting through your inbox, BillBlast allows you to identify issues immediately upon client communication of intent not to pay, instead of receiving notice 45 days later when you receive only a portion of payment. Eliminate the need to search through high volumes of emails (or even worse missed communications entirely), missed deadlines, or missed reductions altogether. How important is it to your firm to receive payment this year versus next? With Aderant BillBlast you can ensure timeliness and accuracy end-to-end, resulting in money in the door by year-end!
BillBlast helps you manage the year-end crunch, not only by getting bills out the door but by making sure you receive the money coming back in for the work performed. Stop spending time digging for billing compliance issues. BillBlast quickly identifies inconsistencies with client guidelines before they become client-facing, allowing you to submit bills that are clean and timely, resulting in higher revenue recognition and happier clients. As the year comes to an end, your firm should have powerful technology in place to allow you to overcome the burden of the year-end push. Discover Aderant BillBlast today!
