At Brightflag, we strive to improve our products continually. Keep up-to-date with our new releases and latest updates here, refreshed monthly.

August 29th, 2024

What’s New

• You can now enable or disable AP Routes. This feature provides greater control and flexibility in managing the approval process
• We've updated the workflow editing process on the invoice review page. Users can now add themselves or others to workflows at multiple stages directly from the invoice page.
• An expense date field has been added to the expense tab on the invoice review page for LEDES invoice submissions. This update makes it easier to track and review invoices. 

Bug Fixes 

• We identified and resolved a number of small bugs across our platform.
• We fixed a small issue that prevented the currency field from populating in the Accruals V2 report. 
• We addressed a bug related to the export function in the Spend report.
• We corrected a minor issue affecting the line item report.

August 12th, 2024

What’s New

• Brightflag has recently become integrated with eBilling Hub. Now, law firms can upload their invoices to Brightflag through the eBilling Hub platform. 
• We have updated the new invoice review page to include payment details in the metadata bar. Now, you can quickly view the Paid Date, Payment Number, and Amount Paid. This enhancement streamlines the review process by presenting key information directly on the invoice review page.
• A new setting is now available to exclude volume trade discounts for particular matters. This allows you to selectively exclude certain matters and specific vendors within those matters from VTD calculations.
• We’re improving our user experience with a new feature, now in BETA, that enables customers to view PDF and LEDES invoices live on Brightflag while they are still in processing.

Bug Fixes 

• We identified and resolved a number of small bugs across our platform.
• We fixed a small bug that previously allowed users to become added without a role, ensuring that all users are now always assigned a role to maintain access and role management.
• We addressed a minor issue affecting law firm users when submitting LEDES 98B files.

July 8th, 2024

What’s New

• Duplicate AP codes are now accepted during allocation setting, facilitating faster processing.
• We enhanced invoice upload permissions, giving you greater control over the invoice submission process. This update includes a new feature allowing you to block the submission of LEDES invoices or PDF invoices from specific or all vendors. Please contact your Customer Success Manager if you wish to enable this new feature. 
• We've updated the edit and create functionalities for AP Routes. Now, you can configure the following rules/conditions: Currency, Department, Entity, and Vendor.
• We've introduced a new AP Route setting. When activated, this setting will automatically disable approval on adjusted invoices with tax greater than zero, regardless of the adjustment stage.
• We have further enhanced our new invoice review page by displaying the matter reference on the information bar for quicker visibility.
• During invoice review, Admin users now have the capability to modify the applied discount, which enhances flexibility and accuracy in managing invoice details.

Bug Fixes  

• We've successfully addressed a small issue concerning the addition of new workflows. 
• We resolved minor performance issues related to cost centre budgets for customers managing 30+ budgets. 
• We identified and resolved a number of small bugs across our platform.

June 18th, 2024

What’s New

• We introduced a new flag, "Expenses Charged Exceeding Invoice Amount Threshold," which triggers when an expense greater than X% of the net fee amount is billed on an invoice.
• We added custom matter attributes to the Accruals v2 report template, allowing for more detailed and customized reporting. 
• We are launching a beta feature that provides immediate visibility of invoices in processing upon upload by law firms. 
• We are improving our new invoice review page, currently in BETA. It now features a new history bar showing submission details such as the submitter, submission time, and invoice type. Additionally, LEDES files are now downloadable from the page.

Bug Fixes

• We fixed a small bug where firm notes were lost if the approval/rejection popup window was closed. Now, these notes are retained.
• We resolved a minor issue in relation to filtering the accruals v2 report for preferred counsel. 
• We identified and resolved a number of small bugs across our platform.

May 1st, 2024

What’s New

• Our brand new invoice review page has been released for the initial round of BETA testing.
• We added 'Accrual Amount,' "Prior Period Unbilled," and “Submission Currency” filters to the Accruals V2 template in the Report Builder, improving visibility and enabling more precise reporting.
• We also added 'Vendor Expense Code' and “Vendor Task Code” filters to the Line Item Report template in the Report Builder. 

Bug Fixes

• We resolved a small bug concerning the Invoice "Submitted Date" to ensure the same date appears for both customers and vendors, maintaining a seamless invoice review process. 
• We identified and resolved a number of small bugs across our platform. 

April 11th, 2024

What’s New

• You can now enable a feature in the Workflow admin settings that lets you assign a user to multiple stages of a workflow. When enabled, an admin can set a user on a workflow once per stage, and the application will acknowledge the reviewer in each stage they are present. This new functionality enables further customization of workflow settings.

