I'm Just an e-Bill Part Three: Portal Chaos & OCG Difficulty
- Scan Logic
- Oct 17
- 3 min read
Join us on our six part journey of the e-Billing process with I'm Just an e-Bill!
Part Three: Portal Chaos and Outside Counsel Gudeline (OCG) Difficulty
In part one, we introduced Rick Hellers, Scan Logic, and BillSync—the solution hundreds of law firms trust to navigate the e-Billing maze. In part two, we outlined the e-Billing timeline and how it went from a simple handshake to a complex data portal.
The Promise Was Simple. The Reality Is Chaos.
Remember when e-Billing was supposed to make everything easier? One system, standardized formats, streamlined submissions. That was the dream.
Fast forward to today, and the average firm is juggling 15+ different client portals, each with its own rules, formats, and quirks.
Every morning, billing coordinators face the same endless task: logging into Portal A (which requires a password reset every 30 days), then Portal B (which only works in one specific browser), then Portal C (which times out after 10 minutes), and on and on.
Each portal speaks a different language. One demands one file format. Another insists on something completely different. A third uses a custom format that your billing software doesn't support without expensive integration.
The OCG Problem: When Guidelines Become Problems
But here is where it gets truly difficult: Outside Counsel Guidelines that are both vague and strict at the same time.
You submitted an invoice. It was rejected.
Why? Because one task code appeared too many times, and this particular client's guidelines—buried on page 83 of a 200-page PDF—states that this type of work should "generally not exceed" some percentage. You didn't violate any clear rule. You just failed to guess the hidden limit.
Now you're resubmitting. Again. For the third time this month.
A e-Bill Rejection Cycle
Week 1: Draft invoice, check it against guidelines (the version you have, which may not be current)
Week 2: Submit, wait for automated validation
Week 3: Rejection—"Exceeds rate guidelines"—except the rate was pre-approved
Week 4: Email the team, wait for response
Week 5: Revise and resubmit
Week 6: Second rejection—different reason entirely
Week 7: Fix that issue, resubmit
Week 8: Finally approved, but now you're reconciling work performed two months ago
Multiply this across dozens of clients, hundreds of matters, thousands of invoices. Lost time, money, energy, and care.
Billing coordinators spend 60-70% of their time not on actual billing review, but on:
Reformatting invoices to match portal requirements
Hunting down missing information
Figuring out unclear rejection messages
Manually matching codes between systems
Re-entering data because half the portals do not accept bulk uploads
The Guidelines Arms Race
Meanwhile, guidelines themselves have become increasingly complex. What started as reasonable rules has turned into massive rulebooks.
The problem? These guidelines change constantly, often without notice.
The Technology That Made Things Worse
You'd think technology would solve this. It hasn't.
Most e-billing platforms were built for clients, not firms. They're designed to enforce compliance and create audit trails, not to make submission easier. The result is software that's both rigid and unpredictable.
Here's the worst part: the more complex the system becomes, the more errors occur. The more errors occur, the more controls clients add. The more controls, the more complexity.
It is an endless cycle where everyone is frustrated but no one can escape.
Clients are frustrated that firms "can't follow simple guidelines." Firms are frustrated that guidelines are neither simple nor consistent. Billing coordinators are burning out.
Nobody's winning.
They took a process that was relatively simple (if slow) and made it far more complicated in the name of making it simpler. They created separate systems, instead of standards.
The Birth of BillSync
That's exactly why we built BillSync. We saw firms drowning in portals, burning hours on reformatting, and losing money to delayed payments and rejected invoices. BillSync connects directly to your system and handles the chaos for you—automatically routing invoices to the right portals in the right formats, validating against client guidelines before submission, and tracking every invoice through to payment. No more logging into different portals. No more manual reformatting. No more guessing which version of the guidelines applies. BillSync learns each client's OCGs and handles the complexity in the background, so your team can focus on actual billing work instead of portal gymnastics. One system, all in one place.
Stay tuned for part four where we dive into BillSync so you can see for yourself how it has helped many firms succeed. #BillSync #lawfirmsolutions
Check out the full video series on YouTube.
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