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Invoices

Invoice Audits

On the Invoice Review page, indicators in the
Status
column show the audit status of an invoice.
Tip | You can click the indicator to show the audit details for an invoice.
Audit status indicators
Indicator
Image
Explanation
Red dot
Audit exceptions must be addressed before the invoice can be finally approved.
Yellow triangle
Audit exceptions were addressed by a previous reviewer or by the system, which allows for auto-reductions and auto-rejections to rates. You can accept or reject them.
Keywords indicate that fee or expense line items may need review for possible adjustment.
Gray diamond
An invoice is not auditable because it is not in LEDES format or because the matter is not set up for over-budget audits (either no budget is required, or no audit is required).
Green square
The invoice passed all audits and is ready to be approved.
All audits must be addressed by the Level 1 approver before an invoice can be approved. Tracker requires that all audits for a particular invoice be addressed by a Level 1 approver (or a timekeeper rate reviewer, if the feature is enabled) before it can be approved. To simplify the process, Tracker provides one link that lets you approve all timekeeper (TK) rates for the matter.
To open the invoice, select the invoice number. Select the
Audits
tab to address the audits. A red dot indicator on the
Audits
tab indicates that the invoice cannot be approved until the audits are cleared.
Open the invoice you want to work with and use the information on the sub-tabs of the
Audits
tab to help address the issues causing the audit flags.

Find and Open an Invoice

  1. In the left navigation, select
    Financial > Invoice Review
    .
  2. In the
    Invoice
    column, select the hyperlinked name of the invoice you want to work with.
Tip | You can also open an invoice by opening a matter and selecting the
Invoices
tab. You can post invoices and approve individual invoices, but to approve all of your pending invoices at once, you must open them from the
Invoice Review
 option in the left navigation.

Duplicate Invoices

  1. Open the invoice that may have a duplicate.
  2. Select the
    Audits
    tab. If there are duplicate invoices, the
    Audits
    tab shows a
    Duplicate Invoices
     sub-tab.
  3. Click the invoice number in the sub-tab to open the duplicate invoice.
    • To clear the audit, select
      Acknowledge
      in the
      Actions
      drop-down.
    • If there are several duplicates, you can select
      Acknowledge
      from any of the
      Action
      drop-downs to acknowledge all the duplicates.
  4. On the toolbar, select
    Save
    .
Audit criteria for duplicate invoices
To determine if an invoice is a duplicate, for LEDES invoices the system looks for identical:
  • Matter ID
  • Law Firm
  • Total Billed Amount
  • Billed Fees
  • Billed Expenses
  • Billing Period Start Date
  • Billing Period End Date
  • Invoice Currency

Excessive Timekeeper Hours Audits

When there are timekeeper hours in an invoice that exceed the allowed number of hours, the invoice may be flagged or automatically rejected, depending on how this setting is configured for your organization.
  1. In the left navigation, select
    Financial > Invoice Review
    .
  2. In the
    Invoice
    column, select the hyperlinked name of the invoice you want to work with.
    Tip | You can also open an invoice by opening a matter and selecting the
    Invoices
    tab. You can post invoices and approve individual invoices, but to approve all of your pending invoices at once, you must open them from the
    Invoice Review
     option in the left navigation.
  3. Select the
    Profile
    tab. The
    Approvers & Approval History
     collapsible section shows any invoices that were automatically rejected.
    Example
     If an invoice gets automatically rejected because of excessive timekeeper hours, you can do the following steps to clear the audit.
  4. To clear an audit, from the
    Action
    drop-down select
    Acknowledge
    . Complete this step for each audit.
  5. On the toolbar, select
    Save & close
    .

Billing Period Audits

Tracker lets your Tracker Coordinator configure the system to provide red flags/warnings for invoices posted too early or too late or for those invoices spanning across months, fiscal quarters, or fiscal years. The other available options is to configure the system to auto-reject the entire invoice that contain such violations. If a red dot/warning appears, the firm's available action is to acknowledge the audit.

