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Billing Reports

C&P is new to our agency this year. Each account executive is in charge of their own billing (invoices are created by accounting). Which report doyour AE's review to do billing from?

Thanks,

Italy McElroy H&D Agency

We use the job summary and job costs by task (both of these are printed by individual jobs by client)

Shay Stockdill Strategies

How long does it take from the time you begin printing these reports until you get all your bills out? We just run the Work In Progress reports, and it takes us a day. Before that it usually takes an additional day to be sure all time has been entered and proofed. I would be concerned that by giving the AE's the additional detail it would add a lot of time to the process. We have between 150 - 200 jobs that bill each month.

Jennifer Glick Rainier Corporation

Using this procedure collects all activity...

1. Job Commitments (POs) Report. Highlight all job tasks and click on yellow icon in upper right hand corner. This report has attached to it a copy of the purchase order. When POs are created, we print out 3 copies..one for the Vendor, One for the Job Folder and one for the PO control log book.

2. Job Costs (by Task) Report. Highlight all job tasks and click on the green icon in the upper right hand corner. This report has attached to it a copy of all vendor invoices to support the costs shown in the report.

3. Task Billings Report. Click on the blue icon. This report has attached to it a copy of any invoices sent to the client.

4. A copy of all estimates sent to client for this job.

5. Job Summary Report.

The package is assembled and stapled with the Job summary report first and the Job Commitments Report last.

Armed with this packet, accounting constructs the Billing Preview Invoice. This is generated by printing the Invoice before it is Posted. This billing preview invoice is sent to the AE or person responsible for the job. The packet contains all that is necessary to track all activity related to the job...in one place....consistently organized. The AE then approves the Billing Preview Invoice by initaling it or makes whatever corrections or adjustments are necessary right on the Billing Preview Invoice and sends it back to Accounting.

Accounting makes what ever adjustments are required by the AE's comments, Posts the Invoice and generates the final Invoice. Three copies of the final invoice are made: (1) for the Invoice Number Control Log, (2) one for the Invoices by Client Log, and one for the Job Folder.

Immediately upon creating the final invoice, the job is closed, writing off whatever remains unbilled, and a Final Job Summary Report is generated. This report now contains all job activity, including billing and final profitability percentages, etc. This report is matched with the final invoice and the "Billing Packet" used to generate the invoice, staples together and filed in the Job Folder.

Using this procedure collects all activity relating to a job in one package. We file it in the front of the job folder which is archived by job number. Anyone needing any info about a job has all the data needed in one place. It works great for us!

Art Rogers Bjornson Design

Your system is very thorough and sounds great. Just a couple of questions.

1) Do you bill only when the job is completed or do you progress bill along the way?

2) How many invoices per month?

3) How many hours per month is spent on the invoice process?

4) How long do you give the AE's to approve the prebill invoice?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Laura Karns Hanon McKendry Advertising

We run:

1) snapshots/job costs/work date (our oldest unbilled cost date)/select costs by cost status "unbilled"/include (or exclude) as needed (we bill our time separate from our costs)/show cost notes I like this report better than some of the other reports that users have mentioned because it only lists "unbilled" costs (and time if selected).

2) job tickets/job reports/summaries/job summary

3) snapshots/work in progress reports/billing worksheets/select by AE or client/job billing worksheet (we print all jobs on one page-per client) We only print the job ticket report, Job Commitments (PO), when we are ready to close a job.

Dawn Jaworski Accounting Manager Gabriel Diericks Razidlo

The only reason we don't run the reports off of Snapshots is that it doesn't show you the whole job - I can't compare costs to estimate. We progress bill each month and both the AEs and I need to know exactly where we are on a job - prior billings, estimates, change orders, current costs. You can't get that off of a Snapshot report. And it is time-consuming - I review all job summaries, decide what jobs to bill, what jobs to final close, and what jobs aren't ready to bill. Then, since we are required to send vendor back-up with every invoice, I pull the back-up. Then I double-check to make sure it matches the job summary. If it doesn't, then I pull a job cost report. Then I review with AEs, make revisions, and bill. Then copy. Takes forever. I've told C&P that I would like a report similar to the job summary, but in more detail - so that the summary and job costs are all together on one report.

Mary McMurtrey Just Partners

Hi Mary,

I agree with you - the process is slow and we seem to generate reams of paper. (not exactly eco-efficient). I never look at the snapshot - to me it's completely useless. I wonder if anyone uses it.

