Avoid costly pitfalls in legal translation budget management 

2 Jan 2025

Expanding your business globally without proper translation budget management can lead to significant financial and operational challenges.

Here’s how neglecting key strategies can negatively impact your translation efforts and overall success. 

1. Failing to plan ahead 

Without  identifying your legal translation needs in the early planning stages, you may face inaccurate quotes, unrealistic budgets, and unexpected rush fees. Not discussing your requirements and pricing options with a reputable translation company can disrupt the planning process and ultimately increase costs.  

2. Overlooking the benefits of CAT tools 

Many may not be fully aware of how computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools can significantly enhance legal translation efficiency and consistency. By leveraging features like translation memory, CAT tools help avoid unnecessary duplication of effort and reduce time spent on repetitive content. Without these tools, projects may take longer and costs can increase due to inefficiencies. Embracing CAT tools allows for streamlined workflows, consistent terminology, and overall budget optimisation.  

3. Lacking centralised storage 

Without a centralised repository for your translations, you may struggle to access past work, leading to starting from scratch each time. This disorganisation can cause inconsistencies across legal or financial documents and increase both time and costs. 

4. Overlooking prioritisation and batching 

Neglecting to prioritise essential languages and process your translations in batches can lead to overspending on less critical languages. Without this focus, you may fail to manage costs effectively, missing out on bulk discounts from suppliers and overshooting your budget. 

5. Not providing glossaries 

Without a well-prepared glossary, translators might use terminology inconsistent with your in-house preferences, leading to extensive revisions and corrections. This oversight can increase costs and time spent on review rounds, as well as compromising the quality and coherence of your legal documents. 

Key takeaways 

Mismanaging your translation budget can lead to a cascade of issues, from financial overruns to inconsistent quality. Avoid these pitfalls by planning ahead, leveraging CAT tools, centralising your translations, prioritising essential languages, and providing glossaries.  

For expert guidance and cost-effective solutions, reach out to City Legal Translations. We’re committed to helping you achieve high-quality translations tailored to your business needs. 

Why City Legal? 

Part of your planning process should be finding the best translation agency for you. At City Legal we provide custom quotes so our clients can maintain cost-efficiency and gain legal translations of the highest quality.

At City Legal we are most proud of our dedicated ‘mother-tongue’ language experts. Members of the team are carefully paired with each legal translation project to ensure our clients gain the most accurate translations for their project. Get in touch with our friendly team today. 

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. What are CAT tools and how do they help with translation costs? 
Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) tools streamline the translation process by storing completed translations in a system called translation memory. This enables previously translated content to be reused across similar projects, ensuring consistency and saving both time and money. By reducing repetitive work, CAT tools help optimise translation budgets and improve overall efficiency.  

2. Why is centralised storage of translations important? 
Without centralised storage, accessing previous translations becomes difficult, resulting in time-consuming and expensive efforts to maintain consistency. 

3. How can providing glossaries with preferred terminology save costs? 
Without glossaries, translators might use terminology inconsistent with in-house preferences, necessitating extensive revisions, which increase both time and costs of your translation project. 

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