For Ongoing Success, Compliance Must Become a Practice

In a recent Think Tank post on billing compliance, we discussed how client billing guidelines are creating barriers for law firms, slowing down payment cycles, and draining resources. With all of the overwhelming complexities inherent in the process of cleaning up billing guidelines, we advise firms to start small by prioritizing one aspect, achieving compliance there, and then moving to another area of the WIP-to-Cash cycle.

Last time we focused on eBilling compliance, but this time we’re looking at compliance at the point of time entry. By engaging in the practice of “doing it right” the first time, timekeepers and billing department staff are not burdened with going back to fix mistakes and make sense of errors later.

This practice is not the reality, however, for many of today’s firms. Instead, billing errors are volleyed back and forth between the timekeeper and the billing department in a tense, time-wasting, resource-draining effort to resolve billing errors. Timekeepers lack the training, visibility, and tools to comply while creating their time entries, leading to a scenario where the billing department has to rely on manual processes to identify and chase down the proper corrections. It’s a no-win situation for all involved. Time is wasted, resources aren’t devoted to their highest use, and billing guidelines continue to cost the firm more than they should.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Using recent advancements in timekeeping and billing technology, timekeepers can be empowered to complete accurate time entries as time is entered. As a time entry is created, the compliance solution examines the submission for possible billing errors. When an error is found, timekeepers receive a real-time notification providing the impetus to fix the timecard before prebills are created. Timekeepers can also access client summaries in advance of entering time in order to get up to speed on client requirements, thus avoiding potential mistakes.

Benefits experienced by firms that leverage this technology as part of their time entry process include:

• Addressing the root cause of compliance issues by focusing on entering time correctly from the start.
• Better timekeeping and compliance performance over time, as the timekeeper has access to summaries of client billing requirements as well as tailored alerts to time entry submissions to improve time entry compliance.
• Faster payment cycles due to ability to ensure that all timecards are in compliance prior to billing the client, eliminating potential rejections and appeals.
• A boost in client trust and satisfaction as a result of accurate invoicing.
• Better data, which enables the firm to manage compliance at all levels, including the capability to quickly identify revenue at risk and steps required in order to bring the firm into compliance.

When timekeepers are empowered with the right knowledge and technology to manage compliance at the point of time entry, this prevents the need for the firm to devote time and resources to identify entries that are out of compliance and managing the process of going back and forth with the timekeeper to resolve the errors. When this is practiced on an ongoing basis, firms can realize the benefits of compliance at the point of time entry – and save tens of thousands of dollars per day in would-be rejections.

Are you ready to empower your timekeepers to practice compliance at the point of time entry? Learn more about OCG Live.