KM - Group Research Projects
What are E-billing systems?
Electronic billing is the electronic delivery and presentation of financial statements, bills, invoices, and other related information sent by a company to its customers. Certain electronic billing applications provide the ability to electronically settle payment for goods or services. Customers of banks and billing companies can use the internet or the phone to conveniently remit payments as well as access their billing information. This service is often supported by customer service representatives that are contacted directly by the consumer to facilitate payments or receive general assistance in regards to their questions or concerns. The two forms of electronic billing are referred to as:
1) EIPP – Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment
2) EBPP – Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment
EIPP[1]
EIPP is a B2B system of issuing invoices to customers via the Internet and receiving payment on the invoices electronically. In this type of electronic billing system the bills are emailed directly from the business to their customer. This model most closely imitates the analog postal service.
EBPP[2]
EBPP is the process by which companies bill customers and receive payments electronically over the Internet. EBPP allows consumers to view and pay bills electronically. The idea is that consumers have a significant number of bills that need to be paid on a regular basis. Two models of EBPP have emerged as a result of the technology, these are:
1) Direct Model
2) Consolidator Model
The Direct Model
Ø Bills produced by an organization are made available through that organization’s website. This model works well if the recipient has reasons to visit the biller’s website other than to receive their bills. In the freight industry, for example, customers will visit a carrier’s website to track items in transit, so it is reasonably convenient to receive and pay freight bills at the same site.
The Consolidation Model
Ø Numerous bills for any one recipient are made available at one website. This is most commonly done at the wesite of the bank where the consumer transacts business. Banks refer to these sites as Bill Pay sites and encourage their customers to enroll in and pay all of their bills via this medium. In most cases the actual task of consolidation is performed by a third party that specializes in bill payment systems. The principal attraction of consolidation is that consumers can receive and pay numerous bills at the one location thus minimizing the number of login IDs and passwords they must remember and maintain in order to pay their bills. Consolidation is extrememly popular and is considered to be one of the most secure forms of online bill payment.
EBPP provides billing companies the ability to demonstrate to their customers that they are technologically advanced companies with a primary concern for customer convenience, security and satisfaction. In addition, EBPP can produce substantial savings to traditional print & mail billing and payment remittance as well as significantly reduce the use of paper.
NACHA[3]
As a result of the increasingly new technology computers have introduced to the consumer and business world, consumer protection agencies have been created to protect consumers and businesses from potential issues pertaining to this new technology.
NACHA is a not-for-profit association that represents more than 11,000 financial institutions through direct memberships and a network of regional payments associations, and 585 organizations through its industry councils. NACHA develops operating rules and business practices for the Automated Clearing House (ACH) Network and for electronic payments in the areas of Internet commerce, electronic bill and invoice presentment and payment (EBPP, EIPP), e-checks, financial electronic data interchange (EDI), international payments, and electronic benefits services (EBS).
The ACH Network facilitates commerce electronically by serving as an efficient, reliable and secure payments system. NACHA, led by member depository financial institutions and payments associations, fulfills this purpose by managing the development, administration, and governance of the Network and by providing superior services and value to its members as the industry association responsible for ACH payments.
To ensure that the ACH Network is efficient, reliable, and secure, NACHA shall execute its responsibilities consistent with sustaining the following Network characteristics:
Ø Governed by depository financial institutions;
Ø Provides value to depository financial institutions;
Ø Universally accessible by depository financial institutions;
Ø Based on rules, regulations, and standards that apply to all depository financial institutions and participants, and that are aggressively enforced;
Ø Functions in a batch-processing environment;
Ø Transacts value-dated recurring and spontaneous payments that satisfy business case requirements;
Ø Employs robust approaches to measure and mitigate risk;
Ø Accommodates the exchange of payment-related information;
Ø Recognizes the global nature of commerce and electronic payments.
What Does NACHA do?
Rule Making
Ø NACHA provides the legal foundation for the ACH Network through the development and enforcement of the NACHA Operating Rules. Rules and guidelines are established for all participants in the ACH system and ensure that the Network infrastructure, applications, rules and enforcement are consistent with processing payments in a secure, reliable, and efficient manner, and that financial institutions have access to effective risk management tools.