Bug Fixes

• We identified & resolved an issue whereby some matter budget updates were updated out of sequence. 
• We resolved a minimum impact issue to ensure that invoices accurately enter the "awaiting details" status in the absence of an AP route until one is added, ensuring smooth processing.

March 27th, 2024

What’s New

• We've introduced an update that enables the complete removal of the Internal Matter Lead from a matter instead of adding them as a matter participant when they are replaced in that role. This enhancement offers users greater control over matters. To activate this feature, please contact your Customer Success Manager.

Bug Fixes

• We corrected an error with the "Accruals Not Submitted" hyperlink on the Dashboard. 
• We identified and resolved a number of small bugs across our platform. 

February 28th, 2024

What’s New

• We added 'Paid Date' and “Rejection reason” filters to the Invoices template in the Report Builder, enhancing visibility and facilitating more accurate reporting.
• Further enhancements were made in the Report Builder for “Matter Spend” and “All Matters” templates, including the addition of the following filters: latest matter note, latest note created date, and the user who created the latest matter note.
• Timekeeper Years of Experience (YOE) is also now available on Timekeeper reports in the Report Builder.
• The Legal Ops Admin Dashboard now features a Matter Requests Tab, enabling users to instantly view pending matter requests. 

Bug Fixes

• We have resolved a bug concerning the "no accruals submitted for the previous month” flag with minimum impact.
• We identified and resolved a number of small bugs across our platform.

February 07th, 2024

What’s New

• Further enhancing our Timekeeper feature, vendors can now include Timekeepers Years of Experience (YOE) when vendors bulk submit timekeeper rates. Currently, an optional setting,if you wish to make this a mandatory requirement for vendors, please get in touch with your Customer Success Manager or the Customer Support team.
• When exporting Approved Timekeepers from Brightflag, the download will now include a new 'Rate' column to give you greater visibility into the current rate for each timekeeper.
• We've also added a new column, 'Last Approved Rate' when downloading all Rejected Timekeeper requests.
• We've replaced "Timekeeper Ref" with "Timekeeper ID" to ensure consistency across our product.
• To make it easier to Update Vendor Contact & Billing Details, we've added the ability for vendors & clients to update their Contact Details and Billing Details on Brightflag. Please note: This feature is unavailable for clients who have disabled vendors from updating their details.
• For Accrruals reports, we've made some enhancements to include the "Last Updated Timestamp" and "Last Updated By" columns.
• When building reports in Report Builder, we've added "Start Date" and "End Date" as two separate fields to help provide more accurate reporting based on your needs.
• In Report Builder, we've made several additions to the filters in reports for Matter Spend, Invoice, Line Item, All Matters & Accruals. To find out more about these new filters, click here: Report Types

Bug Fixes

• In some situations, Accrual reminder emails were no longer sent after an accrual submission. This is now resolved.
• We've corrected the default date when viewing budgets and the Budget filters.
• In report builder, we identified and resolved a small number of bugs.

December 14th, 2023

What’s New

• In Report Builder, we've added 'Matter Start Date' filter on the All Matters template. This provides much easier visibility into the start date of selected Matters. 
• On the Attorney Dashboard, we added the invoice number to the pop-up notification as a secondary verification when approving an Invoice. This will ensure you are taking action on the correct invoice.

Bug Fixes

• We identified & resolved an issue whereby some invoices were not visible to approvers in the Attorney Dashboard.
• For MS Outlook users, the Brightflag add-on experienced some difficulty for users with SSO configured. This has now been resolved.
• We identified and resolved a number of small bugs across our platform.

November 23rd, 2023

What’s New

• Introducing Quick Search, a new search bar at the top of your screen lets you quickly search for matters, invoices, and timekeepers. To learn more about this new feature, click here.
• We've added two new data columns to the User Management page: Back-up Approver and Approval Limit. The addition of these columns will help admins get the data they need to assist with auditing and general user management responsibilities.  

Bug Fixes

• In some unique scenarios, the auto-rejection email failed to send an email to the AP Accounts email address, which has now been resolved.
• We identified and resolved a number of small bugs across our platform.

November 13th, 2023

What’s New

• We've introduced a new Quick Invoice Approval feature, allowing non-admin users to select multiple pending invoices for approval in a few simple clicks, helping to streamline the approval process.
• In Report Builder, we've added the following columns to reports:
  • Auto-Proccessed added to the Invoice Report - this field will help you to identify invoices that have been automatically approved or rejected based on your automatic invoice processing rules.
  • "Matter create date" and "Matter Group' have been added to the invoice report.
• In Workspace, you can now select the relevant Workroom Template before creating the Workroom

Bug Fixes

• We identified and resolved an issue where the law firm office names were not displaying correctly.
• In some rare situations, invoices had errors going through the batch API.
• Some report fields displayed errors, which were identified and resolved with minimum impact.

