Budgeting and Forecasting Automated law firm budgeting and forecasting software

Overview

BigHand Budgeting and Forecasting is an automated law firm budgeting and forecasting tool transforms law firm annual budgeting processes from a time-consuming chore to a highly productive mission. Its integration capabilities ensure timely management of budget-to-actual results. Budgeting and Forecasting enables firms to predict cash and accrual based revenue and simplify all aspects of budgeting and variance tracking within a firm. 

Schedule a demo or discovery call to learn more:

The Big Benefits

  • Increase ownership and decrease approval time
  • Determine variable revenue and expenses
  • Analyze budget variances and collect explanations
  • Distribute browser-based worksheets
  • Maintain data integrity with a centralized database 
  • Turn budgeting into a business tool, not an administrative burden

How can BigHand Budgeting and Forecasting help me?

Choose a department to see the benefits:

  • The ability to extract, store, and report actual expenses from general ledger systems allows users to initialize budgets from actuals and report budgets and actual in the same report or format. Users can compare any required combination of actuals, budgets, and forecasts. 
  • Easily recycle budget models with real-world metrics year after year, version after version. The time taken to create an initial budget is greatly reduced. 
  • The unique design allows for detailed entry of budget information while affording the ability to aggregate and report on each budget at any dimension. 
  • Can be used for decentralized budgeting processes 
  • Can add proposals/invoice/any document associated can be added to the line item 
  • Used for budgeting, forecasting, and variance tracking.  

  • Customizable – firms can put their own structure and calculations, rules, people, etc. 
  • Multi-role capabilities 
  • Integrates with Iridium BI and practice management system (Aderant, Elite) 
  • Creating a fully automated budgeting process, the software allows for secure budget entry and management by line item. Staff can securely enter budgets for only their areas of responsibility, which frees up management and improves accountability. 

Key Features

Employee Expense & Revenue Modeling

With secure access to employee profiles (general assumptions and demographics), calculating expenses are quick and accurate. Users can update expense & revenue formulas for both Cash and Accrual accounting methods, enabling the ability to immediately calculate expenses and revenue for all employees within the firm. 

Account Budgeting

Get immediate access into account level information to help plan for operating costs such as rent, marketing, IT, professional development, and business development. The program automates the budgeting process by quickly aggregating data from underlying records.

CAP EX

Model and automate the budgeting for Fixed Assets through the enterprise. Each asset is assigned to a firm defined "asset type" that not only determines the associated capital and depreciation accounts but also assigns the depreciation method and duration. In addition to planning for new capital purchased, existing assets can also be loaded to completely round out the firm’s depreciation budget. 

GL Inquiry

This customizable feature provides secure access to transaction-level detail originating in the firm's underlying GL and AP systems. At a transaction level, views can be grouped any way you like, limited to one or more segments, and/or sorted by any column. You can then drill into transactions to see their component parts, be it checks, vouchers, or general ledger entries. 

Reports

Offering a variety of reports to assist in breaking down and analyzing your budgeting data, reports are dynamic, support drill-down capabilities and can be exported to PDF and Excel. Reports also supply quick links that can immediately take a user from a report into the corresponding data entry screen, enabling instant adjustments or views for more details. 

Integrations

Integration into Elite (Enterprise and 3E) and Aderant Expert ensures timely management of budget-to-actual results, while its ability to forecast both Cash and Accrual based revenue demanded by law firms, simplifies all aspects of budgeting and variance tracking within your firm.

Key Benefits

Increase ownership and decrease approval time

Creating a fully automated budgeting process, the software allows for secure budget entry and management by line item. Staff can securely enter budgets for only their areas of responsibility which frees up management and improves accountability.

Analyze budget variances and collect explanations

By extracting, storing, and reporting actual expenses from general ledger systems, users can initialize budgets from actuals, report budgets and actuals in the same report or format, and compare any required combination of actuals, budgets, and forecasts.

Distribute browser-based worksheets with the integrity of a centralized database

The software’s unique design allows for the most detailed entry of budgeted information while still affording your firm the ability to aggregate and report on each budget at any dimension.

Turn budgeting into a business tool, not an administrative burden

Having the ability to easily recycle budget models with real-world metrics year after year, version after version, time taken to create an initial budget is greatly reduced.

Interested in BigHand Budgeting and Forecasting?
See these resources