Education
Ø NACHA educates its direct members, the regional payments associations, and the public through a diverse offering of conferences, workshops, teleconferences, and publications. Topics covered include ACH fundamentals, Rules updates, risk management, global payments, electronic check, electronic billing and payment, and more. NACHA also offers the Accredited ACH Professional (AAP) program exam each October to individuals seeking industry credentials.
New Payments Applications
Ø NACHA develops new payments applications through an open and disciplined process that measures the impact on all Network participants, including originators and receivers, and is responsive to the priorities of depository financial institutions.
Risk Management
Ø NACHA develops and implements a comprehensive risk management framework for the Network that covers requirements prior to origination, ongoing origination requirements, and enforcement, and ACH Operator risk mitigation services. NACHA also works to create and implement a robust set of risk management tools to reduce risk and improve ACH quality that are consistent with the risk management framework.
Member Communications
Ø NACHA promotes and consistently communicates the value and best uses of electronic payments to depository financial institutions and their customers through marketing, public relations, and education. Additionally, NACHA broadly engages key external audiences to communicate the value proposition of the Network and ACH Payments.
Marketing
Ø NACHA actively promotes the value and use of electronic payments through educational materials, events, speaking engagements, advertising, and television and radio promotions. Additionally, NACHA coordinates the annual Direct Deposit and Direct Payment (May) national campaign, highlighting the benefits of Direct Deposit for payroll, pension, and Social security payments.
Regulatory and Government Relations Issues
Ø NACHA establishes and maintains formal relationships with key industry audiences, including the Federal Reserve System and the U.S. Department of the Treasury and responds expeditiously to regulatory and government relations issues.
Electronic bill payment is now a very common feature of online banking allowing a depositor to send money from his demand account to a creditor or vendor such as a public utility or a department store to be credited against a specific account. The payment is optimally executed electronically in real time, though some financial institutions or payment services will wait until the next business day to send out the payment. The bank can usually generate and mail a paper check or bank draft to a creditor who is not set up to receive electronic payments.
The majority of large banks offer various convenience features with their electronic bill payment systems such as the ability to schedule payments in advance to be made on a specified date, the ability to manage payments from any computer with a web browser, and various options for searching one’s recent payment history. Most banks also allow their customers to integrate the electronic payment data with accounting or personal finance software.
Typically, US financial institutions formally prohibit the use of their consumer electronic bill payment systems for payments to any tax authorities, collection agencies, or recipients of court-ordered payments like child support or alimony. Any organizations or individuals outside of the United States are also usually excluded. Payments to government agencies for utilities such as water are usually permitted.
Electronic bill pay systems fall into two categories, “pay-anyone” services and restricted biller list services. In a pay-anyone service, the provider will facilitate a payment to the payee regardless of whether they have an electronic connection with that payee or not. If they cannot deliver the payment to the payee electronically, they will print and mail a paper check on the payer’s behalf. The largest providers of electronic bill pay services can deliver about 80% of their payments electronically, so 20% of payments facilitated by the large pay-anyone services are still made by mailing a paper check to the biller. This is the primary reason why some billers in a pay-anyone service require as much as a 5 day lead time for the payment to reach the payee.
Restricted biller list payment services allow the payor to pay any biller that is in the provider’s network, and in these services where the provider has an electronic relationship with the biller, the payments will be delivered electronically. A good example of a popular restricted biller site is MyCheckFree.com.
One of the main requirements in e-commerce is the ability to accept a form of electronic payment. This form of electronic payment is referred to as Financial Electronic Data Interchange (FEDI). FEDI has become increasingly popular over the last number of years due to the widespread use of the internet based shopping and banking. Banks are also being required to process all check transactions via an electronic medium due to the implementation of Check 21.
Financial Cyber-mediaries[4]
These are companies that enable financial transactions to transpire over the internet. Types of transactions include: C2C (Consumer to Consumer), C2B (Consumer to Business), and B2B (Business to Business). One of the best known and most successful financial cybermediaries is PayPal. This free online service allows consumers and/or businesses to send money to anyone with an email address in 45 countries. PayPal is accepted by thousands of businesses worldwide and is the preferred payment method on eBay.com.