October 11th, 2023

What’s New

• We've updated some of the wording for the Column Titles in the Matter Spend vs Budget report to describe better what the data represents:
  • 'Budget Amount' is changed to 'Budget in Period'
  • 'Actual Amount' is changed to 'Spend in Period'
• For the new Accruals report, we've added 'Allocations' data to this report, giving you more detailed information to analyze law firm accruals.
• We've also updated the Date and time format in a number of locations across Brightflag, to ensure the format is consistent to the settings on your web browser.

Bug Fixes

• In some rare situations, errors were shown incorrectly on some approved timekeeper rates.
• Across our platform, we identified a number of small, less impactful bugs which will improve user experience.

September 13th, 2023

What’s New

• We've updated matter budgets to include two new options for periodic budgets: Life-of-Matter and Phased. This gives you more granularity and better visibility over where your spend is allocated. You also have the ability to run a Matter budget vs. spend budget report on these budget styles. See here.
• There are additional and updated flags available regarding the updates to budgets, including matter budgets and vendor-specific budgets.
• The Accruals Review page now includes Prior Periods Unbilled

Bug Fixes

• Updated how invoices process auto-rejection flags and their criteria to increase performance.
• Identified a situation where the URL to complete the diversity survey was not opening for some users.
• Resolved an issue where the API was not returning vendor office details when prompted.
• Minor display updates to dropdown options in the report scheduler.

August 23rd, 2023

What’s New

• We've made some enhancements to the default currency for law firms submitting LEDES 98B invoices. Where law firms have defined their default currency on their home page, any LEDES 98B invoices they upload will automatically apply this default currency. This will help reduce friction between law firms and clients for 98B invoices.

Bug Fixes

• In some situations, matter budgets did not display the end-month. 
• We identified some rare situations where scheduled reports had issues when accruals settings were changed.
• Some minor bugs were resolved in the report builder.

August 2nd, 2023

What’s New

• We've added new data columns to the Timekeeper report in Brightflag's Report Builder to include Timekeeper ID and Matter Name.

Bug Fixes

• In some situations, timekeeper roles displayed an incorrect error when viewing the current rate on the invoice review screen.
• When law firms upload Timekeeper rates, we resolved a bug to ensure timekeeper rates are uploaded to Brightflag correctly.
• We identified and resolved an issue where some new law firm users being added to Brightflag, did not receive the welcome email.

July 04th, 2023

What’s New

• On the Matter Summary page, we've added the ability to see the Budget/Matter spend when there is no budget set, providing quick and easy insights into how your Budget or Matter is performing.

Bug Fixes

• We've identified and resolved some small issues across our platform that optimizes the resolution of your screen when viewing Brightflag.
• In the Report Builder, we resolved a small number of bugs impacting how some users viewed their report data on the screen.
• For LEDES invoice upload, we resolved some small bugs that improved the quality of invoice submissions for law firms.

June 21st, 2023

What’s New

• On the Matter Summary page, we've added a new data point; Matter Spend. This is particularly useful for matters with no budget set, and includes both pending & approved invoices. 
• For law firms Bulk Updating Timekeeper Rates, a new pending rate for an existing timekeeper will only be submitted when a value changes other than the Timekeeper ID.

Bug Fixes

• In rare cases when invoices were auto-rejected, we resolved an issue where a green tick was displayed instead of a red one.
• We resolved an issue whereby some admin users had difficulty adding new users to the platform.
• Some law firm users incorrectly received an error when uploading a LEDES invoice when a space was in the file's header.

May 23rd, 2023

What’s New

• When Exporting Vendor Details on the Vendor Management page, the Excel download now includes two sheets; sheet 1 lists all law firms, and sheet 2 lists all vendor users.
  
• We've made several minor design changes across the platform.

Bug Fixes

• In some scenarios, the current timekeeper rate showed errors on the Timekeeper history page.
• We've updated the flag text for timekeeper flags to ensure it shows correctly.
• We've made some minor design changes on the invoice review page, to improve the user experience.
• Across the platform, we've identified and resolved a small number of bugs.

May 03rd, 2023

What’s New

• Bightflag AI: We've added a new flag, Repetitious Work Across Separate Invoices, that captures repeated individual narrative lines across invoices from the same matter and vendor. This new flag will help capture work already billed by the same vendor in a particular matter.
• We have added Dynamic URLs on the invoice search page, which lets you share search parameters with colleagues for easier collaboration.
• The Brightflag Dashboard: Today, we've released The Brightflag Dashboard to all client users, which is the first thing all client users will see when logging into Brightflag. Previously only available to Admin users, this dashboard includes invoices awaiting your review and a list of your open matters for all non-admin users.

