Invoices out, money not in
The repair is done and the customer is happy. The invoice goes to the work provider. Three weeks later someone notices it is still unpaid, logs into the portal and finds it was rejected because the invoice total did not match the authorised figure. A supplementary was approved by phone but not recorded in the portal. Or the excess was deducted in the wrong place. Or the invoice was sent before the satisfaction note.
Multiply that by a few hundred jobs a year and a good chunk of your money is always sitting somewhere between 'invoiced' and 'paid'.
Invoices are rejected for small, avoidable reasons
Work providers match invoices against what they authorised. Anything that does not match is queried, and each provider has its own quirks about what must be on the invoice, where the excess goes, which documents must be attached and which items need separate approval.
- Supplementaries approved outside the portal are not on the authorised total.
- Parts prices on the invoice differ from the estimate because the supplier price changed.
- Required documents (satisfaction note, final images) are missing.
- Excess and betterment deductions are shown differently to how the provider expects.
- Rejections arrive in portal messages that nobody checks daily.
The cost of money stuck in queries
Late payment squeezes cash flow in a business that pays for parts, paint and wages every week. Each rejected invoice costs admin time to investigate and resubmit, and some are simply forgotten until someone reconciles the ledger. Small differences that are not worth arguing over are written off without anyone recording why.
Because payment terms differ by work provider, it is also hard to tell which invoices are late and which are just not due yet.
A typical case: a supplementary for a parking sensor and a bracket is agreed with the engineer by phone on a busy afternoon. The work is done, the invoice goes in with those items on it, and the provider's system sees a total higher than the authority it holds. The invoice sits in a rejected state. By the time anyone looks, the engineer who agreed it is on holiday and the note of the call is in someone's notebook.
How we build invoice checks and a debtor view
- Before an invoice is sent, it is compared with the authorised estimate and every approved supplementary on the job. Differences are listed for a person to explain or correct.
- A checklist per work provider confirms the documents they require are attached.
- Invoices are recorded with the date sent, route and the provider's payment terms, so due dates are calculated per provider.
- Rejection or query messages from provider portals or email are logged against the invoice, with a reason chosen from a short list.
- A debtor view shows every unpaid invoice by work provider, age and status: not yet due, overdue, rejected, queried.
- Remittances, where they arrive in a readable format, are matched to invoices and passed to your accounting system, such as Xero, where it allows.
| Rejection reason | Where it is caught | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Total differs from authority | Pre-submission check | Record or seek approval first |
| Missing documents | Provider checklist | Attach before sending |
| Excess shown wrongly | Provider template | Set per provider once |
| Parts price changed | Pre-submission check | Raise with provider or adjust |
The check does not decide what you are owed. It points out where your invoice and the provider's authority disagree so a person can deal with it before sending.
What accounts sees each week
One view shows what is owed, by whom, and why it has not been paid. Rejections are seen the day they arrive rather than at month end. The same mistakes stop repeating because the check catches them before the invoice goes.
The data also shows which providers pay slowly and why, which helps when discussing terms at a review.
Signs your invoicing needs this
- Rejected invoices are found weeks after rejection.
- Nobody can quickly say how much each work provider owes.
- The same rejection reasons keep coming back.
- Small differences are written off without a record.
- Reconciling remittances is a monthly headache.