Many of the mediaries permit consumers to establish an account quickly, and to transfer funds into their online accounts from a traditional bank account (typically via an ACH transaction), and vice versa, after verification of the consumer’s identity and authority to access such bank accounts. Also, the larger mediaries further allow transactions to and from credit card accounts, although such credit card transactions are usually assessed a fee (either to the recipient or the sender) to recoup the transaction fees charged to the mediary.
The speed and simplicity with which cyber-mediary accounts can be established and used have contributed to their widespread use, although the risk of abuse, theft and other problems is associated with them.
Payment Service Provider[5]
A payment service provider (PSP) offers merchants online services for accepting electronic payments by a variety of payment methods including credit card, bank-based payments such as direct debit, bank transfer, and real-time bank transfer based on online banking. Some PSPs provide unique service to processes other next generation methods (E-Payment Providers) including eWallets (PayPal), Cash (Western Union), prepaid cards or vouchers, and even paper or e-check processing.
Typically, a PSP can connect to multiple acquiring banks, card, and payment networks. In many cases the PSP will fully manage these technical connections and relationships with the external network, and bank accounts. This makes the merchant less dependent of financial institutions and establishing these connections directly, especially when operating internationally.
Development
Electronic billing has now been integrated into the mainstream of the management of outsourced legal work. Although insurers were in the lead in purchasing e-billing systems from e-billing vendors and setting up e-bill management programs for outsourced insurance defense litigation, the corporate legal department community has embraced e-billing as the preferred process for bill management in general. What is often not clearly understood and appreciated by the recently initiated is that e-billing encompasses more than the transmission of legal bills in real time from the law firm to client. The e-bill transmission process is merely the first step, albeit an important one, in a wholesale shift in the dynamics of outside law firm management. The real value to be derived from e-billing is the opportunity to massage data generated from the process and use it as the foundation for practice management applications.[6]
Law firms that use e-billing create computerized invoices that conform in their arrangement of entries and their data file format to a preset model, most often LEDES, which stands for Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard. Information on the standard is at www.ledes.org. The Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard is a set of file format specifications intended to standardize bill/invoice data transmitted electronically ("e-billed") from a law firm to a corporate client. It is abbreviated LEDES and is usually pronounced as "leeds". LEDES was developed by the LEDES Oversight Committee (LOC), which was led by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Members of the committee include law firms, corporate legal departments, electronic billing vendors and time and billing software vendors. The LOC was incorporated as a California non-profit mutual benefit corporation in 2000.[7]
Into this standard LEDES format the firm enters numeric codes that describe actions taken on behalf of clients. These codes also conform to a preset format, usually UTBMS, which stands for Uniform Task-Based Management System. Details on those codes can be found at the ABA Litigation's site at: www.abanet.org/litigation/litnews/practice/uniform.html. The corporate or law firm sends its e-bills over the Internet to a service provider, which processes the files to comply with the requirements of the firm's clients. Usually the service provider maintains a Web site on a server that can be accessed by both law firm and client.[8]
The E-Billing Systems Progression
The fundamental principles that are at the foundation of all e-billing systems are:
Ø Formatting of all legal bills into the uniform legal electronic data exchange standard LEDES (www.ledes.org.)
Ø Electronic transmission of bills in real time from the law firm to the client.
Ø Creation of a secure communications loop to preserve attorney/client privilege
Ø Construction of an electronic rules engine to monitor conformance with rules of engagement and bill management guidelines.
Ø Electronic validation and/or rejection of bills through application of rules engine.
Ø Electronic submission of approved bills for payment
Ø Data generation
E-billing systems represent a progression that builds upon those foundation principles. There are three levels in that progression:
1) Transmission systems which adhere to the fundamental principles and leave it to the client and law firm to implement their own bill management program once the bill has been transmitted, scrutinized by a rudimentary rules engine and flowed through to the client with no capturing or categorizing of data.
2) Bill review systems which capture and categorize data through application of rule engine, providing the client with an assortment of analytical tools to review the bill in detail in-house or through referral to a third-party external bill reviewer/auditor and, where appropriate, recommend modifications as well as reductions in conformance with the rules of engagement, bill management guidelines and generally accepted principles (GAPs) of bill review.
