UnitedLex faced siloed ERP systems, manual reconciliations, and slow month-end closes, causing inefficiencies and delayed invoicing.
After migrating to Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management, UnitedLex successfully integrated Power BI for real-time analytics and automated workflows.
By unifying data, errors were minimized, cash flow predictability was enhanced, and Days Sales Outstanding decreased by 20–30 days, resulting in greater operational efficiency.
UnitedLex is a legal services provider, helping corporate legal departments and law firms achieve value and drive growth in areas such as litigation and investigations, intellectual property, legal operations, and incident response.
As part of its digital migration, UnitedLex migrated financial and project management processes to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management. This move unified operations, eliminated silos and manual tasks, and enabled the company to deliver accurate invoices to customers on time.
“With Dynamics 365, everything flows better because it’s all standardized with common reference data.”
Nick Hinton, Chief Financial Officer, UnitedLex
Days Sales Outstanding dropped 20–30 days
Founded in 2006, UnitedLex has grown into a global leader in legal innovation, operating in more than 26 jurisdictions with a workforce of over 2,000 employees. The company specializes in litigation and investigations, intellectual property, contracts, incident response, and legal operations. Its mission is to embrace a data-centric approach that reduces friction in commerce and builds competitive advantage through mastery of data.
Before deploying an integrated system, UnitedLex relied on two integrated ERP systems, including Oracle for core finance functions and procurement, AX 2012 for project management and accounting, and additional tools for timesheets, reporting, invoice distribution, and Excel uploads. Data and reporting were siloed, requiring manual consolidation and reconciliation that led to inefficiencies and errors. Month-end close processes were slow and cumbersome due to the number of integrations and the requirement to maintain master data mappings. As the company assessed the need to upgrade its project management and accounting solution, it took an opportunity to look for a single platform to drive operational efficiencies and reduce costs.
UnitedLex sought a single ERP platform that could consolidate finance, project management, timesheets, and reporting into one system. The solution needed minimal customization, scalability for future expansion, and integration with Power BI for real-time analytics.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 met all these requirements. UnitedLex implemented Dynamics 365 Finance and Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, migrating five disparate systems into one unified platform.
The new solution standardized finance, project accounting, procurement, and timesheets in Finance and Supply Chain Management. Automated workflows in Dynamics 365 now handle financial transactions, billing, and timesheet management, while Power BI integration provides real-time dashboards and analytics.
The implementation was ambitious—a five-month turnaround driven by the impending expiration of Oracle and InTapp licenses. The guiding principle of the project was to leverage the power of the tool and not customize, just configure. Finance teams, project managers, shared services, and other business users adopted the system quickly through combined training and user acceptance testing. The project management team played a key role in redesigning processes, particularly around the work breakdown structure (WBS) and category links. The transition to Dynamics 365 gave UnitedLex a single source of truth by unifying data and processes, eliminating silos, and reducing manual reconciliation. Automated workflows have minimized errors and freed up employee time.
“With Dynamics 365, everything flows better because it’s all standardized with common reference data,” says Nick Hinton, Chief Financial Officer, UnitedLex. “The real win was configuring and leveraging the power of the project accounting tool. Previously, we didn’t have this clear link between our SOWs and invoices. Now it’s one for one. You can tie them together exactly. That’s because we’re able to flow it all the way through the application.”
Project data is now centralized in Dynamics 365, giving the company better visibility into the status of all projects in real time. “Having Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and the project in the same system definitely helped from a committed cost and billing perspective because the transactions were there in time,” says Tatyana Wentzel, Director of Corporate Systems, UnitedLex. “Now, if our operations team needs information about a project, they can see all project transactions and they are able to drill down to the source documents.”
“Having Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and the project in the same system definitely helped from a committed cost and billing perspective because the transactions were there in time. Now, if our operations team needs information about a project, they can see all project transactions and they are able to drill down to the source documents.”
Tatyana Wentzel, Director of Corporate Systems, UnitedLex
With financial and project data in one place, UnitedLex has improved its efficiency and accuracy of invoicing. “Having all our critical data in one place, we can more quickly process invoices and manage procurement,” Hinton says. Clients now pay on time, and UnitedLex can predict cash flow with greater accuracy. “Before, invoicing was all over the place. Things went out late, we had to rebuild and reverse and correct. Now we can map out exactly when cash is coming in,” Hinton explains.
UnitedLex has also reduced Days Sales Outstanding (DSO)—a key KPI for invoicing efficiency. “With Dynamics 365, our Days Sales Outstanding dropped by 20 or 30 days because we can predict cash flow and we’re getting invoices out on time and they’re going out accurately, which is massive,” Hinton says.
The operational transformation has extended to the company’s finance team. “We’ve evolved from a single-person-dependent accounting team to an operationally driven accounting team with specialized people around certain accounts,” Hinton explains.
“With Dynamics 365, our Days Sales Outstanding dropped by 20 or 30 days because we can predict cash flow and we’re getting invoices out on time and they’re going out accurately, which is massive.”
Nick Hinton, Chief Financial Officer, UnitedLex
UnitedLex plans to further automate processes and explore AI capabilities. The company’s future initiatives include using the Account Reconciliation Agent in Dynamics 365 to shorten month-end processes and provide real-time visibility. UnitedLex is also interested in implementing character recognition for AP invoices and improved mapping accuracy.
The company is also looking to leverage the power of Dynamics 365 usage based on enhancements being rolled out by Microsoft. For example, using the business performance analytics platform. UnitedLex also plans to use Power Automate to eliminate manual steps, streamline data flows, and connect subsystems for greater efficiency.
By unifying systems, streamlining processes, and embracing automation, UnitedLex has positioned itself for continued growth and innovation in the legal services industry. “We implemented new processes and systems in six months, which was significant,” Wentzel says. “Our consultants and advisors were very skeptical that such major change can be delivered in the timeline we set, but we did it.”
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