Over-Budget Audits

To help you quickly evaluate a matter's overall financial status, Tracker displays a summary card at the top of each invoice page. The overview includes the amount currently billed and the adjusted amount, as well as the spending on the matter for the fiscal year and the life of the matter. In addition, the overview includes the fiscal year and total variance (the amount by which spending differs from the budget).
To address an over-budget audit
  1. Click
    Financial
    >
    Invoice review
    in the left navigation.
  2. Click a red audit flag in the second column of a pending LEDES invoice.
  3. If the Matter has budget auditing enabled, and the invoice is over budget, then Tracker displays an audit notice in the
    Budget Alerts
     section at the bottom of the page.
  4. Click
    View audited budget & invoices
    ,
    View pending budget & invoices
    , or
    Matter Budget
     at the top of the page to open the budget worksheet.
  5. Select one of the following actions:
    • Hold
      to hold the invoice.
    • AUTO-REDUCE
      to budget to reduce the invoice to the budget. The reduction will always be applied to fees. If the amount of the reduction is greater than the amount of fees originally invoiced, the fees will be negative. For example, assume that the budgeted amount is $500, and the invoice total is $700 ($100 of fees and $600 of expenses). An auto-reduction will cause the fees to be adjusted to -$100, and the expenses will be $600.
    • IGNORE / Manually adjust to ignore the audit alert. Undo AUTO-REDUCE if you plan to manually adjust the invoice.
  6. When all the alerts have been resolved, click
    Save
    .
If you choose to auto-reduce the invoice and then subsequently decide to manually adjust it, we recommend that you first return to the audit worksheet and change the action to “IGNORE." This ensures that you do not auto-reduce the invoice and then further reduce it on a line-by-line basis.

Block Billing Audits

If block billing audits are enabled for your company, instances of suspected block billing are flagged and the details appear on the
Audits
tab for invoice reviewers to address.
Invoices with fee line items with potential instances of block billing appear on the
Block Billing
 sub-tab of the
Audits
tab. To clear the audit, select the appropriate option from the drop-down.
IGNORE block billing
Select this option if you do not want to take further action, even though the line item has block billing.
NOT block billing
Select this option to indicate that the line item does not have block billing.
EDIT line item
Select this option if you want to adjust the fee line item. When you select this option, new fields appear that you can use to adjust the fee line item.
When you select
Save
the audit flag will be cleared.

Duplicate Line Items Audits

Tracker provides the ability to search invoices for duplicate line items. The audit function can be configured to cause the invoice to be flagged or automatically rejected. When the line items are flagged, line item duplicates appear on the Audits tab along with other audits.

LEDES Invoice Audits

Timekeeper Rate Audits
Timekeeper review for LEDES invoices includes the following features:
  • Law firm timekeeper rates can be approved for an individual Matter, for all Matters, or for the individual invoice only.
  • Timekeeper rates can be approved in an invoice, a rate sheet, or a Timekeeper Rates Report.
  • If the Timekeeper Rate Review module is not enabled, Company System Administrators can post a list of approved timekeeper rates, which invoice approvers can view when approving an invoice.
You can approve, reduce, or reject timekeeper rates for the current matter, for all matters, or for the current invoice only.
  1. Click
    Financial
    >
    Rates
    >
    Pending rates
    in the left navigation.
  2. In the
    New Timekeepers
     or
    Timekeeper Rate Changes
     sections, select the appropriate action and click the button above. Some actions might not be displayed because they are set by your system administrator. As mentioned previously, your Tracker System Administrator has the option of configuring the system to automatically adjust the timekeeper rate changes to the currently approved rate. The other options your company has are to configure the system to auto-reject the timekeeper rates to zero or to automatically reject the entire invoice. Contact your Tracker system administrator with any questions.
  3. Click the selection that appears above to save changes.
Expense Guideline Audits
To address an invoice expense audit:
  1. Click the
    Financial
    menu.
  2. Click the invoice number in the second column of a pending LEDES invoice.
  3. If the audit relates to an expense, select the action that you want to take. You can accept, reduce, or reject the invoice.
  4. On the toolbar, select
    Save & close
    .
Timekeeper and expense audit exceptions occur only for LEDES-formatted invoices. LEDES is a standardized, electronic invoice format for legal invoices. If the law firm is unable to generate LEDES formatted invoices, they can generate the invoice in another format, such as a text file, Microsoft Word document, or PDF. However, only LEDES formatted invoices and approved timekeeper rate sheets can be audited for timekeeper rates and expenses guideline violations by Tracker.
As mentioned previously, your Tracker Coordinator also has the option of configuring the system to automatically adjust the expense guidelines to the maximum allowable rates and amounts. The other options your company has are to configure the system to auto-reject the expense rates or line item totals to zero or to automatically reject the entire invoice.

This article applies to:

  • Product: Legal Tracker
  • Subject: Billing, Invoices
  • Audiences: Company