Budget Requests in Brightflag allow vendor law firms to submit matter budgets for approval, ensuring effective cost control and spend forecasting.
📢 Key Benefits:
✅ Streamline budget submission and approval workflows
✅ Enable better financial planning with up-to-date budgets
✅ Overwrite outdated budgets with the latest approved requests
📍 Accessing Budget Requests
Budget Requests are submitted by vendor law firms through the Brightflag Law Firm Portal. Once submitted:
- The Internal Matter Lead (IML) is notified via email.
- Approved budgets replace any existing budgets for that matter.
📋 Reviewing Budget Requests
There are two ways to review budget requests:
1️⃣ Manually – Review and approve/reject budgets one by one.
2️⃣ In Bulk – Review multiple budget requests at once.
📘 For detailed steps, see:
📢 Do Vendors Receive Reminders?
🚫 No automatic reminders are sent to vendor law firms regarding pending budget requests. You will need to notify them outside of Brightflag.
🔄 How Vendor Budget Requests Affect Existing Budgets
Vendor budgets can be submitted for each month or fiscal quarter.
📌 If the matter already has a Life-of-Matter or Phased Budget:
✅ The entire budget will be overwritten to match the vendor’s request.
📌 If the matter already has a Periodic Budget (Monthly, Fiscal Quarter, Fiscal Year):
✅ The budget granularity remains the same. Example:
- If the current budget is Fiscal Year, but the vendor submits a monthly request, the format stays Fiscal Year, while the underlying values update.
💡 Frequently Asked Questions
📊 Where do matter budgets appear in Brightflag?
You can view all Matter Budgets under Menu > Matter Management > Budget Requests.
📤 Who can view and approve budget requests?
- Admin Users can view and approve all budget requests.
- Department Overview Users can view and approve budget requests for matters within their assigned Department(s).
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Ordinary Users can view and approve budget requests for matters they have access to.
- For example, Internal Matter Leads can approve budget requests for matters they are a lead on.
- Matter Participants can approve budget requests for matters where they are listed as a participant.
📧 How do I notify vendors to submit budgets?
Since Brightflag does not send automatic reminders, you must notify vendors externally.
📤 What happens if a budget request is rejected?
The vendor will receive a notification with your rejection reason, allowing them to amend and resubmit.
If you would like to enable Budget Requests, please contact your Customer Success Manager (CSM).