# CounselAudit.ai

> AI-powered legal bill review and outside counsel guideline enforcement for in-house legal teams.

## About
CounselAudit.ai automates legal invoice review using AI. It enforces outside counsel billing guidelines, flags violations (block billing, excessive hours, rate creep), and deploys the "sentinel effect", where the mere presence of oversight changes law firm billing behavior before invoices are even submitted. The platform processes LEDES and PDF invoices, applies configurable rules against UTBMS codes, and provides an approval workflow with automated communications to law firms.

## Key Pages
- [Product Overview](https://www.counselaudit.com/product.html): Features and capabilities, including alternative fee arrangements (fixed fees, fee caps, blended rates) and WIP collection with month-end accrual reports
- [Legal RFPs](https://www.counselaudit.com/rfp.html): Sales page with a four-minute interactive demo (single matter and panel review tracks, including what the law firm sees). Send an RFP to one firm or the whole panel (firms respond from a link, no account), compare proposals side by side with rates by timekeeper level, score them as a team blind, and award to one firm or several. The award sets the fee arrangement, matter budget and approved timekeeper rates that every invoice from the winning firms is checked against. Professional plan and free trial.
- [MCP Connector](https://www.counselaudit.com/mcp.html): Use CounselAudit from Claude or ChatGPT via the Model Context Protocol. Find, read and audit invoices, decide flags, approve, reject or mark invoices paid, assign reviewers, draft firm response letters, manage budgets and fee arrangements, list WIP requests and record a firm's WIP figures (Professional plan), list a matter's approvals and pull the approvals report, ask spend questions. Connector URL: https://app.counselaudit.com/api/mcp/mcp (streamable HTTP, OAuth 2.1). $200/month add-on per organization, included with Enterprise, not available during the free trial.
- [Integrations](https://www.counselaudit.com/integrations.html): Approved invoices go to accounts payable. Every plan, including the free trial, emails each approved invoice to the AP or accounting system's bill inbox (one PDF that opens with the approved amount, then the firm's original), with separate destinations per entity or subsidiary. Works with NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks Online, Xero, Oracle Fusion Cloud Payables, SAP Concur Invoice, SAP Ariba, Workday, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance, Acumatica, SoftLedger, BILL, Stampli, Tipalti, AvidXchange, Coupa, Airbase, Basware, Medius, Esker, Tradeshift, Rillion, Vic.ai, Ottimate, AppZen, Quadient AP (Beanworks), MineralTree, Corpay One, ApprovalMax, DOKKA, Ramp, Brex, Expensify, Spendesk, Pleo, Payhawk, Volopay, Float, Rippling, Procurify, Precoro, JAGGAER, Zip, Planergy, Mercury, Relay, Rho, Melio, Plooto, Airwallex, Wise Business, Qonto, Dext, Hubdoc, AutoEntry, Lightyear and any AP tool or shared mailbox that accepts invoices by email. ERP Sync add-on ($250/month or $2,550/year per organization, on top of the plan, included with Enterprise, not in the free trial, no implementation fees) creates the bill directly in the ERP at the approved amount, coded to GL accounts and departments, and marks the invoice paid when finance pays it.
- [Advisory Services](https://www.counselaudit.com/services.html): Partner compensation analytics, AFA advisory, RFP management, billing compliance programs
- [How It Works](https://www.counselaudit.com/how-it-works.html): Three-step process
- [Pricing](https://www.counselaudit.com/pricing.html): Starter ($99/seat/mo, up to 5 seats), Professional (includes WIP collection and accrual reports and Legal RFPs; volume banded, unlimited seats: seats 1-5 $199/seat/mo, seats 6-10 $99.50/seat/mo, seats 11+ $49.75/seat/mo, each band applying only to the seats inside it, so a 12-seat team pays $1,592.00/mo or $16,238.40/yr prepaid), Enterprise (custom). Annual prepay takes a further 15% off. 14-day free trial, 60-day money-back guarantee on subscription fees. No implementation fees; implementation is included with every paid plan and complete in hours (guided setup of approval controls, guidelines and budgets at no extra cost).
- [Security](https://www.counselaudit.com/security.html): Encryption, tenant isolation and data handling practices
- [About](https://www.counselaudit.com/about.html): Company background

