Month-end invoicing by rummaging
At month end, someone in accounts produces invoices for every contract. The monthly monitoring fee is easy, because it repeats. Everything else is harder: samples charged per analysis, quarterly tasks billed when completed, extra outlets added mid-contract, a resample the client requested, a callout, a small remedial job done on a monitoring visit.
To catch those, the person invoicing reads engineer reports, lab records and emails. Some clients need a purchase order number on the invoice, and the number is in a different email. Some want one invoice per site, others one per month for the whole estate. Things get missed, and when they are found the following month, clients query the late charge.
Why billing and delivery do not line up
- Price terms are in the contract, not in the invoicing system.
- Completed work is recorded in reports, not as billable lines.
- Samples are billed per analysis but recorded on a chain of custody form.
- Client invoicing preferences and purchase order numbers are held in email.
- Small extras done on site are mentioned in report comments only.
Accounts staff are not the problem. They are being asked to reconstruct delivery from documents that were never designed for billing.
Where the money leaks
Unbilled samples, extra tasks and small jobs add up across a year. Late charges cause disputes and slow payment. Clients who receive invoices without the right purchase order number send them back, which delays cash for a whole month in some cases.
And accounts spend days each month on a job that should be a check, not a reconstruction.
Invoices assembled from the work itself
- Each contract's price terms are recorded: monthly fee, per-sample prices by analysis, rates for extra tasks, callout rates, and how the client wants to be invoiced.
- Completed visits, samples sent and jobs closed become billable lines automatically, with the site, date and reference.
- Engineers can add chargeable extras in their visit form, which appear as lines for accounts to approve.
- At month end, draft invoices are prepared per client in the format they want, with purchase order numbers attached from the contract or job.
- Accounts review the drafts, approve them, and they post to Xero, Sage or QuickBooks through the API.
- Anything that could not be priced, such as a task with no rate on the contract, is listed for a person to decide.
| Charge type | Source record | Becomes |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly monitoring fee | Contract | Recurring line, checked against visits done |
| Samples | Sample register | Line per analysis at contract price |
| Extra tasks | Engineer visit form | Line for approval |
| Callouts | Callout job | Line at callout rate |
| Remedial works | Accepted quote and job | Invoice at quoted value |
Month end as a review, not a hunt
Accounts open a list of draft invoices that already hold everything delivered. Their job becomes checking and approving. Clients receive complete invoices in the format they asked for, with the right references, and queries are easier to answer because each line links to the visit or sample behind it.
A worked example: a hotel group has a monthly fee covering four buildings, per-analysis sampling at two of them, and a small TMV repair done on a monitoring visit. In the old process, the fee goes out on time, the samples follow when someone notices the lab certificates, and the repair is forgotten. In the new one, all three appear on the same draft invoice, split by site because that is how the hotel group asked to be billed, with its purchase order number already attached.
Are you under-billing?
- Invoicing involves reading engineer reports.
- Samples or extra tasks are sometimes billed a month late or not at all.
- Invoices come back for missing purchase order numbers.
- Clients query charges and you have to find the evidence.
- Month-end invoicing takes several days.