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Billing Workflow

We have just installed C&P and are working through the kinks in terms of workflow. When our bookkeeper bills a project, the billing status changes to "billed" automatically. However, the billing may only be partial or incremental (i.e. one insertion of a media schedule; first half of a fee). We don't want to drop or miss any billing, but also want to have our reports (like job hot sheet) reflect reality. How do other companies 1. trigger billing process 2. update both production and billing status codes to reflect reality 3. track billing. Please be as specific as possible, including who does what and what kinds of codes you use. I appreciate any and all information.

Thanks.

Christopher Staples Sun & Moon Marketing Communications, Inc.

The billing person in our office assigns a status code when billing to the traffic field. Our codes 1-495 are for everyone to use. 500 is for Work In Progress and 900 on up are for billing purposes only and no one can enter time or costs to a job with a status of 900 or higher. Under Setup go to Status Codes. You can make your own and assign the parameters for each code.

Laura Pacino

First thing you need to do is change your preferences. (Setup>Preferences>Status Codes>Billed Jobs Get Status). Leave it blank, so it doesn't trigger an automatic status. Personally, I feel billing is too variable to have this field an automatic anything.

As far as your other questions: 1. trigger billing process = we bill 50% upon proposal approval. Status code is either "Do 50% billing" (the Account Manager does this) or "50% billing done" (the accountant does this). Account Managers code the job "Do final billing" when it's time to close the job. Then the accountant is responsible for the final status codes.

2. update both production and billing status codes to reflect reality = It depends on the size of your agency in how detailed you want to do this. Keep it simple. Use fewer than greater status codes. That's the best advice I can give you. The account team, in general, is responsible for the production codes and the finance team is responsible for the billing codes. Reality is finance team drives the accuracy of both fields.

3. track billing = get familiar with all the Work in Progress reports. Something in there is going to work for you.

Roxanne Cowan