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Advanced Invoice Management System (AIMS) is DataCert's web-based application that facilitates the approval and payment of electronic invoices between law firms and vendors and corporate legal departments. Its primary purpose is to help managers take control of their corporate legal spend. Using AIMS, legal invoices are validated against corporate outside counsel guidelines, routed, adjusted and approved, then posted to a matter management and/or accounts payable system.

What Does AIMS Do?
AIMS simplifies the approval and payment of electronic invoices and allows corporate legal departments to take control of outside legal costs in advance of payment. Its automated invoice routing and review process can be tailored to meet a corporation's specific workflow and business rules. AIMS also integrates with existing systems and provides secure access to invoice details, workflow status, cost management reports and matter information.

AIMS is a comprehensive solution that:

• Securely transports and tracks invoices from law firms and vendors
• Validates invoice compliance with corporate outside counsel guidelines
• Automates workflow of invoices amongst approvers
• Integrates with matter management, accounts payable and other systems
• Reports, charts and analyzes invoice detail

How Does AIMS Work?
As invoices are processed through our secure electronic invoicing service, validations are performed to ensure that all information meets a corporation's outside counsel guidelines and other business rules. Violations can result in immediate rejection of the invoice or warnings on specific invoice line-items that are presented to approvers during invoice review. Invoice approval quickly becomes review by exception for approvers rather than line-by-line review.

The diagram below depicts the invoice process from the time a law firm/vendor submits an invoice until the invoice is integrated within the corporation's matter management, accounts payable or other back-end system. Invoice approvals can be set to expire if a user fails to take action. In fact, AIMS can automatically adjust the approval route and push the invoice through the approval cycle while guaranteeing the invoice never posts for payment without the required approvals. AIMS even gives administrators the authority to view the invoices and activities of other users in the system in order to reset approvals, skip approvals if needed, or lengthen or shorten approval time allotments. This functionality substantially reduces the extended process of waiting on approvals and provides the opportunity to significantly reduce turnaround time. Shortening the time spent on invoice approval can speed up payment; that translates into opportunities for discounts, alternative-fee arrangements and other cost reductions.