## Guides
- [The Honor System in Legal Billing](https://www.counselaudit.com/guides/honor-system-legal-billing.html): Why hourly billing is self-reported and how oversight changes behavior
- [The Sentinel Effect](https://www.counselaudit.com/guides/sentinel-effect.html): How visible AI oversight deters overbilling before it happens
- [Outside Counsel Guidelines](https://www.counselaudit.com/guides/outside-counsel-guidelines.html): How to write and enforce effective billing guidelines
- [Legal Billing Audit Guide](https://www.counselaudit.com/guides/legal-billing-audit.html): Complete guide to auditing legal bills
- [AI in Legal Billing](https://www.counselaudit.com/guides/ai-legal-billing.html): How AI transforms legal invoice review
- [Legal Invoice Review Software](https://www.counselaudit.com/guides/legal-invoice-review.html): Buyer's guide for legal bill review tools
- [Legal Billing Best Practices](https://www.counselaudit.com/guides/legal-billing-best-practices.html): 15 practices for in-house teams
- [Legal Spend Benchmarks](https://www.counselaudit.com/guides/legal-spend-benchmarks.html): Rate tables and cost benchmarks by practice area

## Review Checks & How They Are Enforced
Every invoice runs against 50+ built-in review checks, with or without outside counsel guidelines. 30 are on by default. They sit in 7 categories: Staffing & Supervision (9), Legal Fees (19), Expenses & Disbursements (9), Travel (5), Billing Requirements (10), AI & Technology (1), and Effort & Scope Review (4). Each check carries an enforcement badge: 49 are deterministic (exact logic, no AI, the same answer every time, covering math errors, duplicate entries, rate caps, travel, overhead pass-through, billing increments, submission deadlines, billing period integrity, rounding patterns, leverage ratio, conflict-check and audit-letter billing, and invoice-preparation time); 3 are hybrids (block billing, vague narratives, recycled work, where logic finds the candidates and AI reads each one to cut false positives); 4 are AI judgment calls that are off by default (proportionality of effort, scope and relevance, settled-law research, senior lawyer on routine work); and 1 is a roster check (Timekeeper Pre-Approval against the firm's approved rate card). Thresholds are adjustable in the app, including the block-billing hours floor, the intra-firm conference percentage, the research-time cap (by hours or percent of fees), the number of attendees before a shared event is flagged (default 3), and the late-invoice window. Reviewers decide each flag with Accept, Dispute, or Compromise (grouped flags take Accept all, Dispute all or Compromise all), and one-click settlements handle a whole class at once (lead attendee only, cap internal conferences at a percentage, reduce the invoice to the matter budget). Every invoice also shows its Bill Composition (the share of fees that is questionable work) and Leverage (partner, associate and paralegal share of fees). The review letter to the firm is rendered as correspondence: a Re: line, numbered items, the settlement basis stated in each proposal, and the matter's budget position up front.

## Invoice Review Workflow
A workflow your team can use on day one, flexible by default, that tightens when you need it to. Implementation included, complete in hours. Every invoice follows one clear track, from intake to paid: Intake, Review, Pushback, Firm, Approve for payment, Paid. Pushback and Firm are skipped when nothing is disputed. It is one workflow for every team, with no routes to set up and nothing to configure first: a solo GC can run it alone on day one, and a team can hand each step to a different person, ask a colleague to check a letter, or jump back a step when a firm pushes back. Each step can have its own owner (for example, legal ops does intake, a lawyer reviews, the general counsel approves); a step with no owner belongs to whoever had the step before, and anyone can reassign any step. A step owner can ask a colleague to check the review letter or the decisions without handing over the step; the checker approves or sends it back with a comment, and nothing is blocked while they look. The workflow guides rather than forces: an invoice can be moved to any stage, Review can be reopened after the letter has gone to the firm, and an approval or a paid mark can be undone. Every move, reassignment and check is recorded in the invoice's History.
When a team needs more control, it switches it on. The complete list of workflow controls is: (1) a per-person "Can approve for payment" switch, (2) an optional approval limit per person per currency, and (3) an org-wide "Reviewers can't approve their own bills" switch (off by default; it needs two people who can approve). All are set by an admin in Settings under Team members. Beyond these, configuration means outside counsel guidelines and review rules, budgets, and email notification toggles. There are no mandatory sign-off chains, no multi-step or two-approver routing, no custom-built workflows, and no routing by job title. Implementation is included with every paid plan at no extra cost and is complete in hours: CounselAudit sets the workflow up with the customer to match their approval policy (switching on approval controls, loading their guidelines, setting budgets). When someone cannot approve an invoice, the app names who can and routes it to them. Under inquiry, with an optional reason, parks an invoice while you wait on an answer; Resume returns it. When a firm reissues a bill (same or new number), link it as a revision: decisions carry forward line by line, a "What changed" band shows the diff, and the original becomes Replaced and drops out of spend and budgets. Charges the firm removed on the reissue count as savings ("Removed on reissue"). An in-app reminder appears when a firm has not replied to the review email in 30 days, and for invoices left under inquiry; reminder emails are opt-in, and Settings lists a toggle for every email type. Mark paid is in the web app, and savings follow the approved amount once an invoice is approved.

