Time Capture and Billing Agent
The Time Capture and Billing Agent reconstructs time entries from emails, documents and calendars, and writes clear, specific billing narratives. Before invoices go out, it checks fees against the engagement letter, agreed tariffs or caps and budget, so your pre-bills are accurate and easy to approve.
Ideal forPartners
The difference
From 3-4 hours per week per fee earner on time capture and pre-bills to 45-60 minutes
Fee earners spend more time on client work, and billing cycles close faster with fewer write-offs.
Done by hand
3-4 hours per week per fee earner on time capture and pre-bills
With the Vanine agent
45-60 minutes
Time returned to your team
75%
Indicative figures. We measure your own baseline in the first fortnight so the numbers you see are yours.
Recover time that is never recorded
Busy practitioners reconstruct timesheets from memory and lose billable work. The agent suggests entries from actual activity, so less time goes unbilled.
Narratives that reduce queries
Vague descriptions invite disputes and write-offs. The agent writes clear narratives that show the client what was done and why.
Invoices that match what was agreed
The agent checks rates, fee caps, estimates and disbursements against the engagement terms before billing, avoiding awkward corrections after the invoice is sent.
Capabilities
Capture every billable hour and send invoices clients are happy to pay.
Built for attorneys, advocates, billing teams and finance managers at South African law firms and legal departments that bill by time or fixed fees.
Activity-based time suggestions
Builds suggested time entries from emails sent, documents edited, calls and calendar events, matched to the right client and matter.
Billing narratives
Writes concise, professional narratives for each entry, following client billing guidelines where they apply.
Engagement terms checks
Compares time and fees against the engagement letter, agreed rates, caps and estimates, and flags overruns before they reach the client.
Pre-bill review
Prepares pre-bills for each matter with flagged entries, duplicate time and block billing highlighted for the responsible attorney.
Disbursement checks
Checks that disbursements such as sheriff fees, counsel's fees and search costs are recorded and supported before billing.
WIP and budget tracking
Reports work in progress against budget by matter and alerts partners when a matter is approaching its estimate.
How it works
From your systems to a result you sign off
Fee earners confirm their time, the responsible attorney approves each pre-bill, and invoices are issued by your billing team.
Connect the places your billing records already live.
Outlook email and calendar, documents in iManage, NetDocuments or SharePoint, and matters, rates and engagement terms from your practice management system. Already use something else? We connect that too.
- OpenAI Frontier
- Your own AI platform or models
- Microsoft 365 (Teams, SharePoint, Outlook, Excel)
- Copilot Studio
- LegalSuite, GhostPractice, AJS, Clio
- iManage and NetDocuments
- Outlook calendar and email
Runs daily in the background and on request in Teams, Copilot Studio or OpenAI Frontier.
Suggested time entries and pre-bills in LegalSuite, GhostPractice, AJS or Clio, with billing exception reports in Excel.
Step by step
- 01
The agent reviews each fee earner's daily activity.
- 02
It suggests time entries with narratives for confirmation.
- 03
Fee earners accept, edit or reject each entry.
- 04
At billing time it checks fees against the engagement terms and budget.
- 05
The responsible attorney reviews and approves the pre-bill.
- 06
Your billing team issues the invoice.
Deployment
Runs inside the tools your team already uses
The same agent and the same cited output, delivered three ways: through the AI assistant you have rolled out, on a model you host yourself, or inside your own software.
In the frontier assistant you already pay for
We publish the agent as an MCP server. Add it as a connector and your team calls it from the chat they use every day, with no new tool to learn.
"Read the week’s emails, documents and calendar"
- fee earner
- Senior associate
- week
- Week 38
On a model you host yourself
Run the agent on open-weight models in your data centre or private cloud. Your billing records never leave your network, which keeps POPIA and data residency straightforward.
- Llama
- Mistral
- Ollama
- or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint
Inside your own software
Trigger a run from your own workflows, and push the finished output into your ERP, GRC or reporting systems. We build the integration with your team.
- REST API
- Webhooks
- Batch jobs
- Embeddable review panel
Governed the same way, every route
Whichever way your team reaches the agent, identity, permissions and audit stay with your existing controls.
- Single sign-on through Entra ID, Okta or Google Workspace
- Reads only the documents each user is already allowed to open
- Every tool call written to an audit log you can export
How we deliver it
One agent, three ways to hold it
Start where your team already works, then take it as far into your systems as the value justifies.
DATA SECURITY & PRIVACY
Your billing records stay yours.
The agent runs inside your tenancy, reads only what each task needs, and never trains on your billing records. Every step is logged so your auditors can see exactly what it touched.
Built for regulated work.
+YOUR BILLING RECORDS NEVER LEAVE YOUR ENVIRONMENT
More agents
More agents we build for South African enterprises
Each one is built on the same foundation: your documents, your rules, and your people signing off.
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