Unity's Appeals feature offers clients and vendors a streamlined process for reconciling adjusted fees or expenses. When an invoice is adjusted during the review process, clients can resolve disputed line items by sending the invoice back to the vendor for review. The vendor can then appeal any adjustments, providing justifications or supporting documentation for their charges, or accept the adjustments, allowing the invoice to continue processing for payment.

Here's how to use the Appeals feature during the invoice process:

Setup

Contact Onit support to enable the Appeals feature in the Unity administrative settings. Once enabled, you'll need to configure the appeal parameters in invoice settings.

1. Open ELM Settings in the "Settings" section of the left-hand menu.

   

2. Open the "Invoice Settings" section.

   

3. Open the "Appeals" tab in Invoice Settings. 

   Here, specify the following:

   • Vendor Response Window per Appeal Round: How long the vendor has to appeal (in days) per round.
   • Maximum Appeal Rounds: The maximum number of appeal rounds the vendor is allowed.
   • Third-Party Reviewers: If your organization employs a third-party reviewer to examine invoices and appeals, select the reviewer(s) from the drop-down menu; click the X next to any selected reviewers to remove them from the list.

   Click Save Settings to finalize the Appeals settings or Reset to Default to remove the changes. 

1. Important: When assigning a vendor to a matter, check the "Appeals Functionality" box to enable appeals for that vendor. 

   

Using Invoice Appeals

1. Open the invoice from the "Invoices" section on the left-hand menu.

   

2. Make any needed line-item adjustments or invoice-level adjustments, as described below.

   Click one of the line items at the bottom of the page to make your adjustment. Click Save to finalize the change or Cancel to back out. 

   You can also click Reset to undo all of your changes. 

   

   Open the Invoice Actions menu and then click Adjust Invoice to perform invoice-level adjustments.  

   

   

3. After making the adjustments, click "Send for Appeals" at the top of the screen. 

    

   

4. You'll see a message at the top of the invoice screen that details how many days and rounds the vendor has left to appeal the invoice.

   The invoice status will also change to Under Appeal. 

   

   The vendor will receive an email notifying them of the adjustment and letting them know how long they have to appeal the invoice. Vendor users will also receive a notification on the invoice directly within their Counsel Exchange account and see a banner at the top of the screen reminding them of the appeals deadline.

   Vendors will see the specific line items that have been adjusted at the bottom of their screen. The vendor has two response paths:
   • Accept the adjustment: Click Acknowledge Invoice Adjustment to accept and forward the invoice to the next designated approver on the client side.
   • File an appeal: Use + Add Line Comment to add a comment on each disputed line item detailing the requested change. The vendor can also add an overall comment and attach a supporting file before submitting. Then click Appeal to submit the appeal back to the client.

5. If the vendor appeals the changes, you'll see the "Vendor-Appealed Adjustments" section appear on the invoice.

   You'll see all of their proposed changes on the screen, along with the number of appeal rounds remaining and days remaining. 

   Click View Appeal History to review previous rounds. You can also click the Edit or Remove Adjustment buttons to adjust individual lines. 

   

   If you click the Edit button, you can adjust individual line items to send them back to the vendor. You can also add comments at this stage detailing the changes. 

   Click Save to save the change, Cancel to back out, or Reset to undo all your changes. 

   

   If you agree with the vendor's appeal, click the Remove Adjustment button; the line item will revert to the original amount. Then click Remove Adjustment again to confirm, or Cancel to back out. 

   

   View Appeal History will show the full appeal history. 

   

   1. Once you've finished reviewing the appeal, click "Send Updates to Vendor".

      Here, you can also choose to Close Appeal Window. 

      

   2. Repeat the appeals process until both parties are satisfied or the maximum number of appeal rounds is reached.