## Outside Counsel Guidelines
Guidelines work three ways. Build a set from 50+ default rules across 9 sections (Staffing & Supervision, Legal Fees, Expenses & Disbursements, Travel, Billing Requirements, Prior Approval Requirements, AI Usage Policy, Compliance & Enforcement, Confidentiality & Conflicts). Import an existing OCG document (PDF, DOCX, TXT) and AI extracts the rules, maps each clause to one of 33 enforceable rule codes or to an advisory tier (AI-reviewable, reviewer checklist, or off-invoice), and can scope a negotiated fee discount to a single firm. Or run with no guidelines at all on the built-in checks. Under an imported OCG, a review runs the checks the document maps plus the bill-integrity, approved-rate and budget checks. Built-in checks the document does not mention can be added to the OCG profile (Additional checks); the letter to the firm does not cite the client's guidelines for them. Clauses the engine cannot check appear on a per-invoice Reviewer Checklist for a human call.

## Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs)
Record a fixed (flat) fee, a fee cap or a blended rate agreed with a firm, on one matter or firm-wide. A matter's arrangement takes priority over the firm's. Arrangements apply by the dates of the work on the invoice (fee line dates), not the invoice date.
- Fixed fee: hourly checks (rate creep, block billing, vague descriptions, excessive hours, admin work at attorney rates and similar) are switched off, because hours do not change what is owed. Math, expense, late billing and discount checks still run. The invoice shows a banner naming the arrangement and how many checks were not run, with an option to re-run with all checks.
- Fee cap: the firm still bills hourly, so every hourly check keeps running.
- Blended rate: each timekeeper's billed rate is compared with the blended rate (2% tolerance).
- Overages: when fees billed to date go past the fixed fee or cap, one flag states the overage. Capped matters also warn as they approach the cap (80% by default). The overage leads the review letter to the firm, and the settlement proposal offers it as the reduction.
- Setup: when an engagement letter or fee estimate describes a fixed fee, cap or blended rate, CounselAudit offers to create the arrangement pre-filled. A person always confirms it before it is saved.
- AFA performance report (Reports): for each fixed fee, cap or blended rate, fees billed against the agreed amount, the effective hourly rate over the hours the firm reported, what the firm's rate card would have charged for those hours, and the difference. Reported per currency, never converted.
- Not supported: automatic approval, success or contingency fees, portfolio caps across several matters, collars and holdbacks.

## Budgets
Budgets work per matter and above it: a month, quarter, fiscal year or custom period, covering all spend, one matter type, one cost center or one GL account, and an invoice can be pinned in whole or part to a period. On a fixed-fee or capped matter, the arrangement's flag takes the place of the matter budget flag.

## Reports
Spend by firm, matter and timekeeper. A monthly approvals report: every invoice approved or rejected in the month, with who decided it and how many days it took, totals by approver, what is still waiting by age and who holds it, rejections by reason, the median time in each step (review, pushback, firm, approve), and how often invoices are sent back. Budget vs actual: period budgets by fiscal year, quarter or month against approved and in-review spend, with a straight-line projection, and matter budgets life to date with WIP and projected spend. Any section can be added to a printable report pack (cover page, contents, an at-a-glance page) for finance or the board and downloaded as a PDF. Every table exports to CSV. Totals stay per currency, never converted.

