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Advice on Billing Steps

We are about to begin our first full cycle using Clients and Profits and I was hoping to hear from users as to how they handle their billing...specifically progressive monthly billing. What steps are followed? How much time is allowed? Do you continue to enter time and expenses against the jobs even after a snapshot is taken of the costs being reviewed for billing?

Diane Elliott Deardorff Associates

We make sure everything is in the system for the month before >we do the billing,(time, expenses costs). Then everything for the new month is held until billing has been posted.

Cheryl Rankin Anderson Partners

Our billing cycle is 1/3 down after budget is approved and every 2 weeks until project is completed. We determine the budget in advance of doing the work, and bill to budget (unless a change order is written.) We determine the billing amts by looking at the date signed and the job's Due Date. If the jobs is held up and not completed on the Due Date, we just move the date out on the final invoice to whatever the new job Due Date is. When we send the final invoice the job is closed. No more costs or time can go into the job.

Jonathan Gundlach Hanson Dodge

We do the same. In addition, we bill substantial expenses from purchase orders. And we're as unrelenting about requiring P.O.s as we are about time sheets. C&P allows you to include P.O.s on progress billings, and the job ledger keeps an accurate balance of over/under payments by task. These are easily "cleared" by a final client billing once all vendor invoices have been received.

Russ Norwood 2g Marketing Communications

I should also add that we mainly use the progress billing function. We continue to add costs and time to jobs until it has been completed/ closed. We leave a clause at the end of every invoice (see set up > preferences >invoice options) that states miscellaneous charges will be billed at a later date.

Ryann Harnist Vaughn Wedeen Creative, Inc

Thank you for responding. Can I ask for some more details? What report do you run for review? How long do you allow the AE's to turn them around? Do you not enter additional time until the invoice has been generated? I'm not as concerned about expenses that have not been received as I am about updating job costs with time sheet entries.

Diane Elliott Deardorff Associates

This is very helpful to us as well. Thank you for conducting this conversation within the group, and not off line.

Natalie Gerngross Gerngross & Company

We also do monthly billings. It was an issue trying to get all current costs billed when we as a company had not yet been presented with an invoice. I have tried several different ways to keep current on all job costs but have found the following most productive... We track everything immediately to the job by entering job costs as EXPENSES. For instance, credit card purchases are entered on the day of the purchase rather than waiting for the actually bill. We will estimate costs on other services that may not provide us with an immediate invoice. These are mainly shipping charges, long distance expenses and messenger/ delivery, etc... I implemented this system 3 months ago and have yet to experience negative feedback from our clients, account executive's or our principals.

Ryann Harnis Vaughn Wedeen Creative, Inc.

We do billing in probably every way that Clients & Profits allows (itemized, nonitemized, monthly, mid-month, work-in-progress, 1/3-1/3-1/3, bill to estimate, etc.). Once we run billing reports, we continue to enter A/P, expenses and time on the job. Because we accrue costs, sometimes the costs are still being entered after the job has been billed in full.

Shay Stockdill Strategies

I used to hold off the entry of expenses for the next month until all costs and billings were entered for the previous month but this caused problems for a number of reasons. Sales reps and managers were continually frustrated because costs were not up to date on their jobs and when the month was opened for input a mountain of input needed to be caught up on. So this is what I do to keep both the creative side and the business side happy. Say the month that I am closing off is period 11. In preferences I unlock period 12 to allow the input of costs. At the same time I continue to invoice and close off jobs in period 11. BUT I do no invoicing or job closing for period 12. When all period 11 invoicing is completed I back up the C&P data base to a zip disk from our file server. I then lock period 11 on the server data base. From the backed up data base I print a Work In Process listing using a Job Ticket Summary report. This report includes period 12 costs so I have to break these out. I segregate these costs by going to Snap Shots then Job Cost Reports. I choose Task By Cost, set the appropriate Production Status, set the Work Dates for period 12, include all costs, and set the Accounting Period as 12. These period 12 costs are then deducted from my Work In Progress listing. The resulting figure is the value of WIP at the end of period 11 and I adjust my GL WIP account accordingly. It's not a lot of work and all you have to be is vigilant about cut offs and posting periods. Who said you can't be creative in accounting?

Ward Lindsey Cooper & Williamson Inc.

Your system sounds very similiar to ours. Do you operate on a cash or accrual basis? Also, can I ask which billing method do you use (Job Billing/Estimate Billing/Progress Billing/etc.

Stacey Mejia

How do you handle postage advances received from clients that have not been billed through the A/R module? The company where I work records them as revenue and expense, but these do not always occur in the same period so the gross profit is distorted. I would think there is a straightforward way of handling postage, since it is basically a pass-through .

Alyssa O'Brien