Bug Fixes

• In some situations, updating vendor office information returned an error. This is now resolved.
• We've identified and resolved an issue; in some rare scenarios, users could not set the relevant PO when updating a LEDES invoice.
• We resolved an issue where some users received an error when attempting to upload multiple LEDES files in bulk.
• Across our platform, we've identified a number of small functional & visual bugs to help the overall user experience.

April 05th, 2023

What’s New

• We have added the ability to Export a List of all Law Firms to the Vendor Management page, enabling client users to download a list of all their law firms, making it easier to report on your vendors.
• As part of our continued enhancements to Report Builder, we have added a new column, Gross Less Tax, to Brightflags Report Builder, with provides greater insight into Gross Totals when taxes are excluded.
• We've launched a new Accruals Report Template, currently only in Beta for selected users. Keep an eye on this Release Notes page for more details on the general release.

Bug Fixes

• We identified and resolved an issue where the Timekeeper flag appeared incorrectly on some invoices.
• In rare instances, vendor users received an error incorrectly when attempting to upload LEDES invoices. This issue has been resolved.
• In some scenarios where accruals were submitted, they should have shown on the Matter Details page. This has been resolved.
• Across our platform, we've resolved some low-impact bugs and made general visual improvements.

March 14th, 2023

What’s New

• We've enhanced our invoice review capabilities by adding a new Invoice Review Flag, Matter Budget Fiscal Year Overrun. This gives clients greater control when an invoice is set to exceed a fiscal year budget and helps prevent further invoices from being processed when a fiscal year budget has already been exceeded.
• We've updated the Timekeeper Review page to default to today's date when the page is opened. This gives a more relevant view to show Timekeeper rates that are currently in effect and already approved.

Bug Fixes

• We resolved a minor issue on the law form portal where some vendors received a tax/vat error when uploading invoices.
• We identified and resolved a minor issue with an invoice flag not appearing correctly.
• We've identified & resolved a number of small bugs across the Brightflag platform.

February 20th, 2023

What’s New

• We have released the new Attorney Dashboard, making it quick and easy for non-admin users to quickly and easily see how work is progressing on Brightflag.
• Users can quickly: 
  • • View invoices awaiting their review.
    • View matters they are leading.
    • Invoices and matters can be exported from the Dashboard. 
• We further enhanced the new Timekeeper functionality, including:
  • Improved sorting functionality across all tabs and on the timekeeper history page.
  • Providing the ability to export on all tabs.
  • Providing the ability to approve and adjust timekeeper rates.

Bug Fixes

• We resolved a minor issue which was causing an error at budget submission.

February 6th, 2023

What’s New

• We added two new fields to the Timekeeper review page to make it easier to identify the vendor user that submitted the timekeeper request and the date the client user reviewed it:
  • Requested by
  • Reviewed date
• For bulk reviewing Timekeeper rates, we've added a new step in the bulk approval process to add a comment. This comment will apply to all rates bulk approved or rejected in this action.
• We've improved the user experience of the Report Builder:
  • Reports can now be sorted by:
    • Date Updated
    • Last Run
  • There is now validation of email addresses to ensure the correct format is entered before a report is run. 
• New flags have been introduced to detect budget overrun in a specific phase or quarter, and by a specific vendor:
  • Matter budget phased overrun (overall phase level)
  • Quarterly overrun 
    
    • Matter budget quarterly overrun 
    • Vendor budget quarterly overrun 
• We've made design changes across the platform by updating several pages to our modern interface, improving the overall user experience.
  • This includes a new UI on the Legal Entities and Departments pages, along with the ability to sort by headers.

Bug Fixes

• We've resolved a minor issue where options on the Legal Service Request form were not populating.
• We've resolved some minor bugs in the report builder to improve the overall user experience. 
• Vendors can now submit rate requests with effective dates when submitting Timekeeper Rates in the future.
• We've resolved an issue which caused credit notes imported from LEDES files to default to a zero value once approved.

December 12, 2022

What’s New

• We introduced a new pre-built Matter Spend v Budget Report making it easier to report out on how your organization has controlled and reduced spend by utilizing matter budgets.
• On the Invoice Review Page, we've added the "Submitted Date" along the left pane to make it easier to see when the law firm submitted the invoice to Brightflag.
  
• We've made interacting with your Reports easier by introducing the HHMMSS timestamp. This new timestamp will now be available in all report headings from the Report Builder and Report Scheduler.

