How a leading Legal 500 law firm streamlined their ground transportation program with HQ

Industry:

Law

Client Size:

7000+

Location:

New York

Company Background:

Our client is one of the top ten international law firms with over 40 offices across 30 countries, including their main office in New York City.  The firm is highly respected for its experience handling cross-border and multi-jurisdictional cases and transactions. Additional practice areas include antitrust, asset finance, business, and human rights, capital markets, commercial litigation, construction, data, cybersecurity, debt finance, derivatives, compensation and benefits, intellectual property, environmental, employment, tax, and privacy law.

The Business Need:

Our client sought to upgrade their existing ground transport program.  Traditionally, corporate rides were handled manually including ride booking, ride cost-allocation, and client expenses.  This outdated approach was time-consuming, error-prone, costly, and inefficient.  Furthermore, the client’s previous program lacked transparency in terms of billing validation and verification.  They needed a ground transportation solution that enhanced the booking experience for their employees – both attorneys and executive assistants.

The Solution​​:

We provided our client with an online booking solution that automated the entire ride booking process and provided a self-service functionality.  Our powerful enterprise booking capabilities gave employees the autonomy to book their own ground transportation.  As part of the booking process, we embedded the firm’s travel policy and integrated preferred suppliers to ensure compliance and consistency.  For client billing and expenses, we added a cost-allocation functionality to correctly assign every ride a client/matter number.  This pivotal piece of information allowed the firm to accurately track all rides per client for billing purposes.

We added a billing validation process to quickly identify and safeguard against invoice discrepancies and errors, including incomplete or incorrect invoice data, duplication of rides/ invoices, and incorrect charges within ride price.  In the case of an error, our system automatically requested the supplier to correct and resubmit the invoice.  This helped to cut costs, and increase spend visibility significantly.

The Results:

• From an invoice and billing perspective, we saved our client over $170,000 in ground transportation costs by flagging invoice errors and discrepancies.  Mistakes included duplicative invoices or rides, incorrectly billed accounts, and erroneous supplier ride prices.

 

• We added the functionality to have a cost allocation code and client/matter number within the booking process so our client could accurately track and bill rides per client.

 

• The HQ SummitGround invoice review process saved significant time and increased efficiency.

 

• In one year, our system reviewed over 60,000 rides which saved over 5,000 hours of accounting review time, assuming 5 minutes for each ride reviewed manually by the accounting department.

 

• Our billing and payment software replaced time-consuming tasks with an automated, seamless, and technology-driven process. The billing validation process, seamless booking system, and labor hours saved resulted in a 160% Return-on-Investment for our client.

Client Testimony

“We have worked with HQ for many years and are very happy with our partnership.  Our employees can book their rides easily with quality suppliers, with all the billing and payment processed through HQ SummitGround simplifying our accounting and finance while ensuring we are paying the right amount for each ride. We have real-time access to data and information dramatically increasing the transparency of our program and our ability to manage it accordingly.”  –  Client, Senior Manager