3) Performance measurement systems which massage the data generated through bill review into data management banks. The client utilizes the data to comparatively measure and evaluate case/matter and law firm performance and develop pro-active bill management programs.[9]
The leading providers of e-billing services which offer a web site which can be accessed by the law firm and client are: DataCert (www.datacert.com), Tymetrix (www.tymetrix.com) and Serengeti (www.serengetilaw.com), and TrialNet (www.trialnet.com)[10]
Serengeti Tracker provides all of the features necessary to efficiently manage both outside counsel and law department spending. Providing all of these tools in one system eliminates the inevitable data discrepancies, duplication of effort, and integration problems that arise when trying to get multiple software systems to work together. Plus, Tracker allows you to leverage the spending information provided directly by your firms to simplify a number of critical tasks such as: budget to actual spending review, law firm accrual collection, and internal vs. external cost comparisons. Unlike most electronic invoicing systems, Tracker makes it possible for all law firms and vendors, small and large, foreign and domestic, to submit bills to you electronically. Tracker accepts invoices in both the industry standard LEDES format, as well as any other file format (e.g. Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF, JPEG Image).
CT TyMetrix 360° provides comprehensive, end-to-end electronic invoicing. Invoices are submitted by law firms, programmatically tested for data integrity and compliance with the client's outside counsel guidelines, automatically routed according to a client-defined workflow and presented in an intuitive and flexible on-line review interface. Invoices are "reviewed by exception," easily adjusted and approved or rejected. Payment files may be created within the application and downloaded for further processing or the application may be programmed to generate and transfer a payment file to client file specifications. Invoice status is 100% apparent at every stage to law firms via a secure web site and to in-house users via intuitive and robust search and filter tools. Task-based and financial invoice data is aggregated and available for reporting. Click here for a video presentation of web based tools.
Outside law firms can upload their bills directly to the system, where they can be reviewed for accuracy, reconciled against cost projections, and approved for payment. This valuable tool not only saves you money through improved cost controls, but also provides instant, comprehensive reporting and analysis tools so you can better understand your legal costs and overall budget picture. Our E Billing system is comprehensive, user-friendly, and integrates easily with your existing accounting system.
Our E Billing System provides access to:
Billing File Creation & Management, enabling you to open billing files, administer and approve law firm rates, set critical billing rules and verify legal invoices against your fee & expense guidelines;
Law firm E Billing, allowing your law firms to upload, pre-audit and edit their bills on line before submitting them - preventing errors that can hold up billing and payment;
Financial Analysis Tools, including online review and approval of invoices, budget tracking, reporting on cost patterns, performance, and much more;
Matter Management Tracking, integrating data about particular claims through TrialNet's Matter Management platform with the E billing system for accurate billing and complete analysis of all aspects of a case.
ShareDoc® is the backbone of DataCert's invoice submission network. It gives firms and vendors the ability to submit detailed invoices in a variety of formats including Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard (LEDES1998B), Data Clearing House (DCH), and PeerPoint. These invoices contain information including matter, vendor, header-level invoice data, as well as fee and expense codes, timekeeper, timekeeper rate, description, number of hours, etc.
Electronic Invoicing Benefits
Ø Take control of the invoice process by eliminating paper-based invoices
Ø Standardize and simplify the billing process
Ø Enforce billing guideline compliance
Ø Reduce delivery time from days to minutes
Ø Eliminate double-billing, overcharging and neglected invoices
Ø Collect invoice data for analysis
Ø No network infrastructure to build or maintain
What the Law Firm Gains What the Corporate Client Gains[11]
* Lower Administrative Costs * More Efficient and Complete bill review
* Faster Payments * No need for third party auditors
* Better-informed clients * Ensured law firm compliance with billing guidelines
* Generally compatible with existing * Better information about current status of matters
time and billing systems * Rich data source for budgeting and
* More work for the best firms management reports
Electronic Billing: The future trend, the future innovation[12]
Today, about 20% of all business-to-business invoices are sent electronically. This number is expected to rise to 62% and even more. “With the internet, you can talk about things line by line, you can partial-pay, negotiate terms online, link to procurement and sales processes,” Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner Inc. in Standford.conn.
Electronic billing is entering the mainstream, thanks to inexpensive, web-based systems requiring no installation of hardware or software. Recent surveys of ACC law departments (80 percent of which have five or fewer lawyers) bear this out: Five years ago, electronic billing was rare; today about 15 percent of law departments are using electronic billing, with an additional 15 percent planning on it.