Bug Fixes

• We resolved a minor bug on the Invoice Review page where some icons were not displaying correctly.
• Along with fixing some bugs, we made minor changes to how the invoices are displayed on the Legal Ops Dashboard, making it easier to view invoices "Awaiting My Review" on the screen.
• Across the platform, we identified and resolved several bugs to improve the overall user experience.

November 17, 2022

What’s New

• On the Accruals review page, we've added a new column, "Latest Invoice" to provide users with a hyperlink to quickly view the latest invoice submitted.
• On the Accruals review page, we've also added more information to the drop-down for each line item: 
  
  • Submitted Date
  • Approved by (only displays for approved accruals)
  • Approved Date (only displays for approved accruals)
• We've improved some visual displays and functionality in Report Builder to improve consistency with other features of Brightflag.

Bug Fixes

• When attempting to upload an invoice, we resolved a small issue where some users received an error message incorrectly. 
• We resolved a handful of bugs across the Brightflag application to improve the overall user experience.

November 04, 2022

What’s New

• We've improved the user experience of the Accruals review page to make it easier to view current & previous accrual submissions.
• For Brightflag Workspace, we've made it easier to find related workrooms by adding the ability to link a child workroom to a records workroom.
• We've renamed the Accruals tab in our Legal Ops Dashboard to "Accruals Not Submitted" to better reflect the content within the tab.
• In the All Matters report in Report Builder, we've added a new filter called "Matter Name," allowing you to filter the results to a specific matter or set of matters.
  
  
• For added convenience, we've added a new search bar in the User Management section of Admin Settings, making it easier & faster to search for a specific user.
  
  
• It is now mandatory to include a comment when manually adjusting an invoice. This will provide greater clarity to law firm users and avoid unnecessary confusion.
• We've improved the user experience on the Invoice search page by showing all invoices as the default, rather than automatically applying a filter for pending invoices. 
• On the Invoice search page, for the sake of clarity, the "Adjustment total" column has been renamed to "Adjusted total."
• We've made some updates to the invoice rejection notification emails to make them clearer for end users.
• The Matter Groups functionality is now available to all users, whereas previously, only admin users had access. 

Bug Fixes

• In certain situations, adjustments made to invoices were not properly reflected on in-app spend dashboards and budget overviews. This has been fixed. Please note that the Report Builder reports typically used to send data to accounts payable systems were not affected by this issue.
• We resolved an issue where accrual cut-off dates were saved incorrectly. This only impacted a small number of accruals across the system.
• We fixed a bug that was causing certain scheduled reports to return errors.

September 28, 2022

What’s New

• We've made interacting with your Matter Budgets easier by introducing our Budgets API. You can now create, read, update and delete matter budgets from your preferred application. 
• We've launched a BETA for selected clients to use & test our new Matter Spend vs Budget report. After completing this BETA period, keep an eye out for details of the general release.

Bug Fixes

• Occasionally, some reports were missing or omitting some data in the report results. We’ve implemented a fix to prevent this from occurring again.
• We have improved the user experience on our Legal Ops Dashboard to view invoices by the current reviewer.
• Under certain conditions, some vendors incorrectly received an error message when uploading timekeepers.
• On the Matter Details page, we've improved the user experience and resolved some small visual bugs.

September 7, 2022

What’s New

• On the invoice search page, filters are now set to show all invoices within your access permissions by default. You can change this to only show invoices you need to review by clicking “awaiting my review”.
• We've added an Accruals tab to the Legal Ops Dashboard, giving you faster insight into any accruals pending review.

Bug Fixes

• Under certain conditions, some reports were not sent out to users as planned. We also fixed some other bugs in reporting.
• We resolved an issue where some invoice notification emails were not sent to approvers.
• In some situations, users received an API error where no issue occurred.

August 17, 2022

What’s New

• On the invoice search page, you can now select to convert the monetary invoice amounts to your company's default currency by clicking on the Convert to XX toggle on the top right side of the screen, making it easier to view invoices in the one currency.
• We’ve added the option to sort the fields/columns on the invoice search page, making it easier to sort the data by the most important data points. 
• For greater visibility into the last time an invoice status was changed, we’ve added a new field/column to the invoice search page, Last Status Change. This field/column provides you with the last date & time the invoice status was updated.
• For added convenience, the Report Builder now populates your email address by default when you choose “send by email address.”
• To make it easier to view allocated amounts, we’ve added actual allocated amounts to the Invoice Report.

Bug Fixes

• In some situations, users could not clear dates from a matter. This has now been resolved.
• We’ve improved the user experience by changing the symbol's color to remove a stage approver for admins, as the symbol was the same as a background, thus removing it from view.
• On rare occasions, reports were missing or omitting some data in the report results. We’ve implemented a fix to prevent this from occurring again.
• Resolved an issue in which some users received the “Pending Invoices Reminder” email when they had no pending invoices to review/action.

