Prosperoware Announces Umbria 3.0, Featuring New Arrangements Module

Global News

16
May
2016

Editor

Prosperoware, a leading enterprise software company delivering innovative technology transforming the business of legal and professional services, today announces the official release of Umbria 3.0, featuring Umbria Arrangements, a new contract management module that combines tracking of fee arrangements including AFAs, Outside Counsel Guidelines as well as renewals.  

The introduction of Umbria Arrangements makes the terms of each arrangement actionable and, in conjunction with Umbria’s rich client and matter planning functions, empowers firms to understand their deals, easily model and price new matters, and sustain profitability.

Prosperoware’s Umbria is a “data-first” platform implemented by some of the industry’s most innovative firms, and provides actionable business intelligence which enables lawyers and other professionals to understand their true cost of service delivery and to use that information to enable price discussions, competitiveness, and predictability in the delivery of their legal services. 

Firms have been under increasing pressure to employ Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs) for their clients.  A recent study from BTI Consulting notes AFAs are on a significant rise,  jumping to 35.6% of total spend of legal departments’ outside counsel spend in 2015--up from 21.7% in 2013-- citing improved client focus, predictability in budgets, a more streamlined approach to work, and double-digit savings.  The growing use of Outside Counsel Guidelines (OCGs) compounds the problem, leading to delays in billing and payments.

Combined, AFAs and OCGs substantially impact profitability since lawyers may not fully understand the terms of each engagement they make with their clients, or have an easy way to track matter progress against those arrangements.  In addition to AFAs, there are critical elements of deals such as the terms of OCGs trapped in billers’ notes that are simply not actionable and can be a key cause for write downs and bottom of the bill discounts, further impacting profitability.

To address this concern, Prosperoware has brought to market Umbria Arrangements in Umbria 3.0, a contract management module that tracks the combination of Outside Counsel Guidelines and client-level or matter-level terms on each fee arrangement.    This functionality includes rich rate card function for hourly matters, the tracking of all AFAs as well as arrangement renewals so that critical notification dates are not missed for rate increases. 

With Umbria Arrangements, the arrangement is now actionable.  Partners’ management of their matters has been extended allowing them to understand any time entry or expenses that may be in violation of the client’s OCGs—and, therefore, not payable.  The partner is empowered to take rapid action to avoid unnecessary write-down and write-offs and prevent leakage.  Additional new features in Umbria 3.0 also include:

• Enhanced UX through clean, easy to navigate user interface
• Spend planning which allows lawyers to plan yearly, quarterly or monthly budgets for recurring or multi-year matters
• Improved business intelligence with Practice Group Leader dashboards and a new profit allocation module that allows firms to provide multiple profitability models
• New Experience module which includes firm directory, matter, client, vendor and external contacts profiling
• Support for bottom of the bill discounts
• Planned write-downs and write-offs
• Revenue forecasting
• Out-of-the-box integration with Rippe & Kingston time & billing system

Keith Lipman, President of Prosperoware, comments, “As the complexity of the business relationship increases, firms need a single pane of glass for partners to understand the full lifecycle of the client relationship, understand how to improve it, and understand how to sustainably manage it, profitably.  With arrangements, firms are empowered to understand the full scope and lifecycle of their deals.  Umbria 3.0 shows the value of a core technology platform that cohesively addresses the challenges of law firms today.”