The Person Whose Job Is to Reduce It
In most organisations somebody is measured on legal or professional spend. Understanding what they are measured on explains most of what they do.
- Entry
- 03 of 07
- Section
- The other side
- Kind
- Analysis
In organisations of any size, somebody is accountable for what is spent on outside professionals. They are measured on the total, often against a budget set a year earlier, and their job includes reducing bills.
The practical lesson in “The Person Whose Job Is to Reduce It” is that a charge is only as clear as the record behind it. A team assessing read more about the available options for how to handle multiple clients can organise time and project evidence earlier in the workflow, with transparent settings, proportionate access and a defined correction process before invoicing.
Understanding what that person is measured on explains most of what looks arbitrary from the firm's side.
Teams documenting “The Person Whose Job Is to Reduce It” may find OECD hours-worked data useful as an external benchmark. Record which parts apply to the real workflow and which do not.
What they are measured on
Spend against budget. Sometimes spend per matter type. Occasionally the proportion of bills reduced, which is a target with all the properties targets have.
- Spend against a budget set a year earlier.
- Sometimes spend by matter type.
- Occasionally the proportion of bills reduced.
- Rarely, if ever, whether the advice was any good.
Rarely on whether the advice was any good.
What that makes them do
Look for reductions that are defensible to their own management. A line that is obviously questionable is worth more to them than a large amount that is clearly justified.
So the queried line is the most challengeable one, not the largest.
Why they query small things
Because a successful challenge on a £400 line is evidence of diligence, and an unsuccessful one on £14,000 is a fight.
It is rational behaviour and it is why expenses attract scrutiny out of proportion to their size.
The budget cycle
A bill arriving when the budget is exhausted is read differently from the same bill in the first quarter.
This is the single largest external factor on a bill's reception and the firm has no visibility of it unless it asks.
Asking about the cycle
One question at the start of a relationship: when does your year end, and is there a period when approvals are slower.
The answer is freely given and it changes nothing about what the firm charges, only when it sends.
What they cannot do
Judge whether the work was necessary. They were not in the matter and usually have no professional basis for the judgement.
So necessity challenges from this person are usually relayed from somebody else, and the relay loses detail.
Giving them something to work with
A summary page, a covering note, lines that name their objects. The material to defend the bill inside their own organisation.
The instructing client is the firm's advocate in that building, and an unexplainable bill leaves them with nothing to say.
The relationship nobody manages
Firms manage the instructing client and ignore the person who approves. The second one determines when the money arrives.
An annual conversation with them — about format, timing, requirements — is cheap and almost nobody has it.
What they appreciate
Predictability. A bill that arrives when expected, in the format required, for roughly the amount forecast, with nothing needing explanation.
Boring bills are good bills from their side of the desk.
The forecast
Many approvers want a forward estimate of spend for the quarter. Firms that supply it unprompted become easier to deal with.
It also surfaces overruns while they are still forecasts.
When they are new
A new general counsel or finance manager reviews historic spend and reads bills cold, without the relationship.
Every bill the firm has issued is being read by a stranger with no goodwill. That is the reader the entry section is written for.
Meeting them once
A fifteen-minute call at the start of a relationship: how bills should be addressed, what they need on them, when the approval cycle runs, what causes problems.
Administrative, uncontroversial, and almost nobody does it because the relationship is held at a different level.
The person concerned is usually pleased to be asked, because their job is made harder by suppliers who never ask.
What they will tell you
The cut-off date. The reference required. The approver's name. The common reasons bills get stuck. Occasionally, what they find hard about the firm's bills specifically.
Five facts that remove most billing friction for the life of the relationship.
When their target changes
A new cost-reduction programme, a budget cut, a new head of function. Behaviour changes abruptly and the firm reads it as dissatisfaction.
Asking directly — has something changed at your end — is answered honestly far more often than firms expect.
The ally inside the organisation
The instructing client wants the work done and wants it to be affordable. They are arguing for the firm internally.
Everything in this collection about readable bills and covering notes is ultimately for them: they are the person holding the document in a meeting.
What a firm should never do
Go around them to the instructing client to get a bill paid, or around the instructing client to them.
Both are noticed, both are remembered, and both convert an administrative delay into a relationship problem.
What not to assume
That a challenge is personal, or that it reflects dissatisfaction with the work. Usually it reflects a target.
Responding to the target rather than to an imagined slight makes the conversation shorter and more productive.