End of month in the finance inbox
Twenty freelancer invoices arrive in the last few days of the month. Some are PDFs from accounting software, some are Word documents, one is a photo of a handwritten sheet. They reference the job as "the summer campaign", "Nick's project" or nothing at all. The bookkeeper forwards each one to the person she thinks booked it and waits.
A designer billed five days where four were agreed. A copywriter invoiced twice for the same week under two invoice numbers. A video editor's invoice was meant to be recharged to the client at cost plus handling, but it was paid and coded to general freelance costs, so the client was never billed for it.
Why the checks do not happen
- The booking, the agreed rate and the number of days usually live in a WhatsApp message or email from weeks ago.
- Purchase orders, if the agency uses them, are raised in one place and invoices arrive in another with no reference to them.
- The person who approves the invoice is the producer who booked the freelancer, and they approve from memory.
- Rechargeable costs are decided at quote stage but nothing carries that decision through to the bill.
- Freelancers are paid quickly to keep them happy, so checking feels like it gets in the way.
The underlying problem is that the booking, the invoice and the client bill are three separate pieces of paper with nothing joining them.
The quiet cost of unchecked bills
Overbilled days and duplicate invoices are paid because nobody compared them. Rechargeable costs are absorbed by the agency, which is money the client had agreed to pay. Month-end takes longer because the bookkeeper is chasing approvals. When a client disputes a recharge, there is no clean record of what was booked and at what rate.
The invoice matching we build
- Every freelancer booking gets a reference, created when the work is confirmed, with the agreed days, rate, client and job, and whether the cost is rechargeable.
- Freelancers are asked to put the reference on their invoice, and the booking confirmation they receive includes it.
- Invoices sent to a dedicated address are read automatically. A document extraction step pulls supplier, dates, days, rate, total and any reference, whatever the format.
- Each invoice is matched to a booking by reference, or suggested by freelancer and dates when the reference is missing.
- Differences are flagged for a person: more days than booked, a different rate, a possible duplicate, no matching booking.
- Invoices that match go into Xero or QuickBooks as draft bills already coded to the right client and job, for finance to approve.
- Rechargeable lines are queued against the client, so they appear when the next client invoice is prepared.
| Check | What is compared | If it does not match |
|---|---|---|
| Days and rate | Invoice against booking | Flag to the producer who booked |
| Duplicate | Invoice number, amount and dates | Held for finance |
| Reference | Invoice against open bookings | Suggested match to confirm |
| Recharge | Booking marked rechargeable | Added to the client's next bill |
| Bank details | Against the details you already hold | Held and verified by phone |
The bank details check matters. A change of bank details on an invoice is a common route for fraud, and we hold those for a person to verify rather than accept them automatically.
Month end with matching in place
Most freelancer invoices go straight to draft bills with the right coding. The bookkeeper spends her time on the handful that are flagged, each with the booking shown next to the invoice so the producer can answer in a sentence. Recharges appear on client invoices without anyone having to remember them. Freelancers are paid on time because approval no longer waits for someone to find an old message.
Is your agency here?
- Freelancer invoices are approved by memory rather than against a booking.
- You have paid for more days than were agreed, and found out later.
- Rechargeable freelancer costs sometimes never reach the client invoice.
- Invoices arrive with no job reference at all.
- Month-end waits on producers to confirm freelancer bills.