How a Multi-State Law Firm Reduced Invoice Compliance Errors by 90% With AP Automation
Industry: Legal
Service: Legal Vendor Invoice Compliance & Automation
Client Background
The client is a multi-state law firm in the USA with over 120 attorneys and more than 300 active cases across corporate, litigation and intellectual property practice areas. They work with several third-party vendors, including court reporters, expert witnesses, e-filing services, legal research providers and document management partners.
As the firm grew, vendor invoices increased in volume and complexity. Each invoice followed different billing rules, required matter mapping and involved manual compliance checks. This led to frequent errors, delayed approvals and risks of non-compliance with internal and client-specific billing guidelines.
Challenges
- Case-based billing complexity: Every invoice needed to be mapped to the correct matter, creating room for misallocations and billing disputes.
- Frequent invoice errors: Incorrect rates, unauthorized charges and non-billable items often slipped through manual reviews.
- Delayed approvals: Attorneys with heavy caseloads struggled to verify invoices promptly, leading to payment delays.
- Lack of centralized visibility: Finance teams lacked real-time insight into matter-level expenses and vendor payables.
- Compliance risks: Manual checks made it difficult to enforce internal billing rules and client-specific expense guidelines.
How Did APS Help?
- Automated invoice validation – APS team deployed compliance automation that checked each invoice against billing rules to confirm correct rates, allowable charges, matter allocation and removal of non-billable items.
- Centralized case-level tracking – All invoices were mapped to the right matter in a unified system, improving accuracy in client reporting and reimbursement.
- Digital approval workflow – Smart routing ensured invoices automatically reached the relevant attorneys and department heads for faster review and approval.
- Error and dispute flagging – Any incorrect rates or unapproved expenses were flagged instantly by the APS team before payment processing.
- Real-time spend reporting – APS experts designed dashboards that provided complete visibility into matter-wise expenses, vendor performance, payment cycles and practice-area budgets.
Results Achieved
- Invoice compliance errors decreased by 90%, resulting in a reduction of billing disputes and rework.
- Approval time improved from 10 days to 48 hours, helping maintain timely payments.
- Manual data entry decreased by 75%, freeing the finance team for higher-value work.
- Matter-expense allocation reached 100% accuracy, improving client invoicing.
- Vendor satisfaction improved significantly due to consistent payment cycles.
As a result, the firm gained:
- A controlled AP system aligned with legal billing and compliance needs.
- Faster, more accurate processing of matter-related vendor invoices.
- Lower administrative burden for attorneys and finance teams.
- Transparent reporting that strengthened client confidence.
- Better vendor relationships and more predictable payment workflows.
APS helped the law firm transition from manual, error-prone invoice handling to a compliance-driven, automated workflow, resulting in stronger accuracy, visibility and control. The firm now manages vendor expenses more efficiently, operates with greater financial integrity and is better positioned to scale effectively across practice areas.