System Overview

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Mitratech's Corridor Website supports the electronic transmission of invoices using either of two methods:

submitting an invoice by attaching a LEDES 1998B, 1998BI/1998BI V2, or LEDES 2000 format file. A LEDES file (which may contain multiple invoices) is submitted by the firm at the Corridor Website where it is held until it is retrieved by the matter management application.
submitting a single invoice that has been entered into Corridor directly. An XML (extensible Markup Language) file is created that is similar to a LEDES file and is held until it is retrieved by the matter management application. Files that have been created through Corridor are encrypted and cannot be read by any program except Corridor.

Preliminary File Checks in Corridor

At a minimum, the information below will be verified as present in the invoice file before it will be accepted into Corridor. If any of these fields are blank, Corridor will return an error message. The preliminary file checks that take place in Corridor are:

LEDES 1998B, 1998BI/1998BI V2, and LEDES 2000 (if submitting a LEDES formatted invoice file)
Client's Matter Number
Vendor's Tax ID Number (matches Tax ID in Corridor)
Client ID (matches Client ID in Corridor)
Invoice Number
Invoice Total
Invoice Date

In addition, Corridor validates the Client ID field in the invoice file against the Client ID field in Corridor for the receiving client company. If these do not match, Corridor will return an error message.

Additional basic validations occur once an invoice is submitted (either as a LEDES file or from manual entry in Corridor). See Invoice Validations for Submissions for more information.

$images\icn_exclaim.gif$ Further validation occurs once the invoice reaches the matter management application. For example, the file may pass initial checks because a value is entered in the Client Matter Number field, but may be rejected once it reaches the matter management application because the client matter number does not exist in eCounsel or LawManager. Additionally, eCounsel will reject an invoice that does not have a unique Invoice Number.

Invoice Validations for Submissions

When submitting a 1998B, 1998BI/1998BI V2, or LEDES 2000 file or a manually created invoice in Corridor, further validations occur during the submission process and will return errors prior to actual submission. The following is a list of validations that occur:

The line item total does not equal units times rate.
This error occurs for any invoice for which a fee or expense line item total does not equal (rate * units) + discount amount + tax total (if the line item includes a discount and tax). Correct the line item total, rate, units, discount amount, or tax total as needed and re-submit the invoice.
The units field does not contain a value.
For fees and expenses, the units field requires a value. Enter a value, verify the line item total is correct, and re-submit the invoice.
The rate field does not contain a value.
For fees and expenses, the rate field requires a value. Enter a value, verify the line item total is correct, and re-submit the invoice.
The timekeeper identifier field does not contain a value.
For fees, the timekeeper identifier field requires a value. Enter a value, and re-submit the invoice.
The invoice total does not equal the sum of all line items.
This error occurs for any invoice for which the invoice total amount is not equal to the sum of all fees and expenses (including any tax amounts), minus any invoice-level discounts. Correct the invoice total or any fees, expenses, or invoice-level discounts and re-submit the invoice.
The line item date is not within the invoice billing start and end dates.
This error occurs if a line item date is before or after the invoice billing period. Correct the date for the line item or change the invoice billing time period and re-submit the invoice.
The invoice billing start date is after the invoice billing end date.
This error occurs if a date range is not specified correctly for the invoice billing time period. Correct the start or end date and re-submit the invoice.

$images\icn_exclaim.gif$ After encountering a validation error when submitting an invoice(s), Corridor allows you to override the error(s) and submit the invoice(s) with the errors. Be aware that doing so can cause the invoice(s) to be rejected according to the client's billing guidelines.

Invoice Retention Policy

Once an invoice is successfully submitted in Corridor and retrieved by the matter management application, the invoice files and attachments are deleted from the Corridor Website. Only a small amount of information is retained in Corridor in order to track the invoice's progress as it routes through the review/approval process in the matter management application.

The Corridor invoice submission task (internal to Corridor) runs nightly to remove any of the following:

Invoice files that were uploaded more than two hours ago, but not submitted, will be deleted unless the user who uploaded the files is still logged into Corridor.
Any information in Corridor concerning an invoice submission will be deleted by the task after a 12-month period.