July 27, 2022

What’s New

• You’ve always been able to schedule reports to run on a set frequency, such as daily, weekly, or monthly. Now you can also schedule reports to run on a specific day of the month (e.g., on the third day of every month) or on the last day of the month. These options are particularly useful for supporting the month-end close.
• You can now export the results from each tab of the Legal Operations Dashboard to an Excel spreadsheet, making it easy to manipulate the data and share it with other users, including non-Brightflag users.
• An all-new Reporting API can facilitate integrations with data warehouses and business intelligence tools like Power BI and Tableau. This is in addition to the existing option to export reporting data to a secure FTP server.
• We’ve renamed financial budgets as Cost Center Budgets. As part of this change, we improved the user experience by aligning the terminology and color palate used for cost center budgets with those used for matter budgets.

Bug Fixes

• On rare occasions, reports were missing certain data fields for certain results. We’ve fixed a handful of bugs to prevent this from happening.
• When saving certain report types, the date type filter was not being remembered. This has been fixed so reports always use the chosen date type.
• The Download Invoice button on the invoice review screen wasn’t working for certain invoices. This has been fixed.

June 2022

Internet Explorer Deprecation

In accordance with Microsoft deprecating internet explorer (IE) we are ending support of IE July 1, 2022. If any of your vendors are still using IE please remind them that effective July 1, they will need to move to a new browser.

Legal Operations Dashboard Beta 

The Legal Operations Dashboard is now in beta. This new Dashboard will provide visibility for Admin users into the key items that require your attention, such as Invoices to Review, Blocked Invoices and Timekeeper Rates. Please reach out to your CSM if you’d like to enable the new Legal Operations Dashboard in your account.

Coming Soon: Invoice Search 🔎

Efficient invoice review is essential for saving time. A revamped invoice search page is one part of a series of upgrades coming your way! If you would like early access, reach out to your company’s CSM.

 

May 2022

Product Update - Billing Periods in Budgets 🧾

Date types are important, especially for your finance team. You can now choose whether your matter budgets are based on invoice dates (the date the invoice is issued) or the billing period (the dates within which the work is carried out. Read more about it here.

 

April 2022

New Report Builder Rollout 

Our beta testing program has now been completed and we'll soon begin transitioning customers to the new Report Builder interface in phases. Your Customer Success Manager will be in contact shortly to let you know the exact timeline for your transition, but please reach out preemptively with any questions.

More Coming to Matter Budget Charts 

More enhancements are coming your way following last month’s Matter Budgeting update, including the ability to view charts according to billing period (rather than invoice date) and filter results into a custom date range.

As a reminder, the Brightflag Help Center is already full of detailed guides and video tutorials ready to point your budgeting workflows in the right direction. And, as always, don’t hesitate to ask your Customer Success Manager for assistance along the way.

March 2022

Matter Budgets Are Here 🎉

The wait is over and its time to start budgeting!

• Visualize matter budgets the way you need
• Split your matter budget out by vendor and capture an internal budget
• Enjoy seamless interaction between your top-down budgets and your rolled-up matter budgets

Check out our help center for video and written tutorials.

 

Join our Legal Service Requests Beta 

Join our Legal Service Requests Beta to have a smarter “front door” for your legal department in 2022. You can still access our new Legal Service Requests solution for free through the end of June.To get started, please contact your Customer Success Manager.

 

February 2022

Brightflag Workspace 🤝 Gmail

Want to get more work done from the comfort of your inbox? We get it. Using Brightflag Workspace’s new Gmail extension, you can: Easily and securely send emails and attachments to relevant workrooms Quickly convert emails and attachments into actionable tasks Assign tasks, add due dates, update descriptions, and include instructions Already using M365 for mail? Workspace already has you covered!

Legal Service Requests

Eager to install a smarter “front door” for your legal department in 2022? You can still access our new Legal Service Requests solution for free through the end of March. To get started, please contact your Customer Success Manager or feel free to reach out to our product owner Ciaran Gough directly.

January 2022

Introducing Brightflag’s new Legal Service Request Module

Forget the days of searching for legal service requests in multiple areas and spending even more time assigning them. Brightflag’s latest innovation offers corporate legal departments a powerful way to centralize the intake, triage requests, and understand the demand for legal services across the business. 

The Legal Service Requests module is a fully integrated part of the Brightflag Legal Operations Platform and is available in Beta immediately to all Brightflag customers at no additional cost through March 2022.

To learn more about Brightflag’s Legal Service Request, join us Thursday, January 20th at 2pm EST where we will deep dive into the module. 