## WIP and Accruals (Professional plan)
WIP collection and accrual reports are part of the Professional plan, and of the free trial. Starter sees an upgrade prompt.
- Requests: work in progress (WIP) requests go to the right firms on the right matters from a schedule: the matter's own setting, else the WIP clause in your outside counsel guidelines, else a default of the 5th day after month end. Quiet matters are left out. Every run is a draft a person previews and sends; unattended sending is available after a reviewed run.
- Firm replies: Firms are asked on a schedule and answer through a no-login form or by email reply. Firms need no account. An emailed reply waits for a person to confirm the figures.
- Late firms: reminders follow 3 and 10 days after the due date by default (sent, or drafted for a person to send), and overdue requests show on the dashboard, in notifications and in an optional digest email.
- Accrual report: As of a month end you pick: unbilled fees and disbursements by firm and matter, by cost center and GL account, one block per currency. When the invoice for that work arrives, the accrual shows as reversed with the variance. A firm that has not reported repeats its last figure, marked as carried forward, or counts as zero or blank, as you choose. Each firm's median miss against its later invoices is tracked. Rejected invoices and reductions recorded as an approved amount show as still unbilled.
- Estimates: When a firm does not report, CounselAudit can offer a run-rate estimate from that matter's last 3, 6 or 12 months of invoices, shown as a range and labeled as an estimate. Nothing is recorded until a person accepts it.
- Also included: coverage (which firms reported), aging, and a 12-month trend of reported WIP against invoiced spend, all with CSV export. Ask AI answers WIP questions, and the MCP connector can list WIP requests and record a firm's figures.
- Not supported: sending accruals into an ERP or general ledger (accrual reports export to CSV instead; approved invoices themselves do reach the ERP, see AP and ERP Integrations), currency conversion, connecting to a firm's time system, or accepting an estimate automatically.

## AP and ERP Integrations
Approved invoices go straight to accounts payable, two ways.
- Email connection (included on every plan, including the free trial, no implementation fees): save your AP system's bill-capture address once and every approved invoice is sent there as one email with one PDF that opens with an approved-for-payment page showing the approved amount, followed by the firm's original invoice. Save several destinations (for example one per subsidiary or entity) and pick one when you approve. Works with NetSuite (Bill Capture), Sage Intacct (AP Automation), QuickBooks Online, Xero, Oracle Fusion Cloud Payables, SAP Concur Invoice, SAP Ariba, Workday, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance, Acumatica, SoftLedger, BILL, Stampli, Tipalti, AvidXchange, Coupa, Airbase, Basware, Medius, Esker, Tradeshift, Rillion, Vic.ai, Ottimate, AppZen, Quadient AP (Beanworks), MineralTree, Corpay One, ApprovalMax, DOKKA, Ramp, Brex, Expensify, Spendesk, Pleo, Payhawk, Volopay, Float, Rippling, Procurify, Precoro, JAGGAER, Zip, Planergy, Mercury, Relay, Rho, Melio, Plooto, Airwallex, Wise Business, Qonto, Dext, Hubdoc, AutoEntry, Lightyear, and any AP tool or shared mailbox that accepts invoices by email.
- ERP Sync add-on ($250 USD/month or $2,550/year per organization, on top of the plan; included with Enterprise; not in the free trial; no implementation fees): a direct connection that creates the bill in your accounting system at the approved amount (not the billed amount), split by your cost allocations and coded to your GL accounts and departments, and marks the invoice paid in CounselAudit when finance pays it. Your administrator authorizes the connection; no ERP password is shared. Vendor, GL and cost-center mapping is done with you. The email connection keeps working alongside it.
- ERP Sync systems, switched on per organization on request: NetSuite, QuickBooks Online, Sage Intacct, Xero, FreshBooks, Zoho Books, Sage Business Cloud Accounting, Wave, FreeAgent, Clear Books, Moneybird. Coming soon: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP, Workday, QuickBooks Desktop.

