How Warren Averett Turned Time Entry into a Competitive Advantage

Warren Averett brings AI to the timesheet, taking the work that doesn't need a person off its professionals' plates so their attention stays on the work only a person can do.

Key Takeaways

-

- -

Even from the very beginning, there was this feeling that Laurel was just as invested in making this work as we were.

The hidden cost of manual time tracking

For Chris Morrow, Chief Information Officer at Warren Averett, the problem was straightforward. "Nobody likes reporting their time," he says. "It's tedious. It's a burden. And we were very much about making the experience better for our staff at all different levels."

Professionals were required to submit daily time by 9:00 a.m. In practice, that meant starting each morning by reconstructing the previous day from memory.

The firm moves deliberately when it comes to technology. The right tool at the right moment matters more than moving fast. When the AI landscape matured, they were ready.

Getting it right from day one

Warren Averett had done this before. They knew what a good technology rollout looked like, and they knew what a bad one felt like.

"You've got early adopters who want to pilot everything. You've got the majority who treat it like any other change initiative. And then you've got the holdouts," Chris says. "We've done this before. We understand how to guide people through change."

Brittney Robertson, AI Strategy Manager at Warren Averett, had a simple philosophy going into the rollout: use AI for the work people shouldn't have to spend time on.

"When you're working with people, that is not the time to use AI," she says. "Use it for all the things you don't want to do: reorganizing your data in Excel, building out your timesheet. That's not something that adds a lot of value to your life or your relationship with your client. That's just something you have to do."

That framing gave the rollout a clear purpose. Every training session centered on the same idea: this tool is here to make your day easier.

Building an AI program that earns trust across the firm

Warren Averett doesn't just use AI internally. They talk about it with peers. When they meet with other firms, Laurel comes up as a concrete example of what responsible, practical AI adoption looks like in accounting.

"Outside of Copilot, this was the first AI-powered solution the company had ever adopted," Brittney says. "For end users, it signaled something important: leadership wasn't just talking about AI. They were deploying it to make people's jobs easier.”

The implementation itself set a new bar. Warren Averett has worked with roughly 300 software vendors over the years. They know a bad implementation costs the firm in time, trust, and momentum. Laurel cleared that bar in a way most vendors don't, not just by delivering a working product, but by showing up as a genuine partner throughout the process.

We have about 300 pieces of software across our business units. We've had our share of good and bad experiences with software implementations. Laurel is in a tiny group of excellent experiences. Even from the very beginning, there was this feeling that Laurel was just as invested in making this work as we were. That was refreshing, and something we don't see every day. For that reason alone, I recommend the platform.

Professionals spent less on time entry and more time on work

The people who get the most out of Laurel are the ones who simply stopped thinking about time entry altogether. They go about their day, get to the end of it, pull up Laurel, and spend a few minutes putting in their time.

Chris saw this play out most visibly at the partner level. "They're pulled in all different directions all day long," he says. "They're not thinking about how much time they spent on something," Brittney adds. "They get to the end of their day, they pull up Laurel, and their time is there."

"Accountants trust the numbers," Brittney says. "They may not like how they look immediately, but that data informs every decision going forward.

The skeptics became the loudest advocates

When Warren Averett surveyed professionals during the pilot phase, one response stood out: If we don't move forward with Laurel, I quit. A disclaimer followed (just kidding, but I would be really upset) but the point landed.

Chris tells the story of one partner in particular. "He became the biggest cheerleader for this. Because it was just valuable to him. When he became a cheerleader for it, we said: our job's done."

"If Laurel's offline for even a second," Brittney adds, "people are like: oh no. I'm not used to this anymore."

At a firm that holds every tool to the highest standard, that kind of reaction says everything.