I would like to see a summary report that would show estimates, billings to date and current costs (POs and time). I don't send back up to my clients (thank gawd for small mercies) but a more concise report would be nice. The AE's eyes glass over if they have too much detail to look at.

Elizabeth Love Consumer Strategies Group Inc.

Our Account Executives are responsible for their own billing. They review time and costs on their own jobs. We use the snapshot for billing. It is concise and the AE's just enter the next billing amount and date to be billed. We usually do billing once a week. When I receive the snapshot for billing, I also review the jobs detail "on screen" so no extra paper. I review for time not extended properly, status codes that are incorrect and dates entered incorrectly. Since jobs stay on clients and profits for about 2 years before archiving, we can always use them for reference. The problem I have is if we bill for costs before they occur, the system does not automatically apply that billing to the costs when they are posted. I have to "verify" in WIP. This then makes the "detail" agree with the billing amount and unbilled costs. If I do not do the verifying, the detail still shows unbilled costs and it is confusing for the account executives. I do the verifying before the final billing, or in the case of progress billing, I try to monitor the jobs and verify as needed.

Deanna Cummins DAVID K BURNAP ADVERTISING AGENCY INC

I think the job summary will show you all of those items. We run job summaries and then, once we glance over them, if we want to see all the detail for those categories, we run job costs by task. This saves quite a bit of paper, as we don't run the details unless we need them to determine what to bill.

We run one job per page, and then file the summary along with copy of invoice, in the job folder. (Of course, if we have run the billing detail reports, we include them in the job folder also)

Shay Stockdill Strategies

That's what I want too. An old software system I used to use in another agency would show this detail. Under each "task", it would list all POs with vendor name and amount, or if the invoice was in, it listed the invoice # instead of the PO. It was a great report. Maybe if we all got together and requested such a report, the C&P developers could manage it. It would really just be a detailed job summary - the job summary and task costs reports combined.

Mary McMurtrey Just Partners

I found it very interesting how other agencies are handling one of the largest and most important tasks accounting has of billing clients.

We do monthly progress billing on all our projects (125 - 150 jobs) and also require our AE's to review job costs and determine what should be billed. But they certainly are not mathematicians and are not to inclined to really learn how C&P works, we have tried many ways of giving them the needed information.

What we finally found was that the "Job Billing Worksheet" in snapshots falls short of all information needed. Our invoices to clients only show group totals not the individual tasks, but the AE's need to see the actual tasks to see where they are to the estimate and change order amounts.

So we created a custom report called Billing Worksheet, it is similar to the billing worksheet in snapshots but with more needed information, the columns are as follows: 1) Job tasks 2) Estimate amounts for each tasks (this is the amount the client has approved) 3) Change order amounts for each tasks (again this is an additional amount the client has approved) 4) Gross PO Amounts (this is actually open PO's and alerts people of any costs yet to come, if we are final billing the project) 5) Gross Cost (marked up amounts of all outside purchases. 6) Billed amounts (totals of prior months billings for each task) 7) Estimate Remaining (estimate amount less billed amount) 8) Unbilled amounts (any time, inhouse expenses and vendor purchases not billed) 9) Amount to Bill (the AE's write in the amounts for each task that should be billed)

We also have the worksheet subtotal each group for the estimate, billed amount and unbilled columns and then have job totals for the same columns.

The job billing worksheet in snapshots is close, but it only totals the unbilled amounts and does not tell what the remaining estimate amount is, that is needed for progress billings.

Of course some of our AE's still need more help, since they seem to have an aversion to looking up any cost information in C&P and for those few we will print out the task cost information and write notes to them on the worksheet to review the costs closely. This does take more time for the accounting department but has saved the company many dollars the AE's would have glazed over.

Laurie Wilkinson Reed Sendecke, Inc.

There is a report that I beleive addresses your needs without killing lots of trees. Go to JOB TICKETS->PRINT REPORTS (or use the printer icon). Then choose SUMMARIES on the yellow section-left side. Three reports in the checklist on the right will provide the info you seek, depending on how you want to see it: "Job Type Summary", "Client Job Summary", and AE/Team Summary". These reports list catagory tallies of several jobs on each page.

