Polsinelli Shughart

The Challenge

With the rapid growth Polsinelli Shughart experienced in recent years, their manual method of preparing, approving and processing invoices had become unmanageable. They required a solution that automated the accounts payable workflow process, including electronic approvals and the ability to provide invoice images with client bills. They also wanted to eliminate double entry of expenses that were incurred once by staff submitting requests manually and once by the Accounts Department that entered the expenses again into the finance system. The decision to implement Chrome River INVOICE was in part made because of the successful implementation of Chrome River EXPENSE, which had already been in place for two years. Polsinelli saw the benefits of automating their expense reporting workflow and were looking for similar benefits across the rest of their accounts payable process. The fact that INVOICE flawlessly integrates with EXPENSE and Thomson Reuters Elite Financial Management System made the decision even easier.

The Implementation

Polsinelli began the rollout of INVOICE with their Accounts Payable group and divided the rollout into three phases, each phase consisting of five to six offices. Since the firm had been using Chrome River EXPENSE and the easy-to-use interface and functionality was already familiar to end users, Polsinelli experienced very few issues during their INVOICE implementation. The INVOICE transition process was further improved because Polsinelli shared with Chrome River ideas they thought were helpful from a usability standpoint during their implementation of EXPENSE. With these in place, the end user transition to INVOICE was seamless. Polsinelli’s implementation team had weekly meetings with their Chrome River project manager. During these meetings, they were able to address any concerns. After the Chrome River INVOICE implementation was complete, Polsinelli’s end users were quick to adopt the solution and raved about its rich features. Reasons for such high user satisfaction included the ability to send an invoice online instead of in paper form, and the ability to track the progress of the invoice within Chrome River INVOICE.

The AP team has been able to assimilate the additional processing of expenses and invoices for nearly twice the number of attorneys

The Results

Now that Polsinelli has incorporated Chrome River INVOICE into their daily workflow routine, they are realising the benefits of automating their manual method of preparing, approving and processing invoices. Expenses and invoices are approved faster, payments to suppliers and reimbursements to employees are quicker, scanned invoice images ensure that paper copies won’t be lost, and invoices can be processed as they come in due to the easy-to-use INVOICE user interface. Polsinelli’s attorneys and administrative directors can now approve expenses and invoices in a timelier manner, anytime, anywhere, electronically through a browser or email, thus allowing Polsinelli to process expenses and invoices faster as well. Implementing Chrome River INVOICE has increased staff efficiencies on the Accounts Payable and Billing teams, and as a result, Polsinelli has doubled the number of full-time attorneys over the last two-and-a-half years without the need to increase the Accounts Payable team. Being able to more quickly turnaround client invoices also means improved accounts receivable ageing as well as improved cash flow. Polsinelli has also realised a cost savings on the purchase of paper forms and, with the imaging capabilities included with INVOICE and EXPENSE, they have also reduced their need and costs for storage space.