Submitting Budget Requests in Bulk (for Vendors and Law Firms)

This article is for vendors and law firms.

Depending on your client's requirements, you may be asked to submit budgets for each matter on Brightflag. These budgets may be new or re-forecasted. Brightflag doesn't send reminder notifications for budgets, so if your client requires them, they will notify you outside the platform. 

Budgets can be submitted manually (individually by matter on Brightflag) or in bulk (through a spreadsheet template you download from Brightflag, fill in offline, and upload). Click here for instructions on individual budget requests. 

Submitting Budget Requests in Bulk

1. 1. Navigate to Menu > Matter Budget Requests.
      
      
   2. Click Upload Budgets in the top right corner.
      
      
   3. Select your Budget Type. This can be either Monthly or Quarterly.
      
      
   4. Click Download Excel Template. This template will contain a list of every matter you can access.
      
      
   5. To populate the template:
      • Do’s
        • Edit the values in the following fields where relevant:
          • Year
            • If you want to submit a budget for one matter across multiple years, submit the budget once for the first year (e.g., 2020) and then download a new template to submit a budget for the same matter for the next year (e.g., 2021).
          • Quarterly/Monthly Fees
            • You can’t submit a budget request for past quarters. You must only enter values for the current quarter or future quarters.
          • Quarterly/Monthly Fees Expenses
          • Quarterly/Monthly Fees Comments
            • This is optional. You can use this field to explain the reason for an increase or decrease in the budget since you last requested one.
      • Do not’s:
        • Do not change the column names or add any columns or rows to the sheet. 
        • Do not change any of the values in the following fields:
          • Matter Ref 
          • Matter Name
          • Client Matter ID
          • Currency
            • The budget currency reflects the matter currency and thus can't be changed when submitting budget requests. If you need the matter currency changed, please contact your client contact as they can change this on their end.
          • Submitted By
   6. When you have completed the template, save it to your device.
      
      
   7. To upload the template, click Upload Budgets and Select File. 
      
      
   8. Select the file from your device and click Upload Budgets in the bottom right corner.
      
      
   9. If there is an issue with your template, the specific error will be presented on-screen. 
      
      
   10. Where the error isn’t specified, it likely means you changed the file format or field ordering/naming. We recommend you download a new template and start again.
       
       
   11. Before completing the submission, you can review your entries by clicking the dropdown arrow under the field Budget Info for the relevant matter.
       
       
   12. To confirm your entries, use the tick boxes on the left side of your screen to select all of the matters you want to submit.
       
       
   13. In the top right corner, click Submit X Selected.
       
       
   14. You can verify the submission is complete and track the budget status by checking the Status field for each matter.
       • Pending signifies the request is awaiting review from the matter lead within your client.
       • Approved means your client has accepted your request and has updated the matter budget accordingly.
       • Rejected means your client is disputing the budget. 
         • Check the Rejection Comment field to see why. The person who submitted the budget will also receive an email alerting them. You can then submit a revised budget request.
       • Unsubmitted means you have to complete a budget request for this matter.

Approval/Rejection Notification

You will be notified by email when your budget request has been approved or rejected.