Martin Pennoni Consultant

Try the Job Summary Report

Art Rogers Bjornson Design

I will add my name to this wish list item. It always scares me when you start asking AE's to become Accountants and run multiple reports and worry about issues like gross v net etc. Why not just a simple billing report with all costs, all PO's with description and all change orders. You shouldn't have to run 4 reports to get this information!

Jerry Bray, COO Harvey & Daughters

While this type of report seems possible, it's actually not. PO's, Costs, and Billings all reside in different files which makes them incompatible on the same report in a detailed format.

One suggestion would be to give the AE's the job summary report, then if they need more detail train them to review the job in the program. For example:

Choose View > Job Tickets Find the correct job Highlight the task or tasks in question Click the toolbar button to View Costs, Billings or Purchase Orders

It saves paper and accounting's time.

Rhonda Brazelton Clients & Profits R&D

Thanks for your input on this - nice to know that many of us share the similar challenges. I'd like to see the insertion date on the IO report included in the job summary and, sounds, maybe even the name of the vendor. Maybe we should draft a template in Excel or something and send it off to C&P.

Elizabeth Love Consumer Strategies Group

I do use that report. However, it doesn't give me the job task detail that I sometimes need to pull the back-up. I can have over $500 in FedEx shipping on one job, and if the back-up in the job folder doesn't match the job summary, I have to pull a job task cost to see what I'm missing. On big jobs, with lots of costs under different tasks, it's very time consuming. Therefore, I usually have to pull the job summary and the costs report. In addition, if the task is over estimate, and we've been progressing billing, I have to see the job costs to see exactly where we went over. I wanted a report that combined the two (summary and job tasks) on one report. I perform more of a cost control function than a straight accounting function. I pull the billing, review it, find the problems, have some solutions handy, and then go see the account person. It saves the AEs from spending a lot of time on billing.

Mary McMurtrey Just Partners

This is pretty much why I function as cost control in this agency. Our AEs simply don't have the time to do this. I do it for them.

Mary McMurtrey Just Partners

The Client Summary Report (Job Tickets/Print Reports/Summaries/ALL or any one client/Client Job Summary/click off description/include range of status for all open projects/include range of dates for all open projects) includes the Estimate, Open POs, Costs, Billed and Unbilled amounts for each job sorted by client. We use this report for weekly production meetings to update status and to review where the job cost is with regard to estimated costs. It works very well and generates only one line of information for each open job. For detail an any given task for a given job go to the Job Ticket window, highlight the task(s) for which you want the detail(from one task to all of them) and click on the furthest icon to the right on the top menu bar. A screen report (which can be printed) will show all the detail for each item posted to each task you have selected. We use this method to analize any task that seems to have gone over budget or has costs that are not easily explained or for whatever reason detail may be needed for a task(s). We have been using C&P Classic (3.2 now) for over five years and have found these two reports to be the most useful to our firm.

Cynthia Hobbs Marketing By Design

Cynthia,

We do the same thing every Monday morning for all active jobs. The reports are reviewed by the principals and project managers. It goes a long way in catching problems and over budget issues.

Shannon Ellis Business Manager Tackett Barbaria Design Group

What is your job title? Our Production Manager does a similar review of our production jobs. Media reviews their own.

Kim Donahoe Tweed Advertising

You can count us in as well. These request are so paramount in running an efficient agency. C&P PLEASE SEE WHAT YOU CAN DO. THANKS :)

Rick Zimmer McCormick Advertising

I also agree regarding the report -- that would be great to have just one comprehensive report! As for the AE's looking at billing, we only get ours involved if we are coming in more than 10% under or over the estimate that both they and their client approved. We'd never get any billing out if they looked at everything before it went out.

Kim Donahoe Tweed Advertising

I can appreciate saving accountings time, but I'm more interested in having my account managers leading their clients than researching why we went over on fedex charges by $200. Not a good use of their time.

So, that is why we have Mary working in cost control. She gathers all the information from the various depts. to put together the estimates, reviews older similar jobs and compares, asks about discrepancies before the estimate goes to the client and tracks to make sure the signed estimate is returned before work starts.

She will then help "monitor" jobs and flag ones that have a potential to go over estimate and makes sure the account manager knows so a change order can be issued, or senior staff knows and can make the decision early on to eat it, or go to the creative director and say, "hey pencils down, ya'll have spent way too much time on this job". Then, she works on the progress billing and final billing all jobs, and reviews everything with the account manager. It does not relieve the account manager of the ultimate responsibility of the profitability of their accounts, but helps keep them on track. And let's them work to find new area's of revenue from their clients. And she's billable!!!

