Top 5 Features of Intellectual Property (IP) Spend Management Software
Posted by Jerry Lamigo on Mon, Apr 05, 2010
The down economy has s
hifted the balance of power from law firms to corporate legal departments. There is a heightened demand for technology solutions that provide them with the knowledge, transparency and real-time technology to take control of their business operations.
Specifically for intellectual property (IP) operations, a big chunk of IP spending goes to pay the fees of outside counsel. This makes it critical for IP departments to design and implement metrics, systems and processes necessary to reduce costs and improve efficiencies.
The costs attributed to IP related operations vary significantly from other legal functions. Typically, IP management includes more matters spread across geographically distributed service providers, more invoices containing more billing line items. Given high volumes, ensuring the accuracy of invoice amounts agsinst performed tasks can be a significant challenge.
Here are the top 5 features of IP spend management software that can help in improving forecasting, managing risks and reducing legal costs.
Budgeting
IP spend management should enable IP departments to define multiple types of budgets including but not limited to task based (drafting, illustration, filing, office actions etc.), firm based, complexity based or calendar based (fiscal year/quarter/month).
Invoice Intake
IP spend management should streamline the time-consuming, labor intensive processes of invoice receipt. It should be able to handle invoices delivered in multiple formats (LEDES compliant, Non Compliant, Paper Based etc.). It should capture 100% of IP spending by converting detailed invoice entries from different formats into a common electronic format.
Review
IP Spend Management should provide workflow tools to automate invoicing review and approval process by routing the invoice to the appropriate reviewers. It should capture invoice adjustments and comments at each stage of approval and provide the invoice approval status at a glance. Additionally, it should deliver data for approved invoices to the company's AP system.
Audit
IP Spend Management should track invoices against the estimates provided by law firms at different stages of the IP lifecycle and generate audit alerts if spending exceeds the budget amount. By validating invoices against IP department submission guidelines, the department can reduce costs, make better decisions and improve collaboration with outside counsel.
Analysis
IP Spend Management should provide sophisticated tools to analyze overall spend by firm, by matter, by attorney, by country, by task, by technology area etc. and provide real time statistics on budget vs. actual expenditures to enable better forecasting.
Lecorpio IP spend management provides automated workflow and data analysis to enable progressive IP departments better understand, plan, control and reduce their overall spend.
Learn more about Lecorpio's IP Spend Management solution or other IP Management Software-related products and more.
Image courtesy of BowersCapital.com
