5 solutions to boost legal spend management in 2026

Legal spend management can feel like juggling flaming invoices whilst walking a tightrope. From outside counsel fees to everyday operational costs, keeping track of every pound can quickly become overwhelming – especially if you’re relying on spreadsheets, emails and guesswork.

That’s where legal spend management solutions come in. The right tools give finance and legal teams visibility, control and automation, helping you cut errors, streamline approvals and make smarter, data-driven decisions.

We’ll cover what legal spend management software is and introduce you to five solutions that’ll help you transform the way your team manages legal spend in 2026.

Key takeaways:

• Legal spend management software tracks, analyses and optimises every legal expense – from outside counsel fees to internal costs – giving teams visibility, control and the ability to make smarter, data-driven financial decisions.
• Visibility is everything. The best tools give you real-time insight into every legal expense, helping you track pending, approved and paid spend across all matters.
• From invoice validation to approvals, smart automation reduces manual work, prevents errors and keeps teams compliant. It’s a real time saver for your finance and legal teams.
• Flexibility and collaboration matter. Look for tools that let you customise workflows, integrate with finance systems and scale as your legal team grows.

What is legal spend management software?

Legal spend management software is all about helping legal teams take control of where their money goes – and making that process far less painful.

In simple terms, legal spend management software is a set of tools designed to track, analyse and optimise the money spent on legal matters, from outside counsel fees to internal expenses.

Traditionally, legal spend was tracked the old-fashioned way: spreadsheets, email threads and a fair bit of guesswork. Invoices came in, someone manually checked them against guidelines and reporting often meant hours of digging through data that never quite matched up. It worked – until it didn’t.

Today, legal spend management software brings that entire process into the digital age. These tools give legal teams visibility and control over their budgets, automate the admin and surface insights that help them make smarter decisions.

Whether it’s through dedicated legal spend management systems, expense management platforms or tools for matter management, contract lifecycle management and time tracking, the goal is the same: to save time, cut unnecessary costs and make every legal pound or euro work harder.

5 solutions for keeping legal spend under control in 2026

Still double-checking legal invoices, chasing approvals or wondering if that outside counsel fee even reached the right person? It might be time to let legal spend management solutions do away with the manual headaches.

We’ve put together a list of solutions that take the guesswork out of managing legal costs, making approvals faster, spend tracking more accurate and visibility across your legal and finance teams crystal clear.

In the table below, you’ll find a quick overview of the types of solutions covered:

Legal spend management systems

When you think of legal spend management systems, think of them as the command centre for your legal budget. These platforms are purpose-built for legal teams, giving them the ability to review invoices, enforce billing guidelines and track external counsel costs in one place. Instead of chasing numbers across emails and spreadsheets, teams get instant visibility into where their money’s going – and where it shouldn’t be.

1. Thomson Reuters Legal Tracker

Thomson Reuters Legal Tracker is one of the most established platforms for controlling and analysing legal spend. It helps in-house legal teams manage outside counsel costs, review invoices against billing guidelines and benchmark performance across firms.

The result? Better visibility, tighter budget control and data-driven decisions on where every legal pound is going. It’s one of the most trusted platforms for bringing structure, visibility and data-driven control to complex legal spend – and that’s why we’ve included it.

Pros and key functionalities:

• Comprehensive spend visibility: See all outside counsel costs in one place, making budgeting and forecasting easier.
• Invoice review automation: Quickly check invoices against billing guidelines to catch errors and enforce compliance.
• Performance benchmarking: Compare law firm costs and efficiency to make smarter decisions about where to allocate spend.

Reasons to choose Thomson Reuters Legal Tracker:

• Reliable functionality
• Seamless integrations
• Efficient handling of confidential information

Source: G2

Pricing: N/A – all pricing is quote-based.

Expense management platforms

Not every legal expense is a law firm invoice. From travel costs to software subscriptions, legal teams deal with plenty of day-to-day spending that adds up fast. That’s where expense management platforms come in. These solutions automate expense tracking, simplify reimbursements and give teams a real-time view of budgets. It’s a modern way to manage spend that’s faster, smarter and far less reliant on manual reporting.

2. Pleo

With more than 1,480 five-star reviews, Pleo is Europe’s most loved and trusted expense management platform.

Managing legal expenses shouldn’t be a maze of invoices, approvals and manual checks. With Pleo, every legal expense – from outside counsel fees to day-to-day operational costs – is captured, reviewed and approved in real time, giving finance and legal teams complete visibility and control.

Automatically route legal invoices to the right approvers, apply matter- or entity-specific rules and keep every step compliant, transparent and on budget. Pleo’s smart automation ensures every expense is validated, coded correctly and ready for payment, whilst built-in analytics turn spend data into actionable insights you can actually use.

Spend less time chasing down missing approvals or reconciling mismatched invoices – and more time focusing on strategic decisions that keep your legal and finance functions aligned, efficient and in control.

Pros and key functionalities:

• Real-time visibility into legal spend: Track every legal invoice from capture to approval and see what’s pending, approved or paid – and get full control over budgets and cash flow.
• Automated invoice validation: Match invoices to purchase orders and approval rules automatically to cut manual checks, prevent duplicates and ensure accuracy.
• Smart approval workflows: Set tailored approval rules by entity, department or matter type to keep compliance tight and decisions fast.
• Integrated insights and analytics: Turn verified invoice data into insights that reveal spend trends, flag anomalies and help spot risks early.
• Integrated insights and analytics: Turn verified invoice data into insights that reveal spend trends, flag anomalies and help spot risks early.

Reasons to choose Pleo:

• Helpful customer support
• Efficient and time-saving solution
• Fast implementation and user-friendly interface

Pricing: Pleo offers monthly or yearly billing, with prices starting at £9.5 per month for up to 3 users.

