A remittance that does not add up
Your social enterprise is paid by the council per unit delivered: per day of a day opportunity, per hour of support, per placement week, per journey. There are three contracts with two departments and several individual care packages, each with its own purchase order.
At month end the finance officer asks the service managers for their unit counts. They come back as emails, a spreadsheet and a photo of a register. She raises the invoices in Xero. Two weeks later, one comes back rejected because the PO number expired at the end of the financial year and a new one was issued to a different email address. Another is part-paid, with a remittance that deducts two days because the council's own records show the person was in hospital. A third has not been paid at all, and nobody can find out why.
Why council invoicing is so fragile
Councils pay reliably when an invoice matches exactly what their systems expect. Each part of that match is a place where things break.
- Every contract or individual package has its own PO, which changes at year end or when a package is reviewed.
- Unit counts are gathered from service managers by hand at month end.
- Rates change at uplift time, and old rates linger in invoice templates.
- Councils want a backing schedule, such as a list of people, dates and units, in their own format.
- Absences, hospital stays and cancelled sessions are treated differently under each contract.
What is chargeable when a person is absent, and what the contract rate is, come from your contract and the council. We do not advise on those terms. We make the invoice follow them consistently.
What rejected and late invoices cost
Cash flow first. A social enterprise with thin reserves feels a council payment that is six weeks late. Staff wages do not wait for remittances.
Then time. The finance officer spends days each month chasing, resubmitting and reconciling part-payments, and the service managers are pulled in to explain unit counts from memory.
Some income is simply lost: units delivered but never invoiced because they were missed at month end, or small deductions that were never challenged because nobody could prove what was delivered.
Invoices built from what was delivered
What we build takes invoicing from the delivery records, not from memory.
- Each contract and individual package is set up with its PO number and expiry, rate, unit type, invoicing frequency, the council contact and the backing schedule format they want.
- Delivery is recorded daily by staff, such as attendance, hours or journeys, with absences and their reason, on a tablet or phone.
- At month end, units are calculated per package under that contract's rules for absences and cancellations, and the finance officer reviews a draft before anything is sent.
- Invoices are created in Xero or QuickBooks through their APIs with the right PO, rate and reference, and the backing schedule is attached in the council's format.
- POs approaching expiry, and packages with no PO, are flagged weeks in advance so a new one can be requested.
- Remittances are matched to invoices, and any deduction is shown against the delivery records so you can see whether to query it.
| Invoice problem | What catches it |
|---|---|
| Expired PO | Expiry date on the package, flagged ahead |
| Wrong rate after uplift | Rate held per contract with a start date |
| Missed units | Units calculated from daily delivery records |
| Schedule in the wrong format | Council's own format generated automatically |
| Unexplained deduction | Remittance compared with delivery records |
Month end, a few months later
On the second working day of the month the finance officer reviews the draft invoices: fourteen packages across three contracts, units already calculated. One package has no current PO; the request went to the council three weeks ago and is still outstanding, so she holds that invoice and chases. The rest go out the same day with their schedules.
When a remittance deducts a day, she opens the package and sees the person was recorded as present with a note from the support worker. She sends the council the record, and the day is paid next month.
Is this your council invoicing?
- Unit counts are gathered by email at month end.
- Invoices are rejected for expired or missing PO numbers.
- Rate changes are missed on some invoices.
- Remittances include deductions you cannot easily check.
- Council payments are regularly later than your terms.