What is driving the rapid adoption of e-billing in a profession that is notorious for slow acceptance of new technology?
Savings and control
Law departments with e-billing report savings of 5 to 15 percent or more of their outside legal spending which, when compared to system costs of 1 percent or less, make a compelling business case. Law departments gain control by having instant access to what they are spending and where. E-billing generates up-to-date reports with a couple of mouse clicks—a vast improvement over the fire drills traditionally triggered by queries from management, auditors, or the board’s audit committee.
Law departments also use e-billing data to create more realistic budgets, including projected legal spending for specific products or business units. Together with matter management, e-billing opens better views into the ocean of corporate legal work, enabling the law department to take preventive measures in areas of increasing legal spending and exposure. Historical spending/results data provide a solid foundation for negotiating fixed and other alternative fees—and help to identify top-performing outside counsel, enabling you to allocate work more effectively.
Finally, a well-designed e-billing/matter-management system covering the law department and all of its firms can provide accurate, complete, and auditable information so that the law department can certify to upper management that it satisfies Sarbanes-Oxley and other compliance requirements. Time savings is a major, but often overlooked, bonus of e-billing. How much time do you spend routing, filing, and looking for paper bills and other documents? How about reentering information into databases? Automated online processing of bills and budgets eliminates time wasted handling paper and generally simplifies the flow of information; giving in-house counsel more time to address the day’s other pressing priorities.
Reasons for the E-billing system acceptance
Ø A single e-billing/matter-management system is much easier to use and presents more consistent data than multiple systems with varying degrees of integration. Multiple systems also run the risk of generating inconsistent data, a compliance nightmare.
Ø A combined e-billing/matter-management system can solve one of the key problems with any system keeping the information current. By tying the acceptance of bills to the law firms’ submission of other required information (e.g., budgets, exposure estimates, and regular status updates), in-house counsel can ensure that they are working with complete and current information.
Ø Reports provide a more complete picture of projects managed by the law department, including status, deadlines, and results, as well as spending.
Ø Project teams have all key information in one place, accessible to authorized users, whether in the law department or outside firm. This comes in handy when preparing for conference calls with outside counsel, budget meetings or internal client meetings.
Ø An encrypted online matter-management system is also generally more secure, easier to maintain, and more useful than a paper file stored in someone’s office. Such security also ensures protection of the attorney-client and work product privileges, providing a much higher standard of privacy than unencrypted email currently used by many counsel.
Ø Adopting a single system makes it easier to transfer key information when there is turnover in the law department or outside firm. It also facilitates compliance with document retention policies.
Ø Documents previously generated by or for the law department, such as commonly used forms, can be shared across multiple law firms online, so that outside counsel don’t waste time and money reinventing the wheel.
Bon Voyage: Will the System You Choose Be Around in the Future?
As happens with most new technologies, e-billing vendors are consolidating. Some vendors have been sold to larger companies. Others have left the business. Recent surveys show that for some vendors, many of their customers would not recommend their systems, clouding their long-term viability. Several years ago, Hummingbird Ltd. created shockwaves throughout the legal software industry when it announced that it would stop selling and supporting the Law-Pack® matter management system has been used by most Fortune 100 law departments and many smaller law departments.
Although you can’t predict the future, your due diligence should include an assessment of the growth and future prospects of potential vendors. One key indicator of stability is growth rate: How many law departments and law firms have come onto the system during the past two years?
Find out whether the vendor is experiencing steady growth, struggling to maintain its current position, or declining. Also request information about changes in management, ownership, revenues, debt, and profitability, with an eye on whether the trends are positive or negative. Management’s general plans for the future may be illuminating. Ask about plans for both the business entity and the technology, and assess the extent of control by outside investors or a parent company that may step in to discontinue an underperforming platform.
Finally, talking with other system users should make it clear whether the vendor has a growing platform with enthusiastic users and provides system enhancements that respond to their needs. The frequency and the scope of past upgrades, as well as plans for future upgrades may be good indications of whether the vendor has the necessary resources to meet the evolving needs of the profession. Your careful assessment of these factors will help ensure that you will be able to reap the benefits of a system long after you select a vendor.
Are You Ready to Catch the Rising Tide?
