Case Study

An online tool to make Budgeting easy for Law firms

Client

Our Client is a software company that builds, implements, and supports world-class business intelligence, planning, and reporting solutions designed for top law firms.

Industry

Law

Business Challenge

Law firm clients are demanding a shift from the traditional billable hour to alternative fee arrangements (AFAs) since the last few years. This is new territory for law firms and a new outlook is required to be applied to this process.

Thus there is an imperative requirement for a management tool that enables law firms to plan, track, and manage their engagements, no matter the fee type.

Solution

To address the above mentioned challenges Volga Infotech worked on enhancing the client’s existing web based solution. Business challenges were identified into an individual piece of features which was then developed via each Sprint following Agile methodology.

Some of the distinct features of this solution are listed as under:

• Create an Opportunity
  It allows creating a new opportunity for new as well as existing clients.
• Create a budget scenario from Existing Matter/Scratch/Save As
  Multiple budget scenarios can be created from any matter either from an existing matter or create one from scratch or just take an existing matter and do a “save as” to a new matter name so as to copy all the properties of the existing matter. Multiple scenarios can be created for a single engagement.
• Budget Details
  Budget Details page that provides for maintaining leverage, resources, hours, billing rates, costs, and expenses. Also provides for various views into the scenario (by timekeeper, by phase, by task, by period, etc.)
• Compare Budgets v/s Actuals
  Displays a Key Financials screen that compares actuals to the live budget.
• Finalize a scenario and turning it live
  It allows one to select any scenario from multiple scenarios and turn it live.
• Easily configurable
  It contains System Settings tools which are very easy to use and implement in the software based on the firm’s requirements.
• Dashboard
  A very neat and elegant dashboard very easy to understand and follow.

Benefits

The software enables law firms to bid on engagements using alternative fee arrangements and also perform on the fly pricing scenarios. It makes it simple to plan, track, manage, and analyze client matters against budgets. Also helps the firm to track revenue and expenses.

Technology Used