## Legal RFPs (Professional plan)
Legal RFPs are part of the Professional plan, and of the free trial. Two uses: one matter put out to a few firms, or a panel review, with rate cards by timekeeper level, sent to every current firm at once.
- Firms respond from a secure link, with no account or login. The form autosaves a draft so a firm can come back to it. Firms price by timekeeper level (partner, counsel, senior associate, associate, paralegal and so on), can give their current rate beside the proposed one, name their team with a short bio and a profile link per person, add detail behind short answers, and attach a PDF.
- Clarifications the client posts show on every invited firm's form, including firms invited later. A revision request reopens one firm's link.
- Proposals are compared on one basis: fixed fees, caps and hourly estimates are added up the same way for every bid; rates line up one row per timekeeper level with current rate, proposed rate and percentage change; the grid exports to CSV. For a single winner, savings is the average of the other bids minus the winning bid.
- Scoring: weighted criteria set on the RFP, price scored automatically from the comparison, every reviewer scores every firm. Blind: a reviewer sees the team view (weighted average plus each reviewer's score) only after scoring every firm on every criterion; admins see it throughout, everyone after the award.
- Reminders and closing: one automatic reminder to every firm that has not submitted, a configurable number of days before the due date (default 3, 0 turns it off), sent as the RFP's creator. When the due date passes the RFP closes to proposals and the creator is emailed the submitted count (can be turned off).
- Award: to one firm or several (a panel or a rate review). Each winner gets its own fee arrangement (when its proposal reduces to one fixed, capped or blended figure) and its proposed team and rates as approved timekeepers; the matter budget is the winners' bids added up; winners can be marked as preferred firms, which are offered first when a matter is created. Regret emails to the other firms are drafted for review. Only an admin, the CLO or legal ops can award.
- A draft engagement letter PDF is produced from the award for the client to review; nothing is sent to the firm automatically.
- Every invoice from a winning firm is then reviewed against the awarded terms plus the built-in checks: off-roster timekeepers, rates above what was proposed, fees above the cap, spend past the budget.

## Timekeeper Approval & Rate Governance
CounselAudit.ai includes an optional Timekeeper Pre-Approval rule (in Review Rules, under Staffing) that lets in-house legal teams maintain an approved timekeeper roster per law firm. When enabled, every invoice is automatically checked against the roster. Key capabilities: AI-powered engagement letter parsing (upload a PDF, AI extracts timekeeper names, roles, approved rates, and any negotiated discount; timekeepers already on the roster have their approved rate updated rather than duplicated, and the discount becomes a firm-scoped rule with one click), rate governance with 2% tolerance (flags exact deviation percentage, including mid-engagement rate increases), fuzzy name matching (handles "J. Smith" vs "Jane Smith", "Last, First" vs "First Last"), student and first-year detection on the first invoice they appear, and one-click quick actions to approve new timekeepers or accept a rate directly from invoice flags. Unlike vendor-submission models (where law firms must submit rates for approval), CounselAudit.ai's approach is client-side: upload your engagement letter and AI builds the roster with no vendor onboarding friction.

## Reference
- [Legal Billing Glossary](https://www.counselaudit.com/glossary/): 35 legal billing terms defined with examples, red flags, and enforcement guidance
- [UTBMS Code Reference](https://www.counselaudit.com/utbms/): Complete UTBMS task, activity, and expense code guide with 49 individual code pages
- [Outside Counsel Guideline Clauses](https://www.counselaudit.com/guidelines/): 20 sample clause templates at 3 strictness levels (basic, moderate, aggressive)

## Tools & Resources
- [Resource Hub](https://www.counselaudit.com/resources/): Free, ungated tools and templates for in-house legal teams managing outside counsel spend
- [ROI Calculator](https://www.counselaudit.com/resources/roi-calculator.html): Estimate what automated bill review would recover, based on invoice volume, average rates, and current review process
- [OCG Template Pack](https://www.counselaudit.com/resources/ocg-template-pack.html): Ready-to-adapt outside counsel guideline clauses covering billing increments, block billing, staffing, rate caps, travel, and expenses

