Alan Gray’s Smart Invoice Management System, or “SIMS,” has been thoughtfully developed over the last twenty years, leveraging the input of our clients and their outside defense counsel. SIMS has been designed to meet specific legal invoice processing and approval requirements, billing guideline rules, and data collection and analytics needs of our client partners. SIMS provides the flexibility to accommodate the variety of needs each client presents. From insurance carriers to corporations, managing general agents, third-party administrators, and beyond, all have benefited from the flexibility, ease of use, and scalability of the SIMS e-Billing solution.

The Benefits of SIMS Web-Based e-billing:

Efficiency: The collection, review, and payment of invoices can be an administrative headache. SIMS provides one portal for submission, review, and appeal resolution for all your invoices, removing emails and paper from the equation. Not only does the client realize a reduction of administrative efforts, but law firms also benefit from the ease of submission and the ability to track invoice status and resolve appeals.

Cost savings: SIMS helps our clients, and even their law firms, save time and money by streamlining the invoicing process, reducing errors and discrepancies in billing, and improving efficiency in billing practices.

Timekeeper rate management: SIMS will evaluate the billing of approved staff with a close eye on approved hourly rates by firm or matter type. SIMS staff can consult on rate-setting decisions faced by our clients using comparisons to jurisdictional and matter-type metrics.

Budget enforcement: SIMS allows for submitting and approving firm budget requests and evaluates and tracks legal billing against the approved budget. Invoice submission can be prevented if a budget is unapproved or exceeds budget limits. SIMS even alerts law firms and client contacts of budget issues via notifications.

Improved accuracy and compliance: SIMS helps ensure that invoices are accurate and compliant with client guidelines, reducing the likelihood of billing disputes, ensuring timely payment, and improving relationships between clients and law firms while reducing future non-compliant billing. Parameters are set and enforced to deter staffing cost inefficiencies. Often, law firms are unaware of their non-compliance with client billing guidelines and learn from the results of a SIMS invoice review.

A more sensible appeal process: SIMS simplifies communications by providing an online tool to track and accommodate a firm’s appeal response, allowing for uploading supporting documentation when necessary. All appeals are addressed before the invoice is paid. Other vendors may have expectations of initial partial payment to the firm, which leads to submitting a subsequent appeal resulting in a secondary payment if all or part of an appeal is accepted. This process lengthens the final resolution and payment of an invoice. The SIMS process creates efficiency, reducing the time and cost of an appeal.

Increased transparency: SIMS provides greater visibility into billing practices and expenses, allowing clients to track costs more effectively and make informed decisions about legal spending. Having a centralized database to track legal spending by firm, jurisdiction, matter type, or a multitude of customizable data points can impact decision-making when it comes to making matter assignments.

Efficiency and productivity: SIMS automates the billing process, saving time and reducing administrative workload for legal professionals, allowing them to focus on higher-value tasks.

Reporting and analytics: Leveraging a wide variety of customizable data elements, SIMS can generate custom reports and analytics on billing data, helping law firms and legal departments track expenses, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions to optimize billing practices.

Integration with other systems: SIMS can be integrated with other legal management systems, such as matter management and accounts payable systems.

Savings: SIMS clients experience significant savings net of fees when a SIMS bill review is applied. The cost of a SIMS program can be as little as zero dollars when costs are offset with a firm processing discount. Your SIMS representative can tell you more about this option and how many of our clients take advantage of these savings.
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Whether you are looking to implement an e-Billing solution for the first time or wish to incorporate any or all the options discussed above, our SIMS team can help you explore the solutions and options that best meet your goals. Please contact a SIMS representative today to schedule a call.
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For more information, reach out to:

Scott J. Batson 

Director 

Alan Gray 

88 Broad Street | Boston, MA 02110 

856 216-0800 or 800 493-7345 

sbatson@alangray.com