Register Now 

 

Coming Soon: Report Builder 

Our new Report Builder has launched in beta format. We are looking forward to providing all customers with a live demo of all the new exciting functionality that you have been asking for at the webinar next month. We will then start to roll out the features to all of our customers in the coming months. 

 

Coming Soon: NEW Workspace Features

Brightflag Workspace is excited to share that in the coming weeks, we will be adding a Workspace Tools App and Gmail sidebar integration to our existing list of exciting features. Not only will these features improve productivity by enabling in-product document editing, but also make importing files and emails to a workroom from GSuite quick and easy. Be on the lookout for an update around these releases soon!

 

Brightflag's #LegalOps podcast: In-House Outliers

In this week’s episode, Alex interviews Brenda Hansen and Liz Lugones from UpLevel Ops. Brenda and Liz both share how they got started in their legal operations journey. They also share the importance of mentorship in their careers, and what it takes for legal operations professionals to be successful in 2022.

Listen Now

 

November 2021

You might have heard… Brightflag has acquired Joinder 🎉

Brightflag has acquired Joinder, the system of record that legal professionals at more than 1,000 organizations use to securely track activities, collaborate with colleagues, and store work assets. Joinder is now known as Brightflag Workspace and forms an integral part of the Brightflag Legal Operations Platform.

Learn More 

 

Report Builder Glossary: Coming Soon 

The Report Builder will soon have a Glossary that will explain to you what each field refers to. This will give you a better ability to understand where the numbers in your reports come from in Brightflag. 

 

Report Builder Teaser 

We’re excited to share that we will be making significant upgrades to the Report Builder at the beginning of 2022! Don’t worry, we will let you know when to expect to see changes and we won’t mess with your year-end reporting! 

 

Brightflag's #LegalOps podcast: In-House Outliers 🎙️ 

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October 2021

• Coming Soon: Brightflag is developing a Legal Service Request Portal that can be used by anyone in the business. This immediately removes the chore of data entry from the legal team and places that task with the person requesting legal assistance. This will help each client to use Brightflag as a one-stop shop for all their matters.

September 2021

• New Multi-line Purchase Orders. Brightflag has upgraded the Purchase Order feature adding the ability for customers to break down their PO's into multiple lines. This means that:
  • Client users will see Multi-Line PO in the PO tab on a Matter page & the PO tab on an Invoice
  • Ability to add PO Comments
  • Start & End dates of PO's are now captured
  • API enabled
  • Law Firms/Vendors may be required to split out fees and expenses by PO line item (depending on client requirements.

• Brightflag Awarded US Patent for AI Innovation in Legal Operations
  We have some exciting news...The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted Brightflag a patent for our innovative application of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in legal technology! 
  
  "This patent confirms the uniqueness of Brightflag’s core technology, but its practical value is something that in-house legal teams have been confirming daily since 2014” 
  - Ian Nolan, Brightflag CEO and Co-Founder 
  Watch the video below from COO and Co-Founder Alex Kelly to learn more about the patent
  
• Click here for the September issue of the Brightflag newsletter.

August 2021

• New Direct Cost Savings Canned Report. Brightflag has launched a new Direct Cost Savings Report beta version which is now available to Client Admin users of Brightflag. This is a new Brightflag report that will enable users to report on direct cost savings realized through Brightflag. This report makes it easier & quicker to report on how your organization has controlled and reduced cost through invoice review. Report and export from one central place on all types of Invoice Adjustments.

July 2021

• Reporting API beta version is now available to clients to test. Please reach out to Brightflag support by Submitting a Request if interested and we can provide you with information on how to use this new API.

June 2021

• Multi-Line Purchase Order Capabilities - This allows law firms/vendors to submit invoices broken down into different lines per fees and expenses per Purchase orders. Clients can see this multiple line information in the Purchase Order tab on the Matters page
• Matter Confidentiality: We have added a legal support admin role with access to all admin settings but no access to matters & invoices. This new user role will have access to Vendor Management and Matter settings menus.
• A new Matter Overview Tab on Matters Details Page gives a summary of details for a specific matter. This new feature also includes the ability to add notes within this Overview tab.

May 2021

• A matter notes tab allows you to easily track information against a matter in a dedicated space. Go to the matter overview page to begin using it.
• Matter template fields are available within both of the report builder matters reports.
• If you require tax information or PO numbers from all of your vendors, you can now mandate LEDES 98Bi files, meaning no key information will be missing from your invoices. Submit a Request to Brightflag Support Team to enable this feature.