What do our users say about Pleo?

“The software is a killer. It is really easy to get an overview of your own and your company expenses. I used to be really bad at getting my receipts tracked but Pleo notifies me instantly to take a photo of it.”

- CEO Christian Weis H., G2

Matter management software

Legal work is rarely simple. Matter management software helps legal teams bring order to the chaos by keeping all case-related information – from documents and deadlines to budgets and billing – in one central hub. It connects the dots between work done and money spent, so teams can monitor progress, control costs and ensure no detail slips through the cracks.

3. Brightflag

Brightflag earns its spot on the list for going beyond traditional matter management: it combines matter management with powerful spend analytics, giving legal teams clarity on both workload and cost.

The solution uses AI to read legal invoices, map costs to specific matters and surface insights on how time and money are being spent. That means legal teams can manage workloads and budgets in one place – without juggling multiple systems or spreadsheets.

Pros and key functionalities:

• Matter-level spend tracking: Monitor costs across every case or project, giving teams clarity on where resources are going.
• AI-powered invoice analysis: Automatically map legal invoices to the right matters and spot inconsistencies fast.
• Streamlined workflows: Keep matter management, billing and approvals connected in a single platform.

Reasons to choose Brightflag:

• User-friendly and intuitive platform
• Seamless implementation process
• Strong customer support

Source: G2

Pricing: N/A – all pricing is quote-based.

Contract lifecycle management tools

Contracts are where a lot of legal value – and risk – lives. CLM tools streamline the entire contract journey, from drafting and negotiation to execution and renewal. Beyond saving time, they also help legal teams track obligations and financial commitments, reducing costly oversights. It’s not just about managing documents: it’s about managing the money tied to them.

4. Contractbook

Contractbook helps legal and business teams manage the entire contract journey – from drafting and signing to storing and analysing – all in one collaborative workspace. By automating key steps and tracking financial obligations, it turns contracts from static documents into dynamic data sources that drive smarter spend and compliance decisions.

It makes the list for turning contract management into a seamless, automated process that helps teams stay compliant and financially efficient.

Pros and key functionalities:

• End-to-end contract visibility: Track every stage of the contract lifecycle – from drafting to renewal.
• Automated obligations tracking: Ensure key financial commitments and deadlines are never missed.
• Collaboration and approvals: Streamline contract negotiation and sign-off with internal and external stakeholders.

Reasons to choose Contractbook:

• Clean and modern user interface
• Simple and efficient contract management
• Excellent customer support

Source: G2

Pricing: Contractbook starts at €399.00 per month and includes an unlimited number of users and contracts.

Time tracking and billing tools

Whether you’re in-house or in private practice, time is money – quite literally. Time tracking and billing tools make it easier to capture hours accurately, assign costs to the right matters and ensure billing transparency. They take the pain out of manual timesheets and guesswork, giving both finance and legal teams a clear picture of effort versus expense.

5. Harvest

Harvest makes time tracking simple, transparent and insight-driven. It helps legal teams and firms capture billable hours accurately, connect them to projects or matters and generate clear, data-backed invoices. With real-time visibility into time and costs, teams can stay on top of budgets and make more informed decisions about resource allocation.

We’ve included Harvest for its simplicity and precision in tracking time and costs, helping legal teams turn hours worked into clear, accurate billing data.

Pros and key functionalities:

• Accurate time capture: Record hours worked on matters or projects with minimal effort.
• Effort-to-cost transparency: Connect time tracking to budgets and billing for clear visibility of legal spend.
• Insights for resource planning: Spot trends in time allocation to improve project management and cost control.

Reasons to choose Harvest:

• Seamless integrations
• User-friendly interface
• Strong invoicing functionality

Source: G2

Pricing: Harvest offers a free version. Priced plans start at $11 per seat per month.

What to look for in a legal spend management solution

Choosing the right legal spend management tool can make a world of difference for finance and legal teams. The right solution should simplify approvals, give clear visibility over every expense and help you stay compliant – all whilst saving time and reducing errors.

Here’s what to look for:

• Automatic expense capture: Look for solutions that let you capture invoices and receipts instantly, with all key details ready for review – this’ll help you reduce errors from manual entry.
• Smart validation checks: To prevent duplicates and errors, choose a solution that can match invoices to purchase orders, approval rules and vendor records.
• Custom approval workflows: You want to be able to tailor approval flows by department, matter or spend threshold so the right people sign off every time.
• Real-time visibility: Being able to see all legal spend at a glance – pending, approved or paid – with full audit trails for easier reconciliation is a valuable feature.
• Budget and policy controls: This feature lets you link expenses to budgets and company policies to ensure compliance before payments are made.
• Integrated analytics: Look for tools that let you turn validated spend data into actionable insights that highlight trends, risks and opportunities for cost control.
• Seamless integrations: Connecting with accounting and ERP systems lets you sync approvals, invoices and payments automatically.
• User-friendly and scalable: Choose a solution that’s intuitive, collaborative and flexible enough to grow with your team.

A strong legal spend management solution isn’t just about tracking invoices: it’s about giving your legal and finance teams confidence, clarity and control over every pound spent. With the right tools, you can automate admin, spot risks before they escalate and make smarter, data-driven decisions.

Final thoughts

Legal spend management doesn’t have to be stressful. With the right combination of systems – whether it’s a dedicated legal spend platform, an expense management tool, matter management software, CLM tools or time tracking solutions – you can simplify approvals, improve accuracy and gain full control over your budgets.

Investing in the right tools isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about empowering your legal and finance teams to make confident, data-driven decisions that keep costs under control, reduce risk and ensure every pound spent works harder for your business.