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Progress Billing / Accruals

I would love some feedback on how you are handling accruals. We do a lot of progress billings. We will receive the income from the client but not have the vendor expense for up to 2 months. How do you track these expenses against that income that has already been received? Does Clients and Profits allow an easy way to track this or is it more of a manual entry?

I did see where you can do a Journal Entry and have that automatically reversed the following month but what happens if that expense does not come in for a couple of months which often happens with media bills.

Your response would be greatly appreciated!

Terri Strobel Sands Costner & Associates

We bill from insertion orders as soon as they are made. The invoice from the media will not vary from that. Purchase orders to vendors will allow you to track those expenses. Those (like printing bills) should be pre billed some amount-usually one half or one third when the job goes to them. Then the balance, with the shipping charges, etc. can be billed after delivery of the job.

Christopher Staples Sun & Moon Marketing Communications, Inc.

We add a task to each job called "Progress Billing". When a client signs a proposal we advance bill 50% and use this task, the G/L code is a balance sheet liability account so it doesn't hit income statement.

Then the job proceeds normally. Upon final billing we bill each task as proposed as well as an offsetting credit for the advance billing (of course this reduces the G/L liability account). The client then gets taxed for the full job (if appropriate) at the time the job is delivered.

Has worked great for us for five years.

Roxanne Cowan