This is a time consuming job when you can't get all the pertinent information in one report.

Shelly Constantz Just Partners

Here at my company we use Rebecca Cox who is excellent at custom reports. You can find her through the C&P web site.

Ed Miller Business Manager/ System Manager Grafica, Inc.

We run job billing worksheets after all time, payables etc. are enteredinto C & P which the AE's review, make adjustments if necessary. Theycan be found as follows:Snapshots, Work In Process, Billing Worksheets (by billing status, onejob per page).

Gayle Gangwish (12 year "veteran" using C & P) Director of Finance & Personnel David & Associates

I print out the Job Billing Worksheet --Snapshot->Work in Progress->BillingWorksheet-> Job billing WorksheetThis will show the AE what has been billed and what unbilled along withEstimate and Change Orders on each job.

Cheryl RankinAnderson Partners Inc.

Hi Italy!Our AEs are also responsible for billing their clients. We print job costreports through snapshots (Snapshots>Job Cost Reports>Job Costs>Select costsby AE) monthly. The AEs make notes on the worksheets for what is to bebilled and then return the worksheets to Accounting. Accounting thencreates the invoices & attaches these worksheets as a permanent record ofwhat was billed.Job costs can also be printed from the Job Ticket window but this can onlybe done one job at a time. That's not practical if you have a large numberof jobs open. Also, when printing from the job ticket, you can not limitperiods or dates worked if you want to only bill for one sales period.

Cheryl BrunnerCrowl, Montgomery & Clark, Inc.

I print out the "Unbilled Costs by Job" report through Work in Progress andthe "Job Summaries" report through the Job Tickets. This way they can seehow much has been previously billed on the Job Summary, but they makechanges and move things around on the Unbilled Costs by Job report. Thatone is the most useful in our opinion.Good luck!

Catherine ColangeloThe Phillips Agency

Hi Italy,I give the AE's a couple of reports which are all found in the "printreports, accounting" part of the job ticket. I give them the Job Summary,Job Costs and Job Commitments. If there have been progress billings, I givethem a copy of the Job Billings.The Job Summary is different from the Job Progress in that is shows hardcosts not gross costs. Depending on the AE and their understanding of howcosts work, I sometimes choose the Job Progress. (keeps them from "givingaway the farm" at billing time)

Elizabeth LoveConsumer Strategies Group Inc.

We use the job summary and job costs by task (both of these are printed by individual jobs by client)

Shay Stockdill Strategies

Our shop uses the pre-bill for the AE to review, modify as necessary thenpost changes or post as is.Good luck!

Jan Scarborough The Idea Factory

Our AE's review the Job Summary sheets. If they need more detail, we provide them with the Job Costs (by task) report.

Marie Spain Lynch Jarvis Jones

Job summaries. Go to Job Tickets -reports - job summaries - list yourparameters.

Mary McMurtrey Just Partners

How long does it take from the time you begin printing these reports untilyou get all your bills out? We just run the Work In Progress reports, andit takes us a day. Before that it usually takes an additional day to besure all time has been entered and proofed. I would be concerned that bygiving the AE's the additional detail it would add a lot of time to theprocess. We have between 150 - 200 jobs that bill each month.

Jennifer Glick Rainier Corporation

Hi Everyone,Our Account Executives are responsible for their own billing. They reviewtime and costs on their own jobs. We use the snapshot for billing. It isconcise and the AE's just enter the next billing amount and date to bebilled. We usually do billing once a week. When I receive the snapshot forbilling, I also review the jobs detail "on screen" so no extra paper. Ireview for time not extended properly, status codes that are incorrect anddates entered incorrectly. Since jobs stay on clients and profits for about2 years before archiving, we can always use them for reference. The problemI have is if we bill for costs before they occur, the system does notautomatically apply that billing to the costs when they are posted. I haveto "verify" in WIP. This then makes the "detail" agree with the billingamount and unbilled costs. If I do not do the verifying, the detail stillshows unbilled costs and it is confusing for the account executives. I dothe verifying before the final billing, or in the case of progress billing,I try to monitor the jobs and verify as needed.

Deanna Cummins DAVID K BURNAP ADVERTISING AGENCY INC