24 February 2022 · 4 min read
Boost Client Satisfaction with Decision Support Tools for Financial Matter Management
Throughout the pandemic, firms worldwide had to transition to the hybrid work model quickly. And to support this sudden switch, firms rapidly deployed new collaboration systems.
In the midst of it all, we have seen clients push firms to explore new ways of delivering matter budgets. It is no surprise that 80% of today’s clients seek flexibility and transparency in the delivery of their matters. By being a part of the process, clients get to have a close relationship with the firm, all while reassuring that their matters are priced more granularly than the traditional billable hour allows.
To ensure that matters are delivered on time and within the agreed-upon budget, firms are looking for ways to monitor and analyze the entire lifecycle of the matter’s progress.
This way, firms can quickly answer critical questions like:
Where are we at on the matters progress?
Is the matter budget going to over-run?
How do we have sensible conversations with our clients about potential changes to the matter budget?
Read on and discover these answers, all while empowering better client conversations through the use of decision support tools.
Decision Support Tools – Why They’re Necessary
Decision support tools are strategies and processes that firms can use to decide which matter plan scenario best fits certain clients. These processes help organizations make guided decisions on a variety of tasks. In the case of law firms, decision support tools empower them to plan and test various matter budgets against different variables and at different matter stages.
For many firms, when it comes to creating matter plans, partners are often on the front lines of client communication. They generally focus on revenue generation with less emphasis on matter profitability and can unintentionally create the wrong fee expectations. When it comes to budgeting, creating the right expectations can be addressed with a better financial matter management solution.
To avoid focusing only on completing matters within the quoted budget – resulting in write-downs – firms should leverage decision support tools to make informed choices about their matter plans and budgets.
There are three sets of decision support tools that would help firms enhance efficiency, all while getting ahead of any challenges regarding matter budget changes.
Firms can use “what-if” analysis to create and test different plans at the beginning of the matter budget to see how different changes such as staffing reallocations, discounts, and alternative fee arrangements might affect specific KPIs. With this flexibility, firms can determine what approach will best benefit the firm before they even start working on the matter.
Decision support tools are not just about the planning phase but the ongoing lifecycle of the matter and anticipating if and where your firm may overrun the current budget or any other implications that may affect the budget.
To foresee this, firms should conduct a “burn analysis,” which gives them a breakdown plan on how much work has been completed compared to how much of the budget they’ve spent. This way, firms can get a projected outcome on potential overruns of the actual budget if work is continued at the same pace.
A “write-down” analysis is an additional support tool that firms can utilize to complement the previously mentioned tools. This analysis enables firms to see where current elements in a matter budget are being valued and determine if further adjustments are required both during or at the end of the matter lifecycle. Ultimately this gives firms the ability to see where they’ve ended up with their matter and be better informed on the overall matter lifecycle when discussing this with their clients.
These three decision support tools allow firms to present an informed and accurate matter budget that is agreeable to the firm and client.
Many firms are already reaping the benefits of decision support tools and have managed to level up their client satisfaction through a new and improved financial matter management solution.
Prosperoware Umbria is the solution helping carry firms into a new age of client transparency and matter planning.
How Prosperoware Umbria Helps
Prosperoware Umbria is the financial matter management platform for law firms. It enables partners, legal project management, and pricing departments to plan, alert, monitor, and report on matters, allowing firms to deliver matters within the scope and expected budget.
Umbria’s data-driven approach ensures that firms plan and deliver matters profitably, all while improving client value, transparency, and predictability.
Umbria offers decision support tools that allow firms to test different matter scenarios and their impact through a What-If analysis with customizable KPIs. Your firm can also analyze and compare multiple plan options for discussions with clients, such as write-down analysis, discounts, alternative fee arrangements, ensuring that clients remain in the loop and feel like they’re part of the process.
Here are more ways of how Umbria can benefit your firm:
Flexible Planning: Plan matters accurately and in any way you want. Whether it’s hourly, by alternative fee arrangements, top-level budgeting, or break down by phase, task, activity, location/cost center, periodic, recurring amounts, and user named phases, to name a few. Utilize out-of-the-box templates and historical matters to create new plans. Plan ahead for multi-year matters with rate and cost increases and test different scenarios with What-If Analysis.
Monitoring & Alerting: Ensure matter stays within budget and time by setting up email alerts and notifications on anything from WIP, Billed, Billable, Collected, and Write-Offs. Schedule Threshold, Escalation, and Recurring Alerts with configurable templates.
Reporting & Dashboards: Tailor reports the way they best work for you through custom Widget-Dashboards. Mix and match widgets and visualizations such as grid, pie chart, stacked chart, etc. Choose from 300+ KPIs to report on or create your own. Export dashboards and reports via Excel, PDF, or PNG.
Decision Support Tools: Enable partners and pricing departments to make the best planning decisions by understanding multiple scenarios with What-If Analysis and Customizable KPIs. Forward forecast with simple discounts and alternative fee arrangements. View the impact of adjustments during the matter lifecycle with Write-Down and Burn Analysis.
Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin
x
x
24 February 2022 · 4 min read
Boost Client Satisfaction with Decision Support Tools for Financial Matter Management
Throughout the pandemic, firms worldwide had to transition to the hybrid work model quickly. And to support this sudden switch, firms rapidly deployed new collaboration systems.
In the midst of it all, we have seen clients push firms to explore new ways of delivering matter budgets. It is no surprise that 80% of today’s clients seek flexibility and transparency in the delivery of their matters. By being a part of the process, clients get to have a close relationship with the firm, all while reassuring that their matters are priced more granularly than the traditional billable hour allows.
To ensure that matters are delivered on time and within the agreed-upon budget, firms are looking for ways to monitor and analyze the entire lifecycle of the matter’s progress.
This way, firms can quickly answer critical questions like:
Where are we at on the matters progress?
Is the matter budget going to over-run?
How do we have sensible conversations with our clients about potential changes to the matter budget?
Read on and discover these answers, all while empowering better client conversations through the use of decision support tools.
Decision Support Tools – Why They’re Necessary
Decision support tools are strategies and processes that firms can use to decide which matter plan scenario best fits certain clients. These processes help organizations make guided decisions on a variety of tasks. In the case of law firms, decision support tools empower them to plan and test various matter budgets against different variables and at different matter stages.
For many firms, when it comes to creating matter plans, partners are often on the front lines of client communication. They generally focus on revenue generation with less emphasis on matter profitability and can unintentionally create the wrong fee expectations. When it comes to budgeting, creating the right expectations can be addressed with a better financial matter management solution.
To avoid focusing only on completing matters within the quoted budget – resulting in write-downs – firms should leverage decision support tools to make informed choices about their matter plans and budgets.
There are three sets of decision support tools that would help firms enhance efficiency, all while getting ahead of any challenges regarding matter budget changes.
Firms can use “what-if” analysis to create and test different plans at the beginning of the matter budget to see how different changes such as staffing reallocations, discounts, and alternative fee arrangements might affect specific KPIs. With this flexibility, firms can determine what approach will best benefit the firm before they even start working on the matter.
Decision support tools are not just about the planning phase but the ongoing lifecycle of the matter and anticipating if and where your firm may overrun the current budget or any other implications that may affect the budget.
To foresee this, firms should conduct a “burn analysis,” which gives them a breakdown plan on how much work has been completed compared to how much of the budget they’ve spent. This way, firms can get a projected outcome on potential overruns of the actual budget if work is continued at the same pace.
A “write-down” analysis is an additional support tool that firms can utilize to complement the previously mentioned tools. This analysis enables firms to see where current elements in a matter budget are being valued and determine if further adjustments are required both during or at the end of the matter lifecycle. Ultimately this gives firms the ability to see where they’ve ended up with their matter and be better informed on the overall matter lifecycle when discussing this with their clients.
These three decision support tools allow firms to present an informed and accurate matter budget that is agreeable to the firm and client.
Many firms are already reaping the benefits of decision support tools and have managed to level up their client satisfaction through a new and improved financial matter management solution.
Prosperoware Umbria is the solution helping carry firms into a new age of client transparency and matter planning.
How Prosperoware Umbria Helps
Prosperoware Umbria is the financial matter management platform for law firms. It enables partners, legal project management, and pricing departments to plan, alert, monitor, and report on matters, allowing firms to deliver matters within the scope and expected budget.
Umbria’s data-driven approach ensures that firms plan and deliver matters profitably, all while improving client value, transparency, and predictability.
Umbria offers decision support tools that allow firms to test different matter scenarios and their impact through a What-If analysis with customizable KPIs. Your firm can also analyze and compare multiple plan options for discussions with clients, such as write-down analysis, discounts, alternative fee arrangements, ensuring that clients remain in the loop and feel like they’re part of the process.
Here are more ways of how Umbria can benefit your firm:
Flexible Planning: Plan matters accurately and in any way you want. Whether it’s hourly, by alternative fee arrangements, top-level budgeting, or break down by phase, task, activity, location/cost center, periodic, recurring amounts, and user named phases, to name a few. Utilize out-of-the-box templates and historical matters to create new plans. Plan ahead for multi-year matters with rate and cost increases and test different scenarios with What-If Analysis.
Monitoring & Alerting: Ensure matter stays within budget and time by setting up email alerts and notifications on anything from WIP, Billed, Billable, Collected, and Write-Offs. Schedule Threshold, Escalation, and Recurring Alerts with configurable templates.
Reporting & Dashboards: Tailor reports the way they best work for you through custom Widget-Dashboards. Mix and match widgets and visualizations such as grid, pie chart, stacked chart, etc. Choose from 300+ KPIs to report on or create your own. Export dashboards and reports via Excel, PDF, or PNG.
Decision Support Tools: Enable partners and pricing departments to make the best planning decisions by understanding multiple scenarios with What-If Analysis and Customizable KPIs. Forward forecast with simple discounts and alternative fee arrangements. View the impact of adjustments during the matter lifecycle with Write-Down and Burn Analysis.
Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin
x
x