Aderant Unveils Latest Innovations in Expert Billing to Accelerate Law Firm Digital Transformation

Global News

22
Aug
2023

Editor

Today, Aderant releases version 8.2 SP3 of its flagship practice management software, Expert, used by the majority of the largest law firms around the world. This latest release brings significant enhancements to Expert Billing, including new and improved features for the Paperless Billing module, and integration with Onyx, Aderant’s new Outside Counsel Guidelines (OCG) management solution powered by its AI, MADDI. This update underscores Aderant’s ongoing commitment to evolving the Expert product line, ensuring it meets the multifaceted demands of the modern legal sector.

Bolstering Paperless Billing Capabilities

In recent years, the legal industry has experienced a paradigm shift, with law firms transitioning en masse from traditional paper-based billing to paperless systems. Aderant’s Expert Paperless Billing is at the heart of this change, aiding law firms in their digital transformation journey. Moving away from printing endless paper bills and waiting for partners to manually review and edit them, firms can now automate the entire bill preparation and approval process. With the complete elimination of manual data entry, bills are processed more swiftly and accurately. Hundreds of law firms worldwide have adopted Aderant’s Expert Paperless Billing solution.

“Our focus is clear: offering law firms a seamless journey from paper-based chaos to streamlined digital efficiency,” said Aderant’s Chief Executive Officer Chris Cartrett. “Central to our ethos is the belief that law partners should be empowered to work more efficiently, saving their precious time and expediting the billing cycle. Our latest enhancements cater precisely to these needs, focusing on making bill review and editing more intuitive, fostering better communication between partners and other bill reviewers, and providing increased visibility and tracking. These improvements are instrumental in saving partners’ time and effort, enabling faster payments, and reducing costs.”

Key Enhancements to Expert Paperless Billing as part of the Expert 8.2 SP3 rollout:

1. Make Bill Review and Editing More Intuitive - Aderant introduces the new Paperless Billing Inbox, designed to augment billing partners’ productivity. This centralized interface allows for seamless management of all billing tasks and prebills. Advanced searching and sorting features enable users to effortlessly locate prebills based on specific client, matter, or bill attributes. With multi-column sorting, users can organize tasks in their desired sequence.
2. Foster Better Communication and Collaboration - Sharing and communication have been given a significant upgrade. Partners can now seamlessly share tasks, monitoring reviews, all the while retaining full ownership of the tasks. Complementing this is the new Bill Notes feature, designed to facilitate communication between partners and other bill reviewers. This means faster approvals, reduced back-and-forth, and a more synchronized billing team.
3. Provide Increased Visibility and Tracking - Understanding the nuances of every billing modification is vital. The new Bill Summary screen, directly accessible from the Prebill List, presents users with a quick summary of all changes made to a prebill. This enhances transparency, streamlines workflows, and reduces potential billing disputes.

Ensuring Compliance with Outside Counsel Billing Guidelines

Another notable advancement within Expert is its integration with Aderant’s Onyx – the industry’s first end-to-end OCG compliance platform. Powered by Aderant’s AI, MADDI, Onyx automates the entire compliance process from extracting OCG terms to enforcing time and billing rules across all checkpoints. With this development, Expert users can now better manage time and billing rules, utilizing them to validate prebills and bills at the points of entry, effectively reducing bill rejections and deductions.

Doug Matthews, Chief Product Officer (CPO) at Aderant, noted, “The release of Onyx has brought about a transformative change in how law firms manage compliance. We’re excited to bring this capability to Expert users through a tight integration between Expert and Onyx. By leveraging the combined capabilities of Expert and Onyx, firms can ensure compliance at a lower cost while enhancing coordination across multiple functions. Ultimately, this contributes to simplifying billing processes and expediting compensation for law firms.”

“We are dedicated to consistently improving the experience of our Expert users,” said Matthews. “Through attentive listening to their evolving needs and ongoing innovation, our goal is to always provide them with state-of-the-art solutions, empowering them to excel in their daily operations.”