## Machine-Readable Discovery
- [MCP discovery document](https://www.counselaudit.com/.well-known/mcp.json): Connector name, description, endpoint, authentication, and access terms
- [MCP server card](https://www.counselaudit.com/.well-known/mcp/server-card.json): Server card describing the remote MCP endpoint and transport
- [AI catalog](https://www.counselaudit.com/.well-known/ai-catalog.json): Domain-level catalog of CounselAudit's AI artifacts

## Comparisons
- [All Comparisons](https://www.counselaudit.com/compare/): Side-by-side feature comparisons
- [vs Brightflag](https://www.counselaudit.com/compare/counselaudit-vs-brightflag.html)
- [vs SimpleLegal](https://www.counselaudit.com/compare/counselaudit-vs-simplelegal.html)
- [vs CounselLink](https://www.counselaudit.com/compare/counselaudit-vs-counsellink.html)
- [vs Mitratech](https://www.counselaudit.com/compare/counselaudit-vs-mitratech.html)
- [vs Onit](https://www.counselaudit.com/compare/counselaudit-vs-onit.html)
- [vs Legal Tracker](https://www.counselaudit.com/compare/counselaudit-vs-legal-tracker.html)
- [Manual vs Automated Bill Review](https://www.counselaudit.com/compare/manual-vs-automated-bill-review.html)
- [Spreadsheets vs Dedicated Software](https://www.counselaudit.com/compare/spreadsheets-vs-dedicated-software.html)

## Alternatives
- [All Alternatives](https://www.counselaudit.com/alternatives/): Switching guides from other platforms
- [Brightflag Alternative](https://www.counselaudit.com/alternatives/brightflag-alternative.html)
- [SimpleLegal Alternative](https://www.counselaudit.com/alternatives/simplelegal-alternative.html)
- [Mitratech Alternative](https://www.counselaudit.com/alternatives/mitratech-alternative.html)
- [CounselLink Alternative](https://www.counselaudit.com/alternatives/counsellink-alternative.html)
- [Onit Alternative](https://www.counselaudit.com/alternatives/onit-alternative.html)
- [Legal Tracker Alternative](https://www.counselaudit.com/alternatives/legal-tracker-alternative.html)

## Use Cases by Practice Area
- [All Use Cases](https://www.counselaudit.com/use-cases/): Solutions by practice area
- [Litigation Spend](https://www.counselaudit.com/use-cases/litigation-spend.html)
- [IP & Patent Portfolio](https://www.counselaudit.com/use-cases/ip-portfolio-billing.html)
- [Mergers & Acquisitions](https://www.counselaudit.com/use-cases/mergers-acquisitions.html)
- [Employment Law](https://www.counselaudit.com/use-cases/employment-law.html)
- [Regulatory Compliance](https://www.counselaudit.com/use-cases/regulatory-compliance.html)
- [Real Estate](https://www.counselaudit.com/use-cases/real-estate.html)
- [Insurance Defense](https://www.counselaudit.com/use-cases/insurance-defense.html)
- [Bankruptcy & Restructuring](https://www.counselaudit.com/use-cases/bankruptcy-restructuring.html)
- [International Arbitration](https://www.counselaudit.com/use-cases/international-arbitration.html)
- [Data Privacy & Cybersecurity](https://www.counselaudit.com/use-cases/data-privacy.html)
- [Antitrust](https://www.counselaudit.com/use-cases/antitrust.html)
- [Government Contracts](https://www.counselaudit.com/use-cases/government-contracts.html)

## For (Audience-Specific)
- [All Solutions by Role](https://www.counselaudit.com/for/): How CounselAudit.ai serves every role
- [Chief Legal Officers](https://www.counselaudit.com/for/chief-legal-officer.html)
- [Legal Operations](https://www.counselaudit.com/for/legal-operations.html)
- [Finance & Procurement](https://www.counselaudit.com/for/finance.html)
- [Paralegals](https://www.counselaudit.com/for/paralegal.html)
- [Law Firms](https://www.counselaudit.com/for/law-firms.html)
- [Mid-Market Legal Departments](https://www.counselaudit.com/for/mid-market.html)
- [Enterprise / Fortune 500](https://www.counselaudit.com/for/fortune-500.html)
- [Insurance Defense](https://www.counselaudit.com/for/insurance.html)

## Optional
- [Full content index](https://www.counselaudit.com/llms-full.txt)