As companies expect their law departments to manage outside counsel more systematically, electronic billing has become an essential management function. In addition to saving time and money, today’s technology gives in-house counsel better control over the work being done by outside counsel, as well as helping the law department meet its growing compliance obligations. If you take the time to understand your e-billing options and perform thorough due diligence before selecting a system, managing your legal spending can be smooth sailing for years to come.
E-Billing System | |
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
| Streamline paper and/or payment remittance costs: This system offers direct cost savings by eliminating paper and postage. | The majority of businesses are still relying on paper money for most of their daily transactions, even though services with all its advantages, is currently offered at the market. |
| Includes a database that is configured to store account information of a plurality of customers in a database | Electronic payments do not contain information in a convenient form offer limited benefits to biller and companies have not actively promoted this approach. |
| To generate additional revenue: The significant cost of processing 16 billion standard bills each year has prompted several technology companies to investigate ways to capture some of this business. | Billers must continue to send out paper copies of bills every month, a costly process, and the remittance information is not returned along with payment, making it difficult for billers to reconcile their accounts receivable |
| Developers of e-billing system have proposed offering their services to billers for about $0.32 per transaction. In addition system operators will not charge customers and banks will be assessed at most- a small fee. | Industry sources estimate that, on average, it costs a biller about $.90 print and mail bill and to process a customer's personal check and remittance information. |
| By improving customer service and providing with a much affordable fee structure, e-billers hope that there will be more participation | Because of the resistance of both billers and customers to using existing automated systems, electronic bill payment has thus far achieved only limited popularity. |
| E-billing can be expected to speed up the collection of funds: Delivery of bills and remittances are not going to be subject to delays in the mail and customers will be able to pay their invoices electronically via electronic funds transfer. | If e-billing is adopted on a large scale, the main beneficiaries will naturally be the system operators, who stand to earn sizable revenues and potentially high profits on their investments. Moreover, given the historical resistance of individuals to banking innovations, it is unlikely that a large share of a billers’ customers would immediately forgo writing checks |
| An e-billing service should prove attractive to households that already own personal computers and internet access. These households would save postage | For households that do not already own a personal computer, the cost of purchasing this equipment and monthly internet access could be a deterrent to participating in an e-billing system. |
| Due to the fact that time of payment receipt is more predictable under electronic system than under a paper-based system, households could pay bills closer to the due date and still avoid late fees. | Should households believe that e-billing permits companies to create detailed databases on their spending patterns, they may be reluctant to adopt this payment innovation. They may be afraid of not having their information protected from possible hackers. |
| Based on the high cost of acquiring new accounts, firms may be willing to bear added expenses of providing some extra benefits in order to solidify existing customer relationships. As a result, billers may offer e-billing as a payment options even if it is more costly than the traditional billing process. | No cost equals (means) unawareness (no awareness): For some e-billing systems, law firm managers may not realize that a specific e-billing system is being used by their firms because, unlike different vendors, there is no charge to use the system. E-billing does not rise to awareness of many because this system does not necessarily cause the firm to change its internal bill approval procedures; it is conceivable that only billing clerks at some firms need to know that e-billing is happening. |
Questionnaire[13]
1) Law firms total, and how many of our firms, submit electronic bills through your system?
2) Which law departments are on your system? Which law departments have stopped using it and why?
3) Which law departments using your system are receiving electronic bills from all of their law firms/other vendors (large and small, foreign and domestic)?
4) How long before we will receive electronic bills from all of our firms?
5) How long are training sessions (law department and law firm)? How does the vendor conduct them?
6) What is required for law firms to submit their bills (LEDES, non-LEDES, UTMBS codes, user/rate lists, bill narrative terms, customizations)?
7) What specific bill audits do you provide? How do our reviewers handle them? How do you avoid false positives (audits that waste reviewers’ time)?
8) How do you handle bills in foreign currencies, VAT, and occasional paper bills?
9) How do you track law department time and expenses? How do you transmit invoice approval data to our A/P System for payment?
10) How do you enforce budget requirements and manage budgets?
11) How do we build and reforecast our law department budget from the information in your system?
12) How is the history of data modifications auditable for compliance purposes?
13) How can we create customizable reports in the system? How do we export our data for further analysis or presentations?
