Welcome to Brightflag. This guide walks you through the essentials of setting up and running your account, from user access to vendor management, with links to step-by-step articles for each topic.
Welcome to Brightflag
If you are a law firm (vendor) user, please refer to the Law Firm Onboarding Guide: Getting Started on Brightflag.
1. Understand User Roles & Permissions
The role assigned to a user determines what they can see and do in Brightflag. There are four standard client user roles:
Ordinary User: the most limited access. Focused on the matters and invoices they are assigned to.
Department Overview User: access to all matters and invoices within their assigned department(s) only. They will not see data from departments they are not assigned to.
Overview User: broader, company-wide visibility without admin configuration rights.
Admin User: full access to all data, plus the ability to manage system configuration.
Note: A Department Overview User is different from a Department Head. A Department Head is a single individual designated as the head of a department (set on the Departments page under Admin Settings) and does not need the Department Overview role.
If your organization has custom roles enabled, your role may not match the list above. Contact your Brightflag Admin for details.
Refer to:
Account & User Permissions section (creating users, changing roles, custom roles, adding users to departments)
2. The Admin Role
Admin Users have full access to everything in your company's Brightflag instance.
Admins can:
Create and manage users, and assign roles and departments
Configure accrual settings, such as cut-off dates
Revert an approved or rejected invoice back to Pending
Manage vendors, vendor offices, and vendor users
Important: Admins can make critical changes to system settings. Review major changes with your legal operations team or your Brightflag Customer Success Manager (CSM) before implementing them. This is especially important when setting up your first invoice workflows and AP routes.
Refer to:
3. Understand Matters and How to Create Them
A typical matter lifecycle looks like this:
A matter is created in Brightflag
A law firm is assigned
A budget may be added
Vendors submit accruals and invoices against the matter
Your legal team reviews and approves spend
Reporting and analytics are generated from the matter data
Full Matters section (editing, closing and reopening matters, changing the Internal Matter Lead, and more)
4. Review Invoices
When an invoice is submitted, Brightflag analyzes it before it is ready for review.
On the Invoice Review screen, you can:
Check the invoice details, such as matter, entity, department, billing period and AP route
Review flags: Brightflag highlights charges that may not comply with your billing rules. Click a flag to see the related line items, and toggle it on to apply the potential savings adjustment
Review budget information for the matter
Set allocations, if applicable
Approve, reject or adjust the invoice
Who reviews which invoice? Invoice approval workflows decide who reviews and approves an invoice before it goes to Accounts Payable.
Refer to:
5. How Invoices Go to AP, and Invoice Statuses
Invoices are not paid within Brightflag. When an invoice is fully approved, Brightflag sends it to your Accounts Payable (AP) system, and your AP team handles payment.
How invoices reach AP
This is controlled by AP Routes. Each route has:
Conditions that decide which invoices it applies to
A priority number. Brightflag checks routes in priority order and applies the first match
Approve actions that decide how the invoice is sent to AP
Reject actions that decide what happens when an invoice is rejected (a vendor notification is recommended)
Brightflag supports three AP integration methods:
AP Email: the invoice is emailed to an AP mailbox and entered manually. No technical setup required.
Batch Export (SFTP): approved invoices are exported on a schedule for your AP system to pick up and create invoices in bulk.
API: approved invoice data is sent directly to your AP system.
Brightflag can also receive payment updates back from AP (the AP Reverse Feed).
Important: Make sure you have a catch-all AP Route so no invoice is left without a route. We recommend setting up AP routes with your Brightflag CSM, as batch export and API integrations need their help to configure.
Invoice statuses
The current status of an invoice is shown on the Invoice Review screen and in your invoice lists. The main statuses are:
Pending: the invoice is waiting for review or approval.
Awaiting Details: missing or incorrect information was found. The invoice cannot be paid until this is resolved.
Approved: the invoice has passed its approval workflow and is sent to AP according to its AP Route.
Batch Exported: the invoice has been included in a batch export to AP.
Paid: payment information has been received from your AP system (requires an AP reverse feed).
Rejected: the invoice was declined and the vendor needs to submit a corrected invoice.
If an invoice was approved or rejected by mistake, an Admin can revert it to Pending. If it has already been exported to AP or marked as paid, check with your AP team first to avoid duplicate payments.
Refer to:
6. Accruals
Accruals are monthly estimates of legal costs that have been incurred but not yet invoiced. They give your legal and finance teams visibility into upcoming spend before invoices arrive.
How it works each month:
Vendors submit accruals for the current period. Reminder emails are sent before the deadline, and vendors can edit their submissions until the deadline closes.
The submission window closes at the cut-off date. Vendors can no longer submit or edit for that period.
Internal users review and approve the submitted accruals from Menu > Financial Management > Review Accruals. Review opens after the deadline passes.
Refer to:
7. Budgets
Brightflag supports budgeting at two levels.
Matter budgets (bottom-up)
Set on the Budgets tab of a matter
Can be life-of-matter, monthly, fiscal quarter, fiscal year or phased
Vendors can submit budget requests for your approval.
Cost center budgets (top-down)
Set from Menu > Financial Management > Cost Center Budgets
Can be an overall, department, entity, vendor or matter group budget for a fiscal year
Refer to:
8. Vendor Management
Before a law firm can be assigned to matters and submit invoices, it needs to be set up in your account. This takes three steps, in this order:
Important: For security reasons, Brightflag Support cannot add vendor users or upgrade vendor access. Vendor user management is handled by you (the client) and the firm.
After set-up, the vendor can be added to matters. See How to Add a Vendor to a Matter.
Refer to:
Full Vendor Management section (adding vendor offices, upgrading or disabling vendor users, duplicate firms, law firm mergers, Volume Trade Discounts)
Quick Setup Checklist
After go-live:
Confirm users have the correct roles and department access
Add vendors, vendor offices and vendor users
Admins: set up invoice approval workflows and AP routes (with your CSM)
Admins: configure accrual cut-off dates, if you collect accruals
Create matters and assign vendors
Add budgets to matters, and set up cost center budgets if needed
Let your vendors know how to submit invoices, timekeeper rates and accruals
Need Help?
Contact your Brightflag Customer Success Manager, or open a request with Brightflag Support.