April 2021

• A Brightflag-Outlook add-in is now available for several versions of Microsoft Outlook. At the click of a button, you can now store documents and emails directly to a matter in Brightflag from your Outlook.
• Your vendors now have more autonomy with the creation of a new vendor admin role. Upgrade at least one user from each vendor to admin-level so that they can add new vendor office admins and view information across all offices. Submit a Request to Brightflag Support Team to enable this feature.

March 2021

• Timekeeper rate submission and tracking have been enhanced:
  • 2 pages have been merged into 1.
  • The grid has been streamlined to allow for easy sorting and viewing.
  • Existing timekeeper rates can be updated more easily.
• Invoice summary PDFs can now include tax information.
• Vendor performance surveys can now be requested on open matters at any time
• A new flag now alerts you when the narrative line dates are outside of the invoice billing period.
  • Submit a Request to Brightflag Support Team if you need this flag enabled.
• More file types can now be attached to AP email integration.
• The user interface for the matter overview page has been improved.
• The report builder landing screen load time performance has been improved.

February 2021

• AP batch export spreadsheet now facilitates a new row per allocation string per invoice.
• LEDES file errors can now be addressed more easily in the Brightflag Law Firm Portal. This reduces the need to create a new LEDES file from scratch.

January 2021

• Enhanced Single Sign-on (SSO) to allow for a smoother workflow when opening Brightflag by email links.
• Service/Billing Period is now captured on both hourly-fee and fixed-fee PDF invoices. Billing period is also available as a field and filter in the invoices report and can be displayed on the invoice review page.
• Preferred Counsel Identifiers can now be set from the vendor management page.
• Matter Quarterly Budgets can now be set by fiscal year
• Accounts payable reverse feed now facilitates the use of the invoice ID as the unique identifier.

December 2020

• Vendor Performance Reporting - Capture and report on the overall performance of your vendors on their matters.
• Accounts payable feature now allows you to configure AP routes based on custom matter attributes.
• Enhancements to invoice approval stages logic ensure that admin approvals are logged appropriately on the invoice review page.
• Support for private key authentication when exporting AP batches to an SFTP through the report scheduler.

November 2020

• Monthly budget requests feature completed. Law firms can now request monthly budgets by downloading a template directly in Brightflag. Those requests can then be reviewed all in one place and approved in bulk. We’ve also added the ability for users to export the budgets from the budget review page and a new flag for breaches of monthly budgets.
• Ability to identify the preferred counsel within the application.
• Ability to select a PO number when submitting a pdf invoice from the customer portal.
• Removal of vendor offices on Brightflag’s global list from the customer portal where the office isn’t linked to that customer.

October 2020

• Enhanced the bulk matter updater to allow for the bulk closing of matters.

• Visual identity refresh:

  • Upgraded the log-in pages and application header and password reset pages to include new Brightflag branding.

  • Upgraded all emails from the application to include the new branding and with updated support links.

• Diversity feature: initial development completed which includes data collection, and reporting modules.

• Updated vendor management to cater for specifying vendors as Preferred Counsel. Initial infrastructure has been put in place in the backend.

• As part of ongoing technical improvements and security audits we have:

  • Updated Javascript Libraries used throughout the application.

  • Reconfigured and improved HTTP Security Headers.

  • Improved validation on file uploads.

  • Enhanced Cross-site Request Forgery (CSRF) and Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Prevention.

  • Improved authentication and authorisation controls on APIs.

September 2020

• Improved messaging when Accounts Payable email files exceed e-mail attachment limits and provided a link to download.
• Configured Accruals reminders to be sent 5 days before the submission deadline.
• Updated the Financial Budgets feature:
  • Added a link to access the matters that are included in the budget
  • Ability to edit the budget name.
• Updated the Purchase Order feature to provide enhanced LEDEs98Bi support and added to the ability to enforce unique purchase order numbers.
• Enhanced the Invoice Review screen for invoices that have Purchase Orders to include purchase order budget flags and block invoice approval where no Purchase Order is provided.
• Security improvements made - updated the password encryption protocols, improved password reset flows and API message authentication.
• Improved the performance of the Search Matters page.  

August 2020

• Updated the Financial Budgets feature so individual budgets can be removed, and improved Brightflag Forecast synchronisation.
• Improved notifications when adding a vendor to a matter. Using Any Office, only the admins will be notified.
• Improved error messaging when updating and submitting Matter Budget Request.
• Updated Purchase Order feature which allows PO numbers to be created and assigned to matters, and for invoices to be tracked with POs and exported to the AP system.
• Improved the error messaging for LEDES Invoice Upload on the Law Firm Portal, so that it is easier for vendors to fix errors in files on submission.
• Accounts Payable Module Enhancements:
  • New AP Route configuration to allow payment routing via Currency.
  • More granular control over what files are sent to your AP systems including individual file selection but ability to merge multiple files.