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The importance to law departments of tracking their accruals

Marsh & McClennan’s Michael Caplan, who manages the finances for that company’s legal team, spoke at length recently about accruals: “Technology to manage un-billed fee estimate accruals from law firms is critical and we put a process in place to capture un-billed fees monthly from our top 50 firms. We also have a report that lets us know what invoices remain with which lawyers for 30, 60, 90 days. In the last three months, we haven’t had anything sitting there for more than 60 days.

How we manage spending for our business partners ties very much to what’s in the system but also what is not in the system. And it’s not just a dollar amount that’s important; the matter categories are also important.” Caplan has put his finger on two important aspects to law departments of accruals: timeliness and comprehensiveness. For the full interview, here is the URL.