14) How can we process and report on important non-billing information from our firms (documents, status, deadlines, exposure estimates, results, and so forth)?
15) How does your system enforce our requirements of budgets, exposure estimates, regular status updates, and so forth? Are such requirements tied to the acceptance of bills?
16) What specific upgrades have you implemented during the past two years? What are your plans for future upgrades?
17) What security, backups, and disaster recovery plans do you have in place to safeguard our data? What guarantees do you make regarding system uptime?
18) What is the total system cost to the law department, and to all of our law firms, in the first, second, and third years?
19) How many new law departments and law firms have you added to your system during the past two years? Are you profitable? Who owns your company, and what is their commitment to your e-billing platform?
Frequently Asked Questions from Wesleyan University[14]
Ø I pay my tuition using the 10-month payment plan administered by Key Education Resources. How will E-Billing affect this?
Ø Once you have signed up for the monthly payment program (MPP), you will receive printed bills from Key according to the budget you have established. You need to review your Wesleyan E-Bill toensure that your MPP budget covers all of your expenses. When additional charges appear on your Wesleyan E-Bill, you can pay that balance
Ø May I still receive a paper bill?
Ø Wesleyan University has designated E-Billing as the official system for distributing Student Account Statements. If a student or the person primarily responsible for paying student bills is unable to use the E-Billing system for a specific reason, a student may apply to receive paper bills each term by submitting a Paper Bill Request Form, (available online at the Student Accounts Web site ww.wesleyan.edu/student accounts) or by submitting a written request to the Student Accounts Office, demonstrating the need for.
Ø Can I see immediate account charges or credits on the E-Billing Web site?
Ø No. The E-Billing system simply delivers the current bill electronically. Please see the
Ø I do not feel comfortable making payments online. How should I pay my bill?
Ø You can still view the Student Account Statement online without having to make online payments. Your best options are to print the bill and mail in your payment stub and check to the address on the printed bill, or to come to the Student -- Accounts cashier window in North College. We hope that you will try the online payment feature of the Wesleyan E-Billing system. It is quick, convenient, secure (certified by VeriSign, the nation’s largest online payment verification provider), and you won’t have to pay
Ø Do I need a certain type of computer, software, or Web browser to use E-Billing?
Ø You can use the Wesleyan E-Billing system from any Macintosh or PC running Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.1. or newer,
Ø Can I have my E-Bill sent to my personal e-mail account instead of my Wesleyan e-mail account?
Ø All students at Wesleyan University are automatically provided an official Wesleyan e-mail address upon admission. University policy requires all students to regularly check messages sent to their Wesleyan e-mail address. In the E-Billing system, students also have the option to add a secondary e-mail address for E-Billing notification by updating their User Preferences. Once a second e-mail address is entered and saved, notification
Ø Do you accept credit cards?
Ø Wesleyan University does not accept credit card payments for undergraduate or graduation____
Interview with David Cambria, Director of Operations, Law Department, Aon Corporation[15]
E-Billing: A Critical Component for Effectively Managing Global Legal Operations
Editor: Please tell us what Aon does and the origin of its name.
Cambria: Aon was named after the Gaelic word for “oneness.” We bring together leading professionals working across multiple disciplines to provide risk management service, insurance, reinsurance brokerage, human capital, and management consulting. We have approximately 500 offices in 120 different countries. The law department is made up of approximately 250 professionals working from 17 countries.
Editor: How is Aon's legal department structured?
Cambria: There is a central reporting line up to Cam Findlay, our Executive Vice-President and General Counsel, who manages the legal department out of our headquarters in Chicago. In addition to our headquarters in Chicago, we have three additional regional offices that oversee our international operations and report directly to Cam. They include our London office which handles the work in the UK region, our Rotterdam, Netherlands office which works on our European and Middle Eastern matters and our APAC office, which oversees our legal matters in Australia, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
Editor: What challenges does Aon face as a result of managing its legal department on a global scale?
Cambria: Much of Aon’s growth and geographic reach has come through acquisition. Many of these acquisitions had very mature operations. They had become very accustomed to doing things a certain way and because of that, had institutionalized different process and technologies to advance their operations. On top of that we have the added challenge that multiple languages and multiple time zones present.
