Case study

Amazon.com: Managing worldwide legal spending with Legal Tracker

Amazon.com, Inc., a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995. Today, Amazon aims to continually raise the bar of the customer experience by using the internet and technology to help consumers find, discover and buy anything, and empower businesses and content creators to maximise their success. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.

The challenge

From Ankara to Zurich, Amazon.com speaks the international language of commerce. As a result, the law department confronted a number of unique challenges when working with its overseas business units and law firms.

For example, paper bills and tax information needed to be routed for approval around the world and then booked to the correct ledger – which became increasingly difficult as the company expanded.

“Often our work spans multiple countries and departmental budgets, and the invoices have to be reviewed by everyone involved,” said Sam Bernstein, Senior Legal Operations Manager at Amazon.com. “We needed a Web-based tool to handle our workflows around the world so that I could centrally manage the legal department’s billing, budgeting, and spend reporting from Seattle.”

The solution

Thomson Reuters Legal Tracker™ gives the Amazon law department the tools they need to efficiently process international invoices. Now, for example, international tax and entity information for each invoice is automatically routed to local business units for review.

Amazon also configured Tracker to hold invoices until the vendor has been set up in both the U.S. and international AP systems. According to Bernstein, “that feature alone made international billing easier.” Today, Amazon uses Tracker to collect invoices, budgets, and unbilled time from 100% of its firms, which operate in more than 90 countries. With the built-in currency conversion in Tracker, Amazon can review all financials in both U.S. dollars and native currencies.

In short, Bernstein said, “Amazon’s international legal billing processes are built on Tracker – and it does a great job.”

The legal tracker advantage

Tracker’s unique international capabilities make it the right choice for companies with legal work around the world. Because Tracker is Web-based and accepts bills in any file format, law departments can connect 100% of their outside counsel – regardless of the firm size or location. Invoices can then be instantly routed to approvers around the world and batched for delivery to the appropriate AP department. Plus, the Tracker Worldwide Directory of Firms includes 18,000+ firms in more than 160 countries. This tool simplifies the process of identifying, assigning, and tracking firms already connected to Legal Tracker.

See what Legal Tracker can do for your department

Legal Tracker is a robust matter management, e-billing, reporting, and analytics solution that maximizes your legal department’s efficiency and value