Cam determined very early on that much efficiency were to be had through implementation of uniform process for data collection, standardization of our operations and better visibility into the individual global offices. Furthermore all the things that make Aon an exciting and dynamic company to be a part of (different customs and cultures combined with a diverse workforce) also mean that there are a lot of factors to consider in every decision. For example, how does the implementation of a new process or policy mesh with local laws, customs and work style. Tactically a global rollout of any new initiative means paying particular attention to the logistics involved in operating globally. Requirement gathering, system design and training all take on added complexity when you throw multiple languages and expansive geographic reach into the mix.
Finally, we all know that no change is easy, especially one with a global reach. Commitment and leadership at the highest levels of the organization is a necessity to facilitate a change of this magnitude. Luckily for us, through Cam’s vision and leadership we were able to build support and excitement for our global initiative throughout the entire executive suite.
Editor: How does an electronic invoicing and legal spend management solution allow Aon to achieve those objectives?
Cambria: We have various accounts payable systems, collecting data in many currencies, which complicated our ability to operate with a centralized program. We were also dealing with various types of invoices ranging from very detailed invoices to those with little information. By incorporating an e-billing system into our operations we have been able to enter invoices into a centralized location in a consistent manner. That has greatly improved our data collection process and allowed us to make better decisions with respect to managing the legal department - thanks in large part to the richness and granularity of the data.
Editor: What were your main criteria in selecting an electronic invoicing and legal spend management vendor?
Cambria: When looking for a vendor, we knew that we would need to partner with someone who could negotiate through some complex problems. Aon has grown through considerable acquisitions of companies that had their own IT systems and methods for managing their invoices. We needed someone who could work with us and help us integrate those systems into one common platform for the entire company.
Given our international presence, we also needed a system that could operate with multiple currency types and respond to the compliance needs of our different offices. For example, a rule limiting the price for copies to 10 cents per page makes sense in the U.S. but that would not translate well in our UK or Rotterdam offices. Also, the program had to take into account the different tax requirements at the national, state or provincial level within the countries where we operate. Other compliance issues we had to consider include the data privacy issues in Europe, and local rules concerning the adjustment of final invoices. Since DataCert has worked with other clients with global operations, they understood these intricacies and could help provide a solution that would allow us to comply with those requirements while working with the invoices in a manner we were accustomed to.
Editor: Why was it important to integrate your legal spending management solution with matter management and accounts payable systems?
Cambria: We were very interested in having a system that provided a consistent perspective of our yearly legal expenses on a real time basis. When dealing with multiple time zones, locations, and languages, it does not make sense to have a manual system for data collection. We knew that we would be better off with a system that automated the process so we could focus more on the data as it entered the centralized location.
With this in place, I am able to pull up our legal expenses at any time across the country. Additionally, it allows us to estimate what is probable with respect to our contingent liabilities. Tying our e-billing, matter management and accounts payable system into our e-billing system provides richness and granularity to those numbers.
Editor: What improvements have been made to the business processes as a result of implementing DataCert's Advanced Invoice Management System (AIMS)?
Cambria: If you think about e-billing as a multi-tiered solution to improving spend management, then you need to look at the entire operation from workflow through reporting. As for work flow, it has allowed us to automate that process. It moves the data throughout the organization in a more streamlined and simple fashion. AIMS allows me to set approval chains, work flow rules and all sorts of processes that make everything more efficient. We are then able to gather more detailed information for billing analysis and make more informed decisions on what a particular matter should cost and whether it makes sense to settle sooner rather than later. Lastly, insights into outside counsel spend and matter trends allow us to more actively manage our relationships with outside counsel.
Editor: What AIMS features have proved to be the most beneficial for Aon's legal department business process?
Cambria: The ability to handle multiple currencies and to apply location-specific rules to our invoices has been most valuable. The system’s automated adjustments reduce the time we spend reviewing invoices, which is another added value. If you consider the number of law firm invoices we receive on a worldwide basis, they all use their own formats and contain different information. The ability to convert them into a consistent format has also proven invaluable. It offers certainty that our invoices contain higher levels of information and detail.
Editor: Aon's e-invoicing and legal spend management solution is set up in a unique manner. Please explain how Aon uses a hosted solution, yet still retains its data behind the corporatefirewall. What security advantages does this give Aon?