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Survey on Billing, Payments, etc.

I have 3 questions:

1) What billing rate do you bill the Account Coordinators ?

2) Are your traffic people billable? If so what rate do you bill them?

3) How many hours billable are required of AC's per year? How many hours billable are required of traffic per year?

Suzanne Nolan
Operations Director, The Woodbine Agency

We bill both media and production once a month. We have weekly check runs and we wait until the client pays us before we pay the client.

Lynnette Kokomoor
BCH Adv

1)Depending on our clients we usually send out invoices when the jobs are completed. We do have certain clients that we send interim invoices to.

2)We pay our vendors when they are do to get paid

3)No, we pay the vendors and then invoice our clients - unless it is a special/unique circumstance.

Terri Yuen
Office Coordinator
Malahat Group International/Palmer Jarvis DDB

1.) 15th & 30th

2.) weekly

3.) yes

Pem Carter
WORK, Inc.

1) We bill once a month. The beginning of the month for the previous month. 2) We check checks every week. 3) We usually pay non media vendors 40 days and media vendors 70 days.

Cheryl Rankin
Anderson Partners, Inc.

1. Monthly or as projects are completed. 2. Every Friday. 3. If possible.

Allen Corley, Controller
WarrenCordes+

We bill clients 50% Deposit plus 100% postage upfront, then bill the remainder when job mails.

Cut checks to vendors once a week, but we all know how that goes, there's always checks to be cut on a daily basis.

We pay vendors when there invoices are due. It's not there issue if we have received payment from client.

Suzanne Joscak
Kern Direct

1) We bill once a month 2) We pay vendors on the 15th and last day of the month-so twice 3) We do wait to pay vendors until after we receive payment from client

Kathy Sellon
Mason and Moon Advertising

1) Once a month 2) Twice a month 3) Yes, in most cases, we pay after we've been paid.

Laura Karns
Hanon McKendry

Jennifer,

In answer to your questions:

1) We bill our clients once a month. But, if we have a big job, we bill immediately - to estimate.

2) We cut operating acct checks every week and vendor checks once a month.

3) Usually we wait until we receive payment, but we do occasionally make exceptions.

Denise White
Accounting Manager
Push Inc

1)50% immediately upon signed proposal. Balance immediately upon delivery/completion. (We have client invoices going out everyday)

2)Weekly

3)Assuming we have been billed the initial 50%, by the time vendor needs payment we should have cash. (Sometimes we advance the vendor if they are small contractor. Creates goodwill for future work.)

Roxanne Cowan
Rutherford Bolan Group Integrated Marketing

I have a moment Jennifer and I would be happy to respond.

1) I bill when the job closes if it is net 30, I do have some special terms that require up front, 50%/50%, and 1/3, 1/3,1/3 billing.

2) I pay every Monday. That is my payroll day and I decided about 6 yrs. ago to make that the vendor/overhead paying day.

3) Yes, I do not pay until I get paid. They sometimes do not like it, but I make that clear up front.

I hope this helps and good luck :)

Felica Sparks Henry
Benton Newton & Partners Advertising

Hi Jennifer,

I bill our clients once a month. I start billing on the first of the month after all time and expenses have been entered. I try to get the invoices in the mail on or before the 10th of the month. As far as cutting checks I run checks every Wednesday. In answer to question #3 no we do not wait to pay the vendor until we've received payment from the client. However, as slow as our clients are paying lately it might not be a bad idea! Hope this helps.

Lynn Ebben
Marketlink Incorporated

1)Weekly we review open jobs to see what can be billed.

2)Once a week.

3)f at all possible, yes. Sometimes that would string out the vendor too long. Often I contact the client and confirm a payment date and then call the vendor and tell them when they will get paid (after we do). Our vendors are very acceptable to this.

Ann Adams
Controller
J. Stokes & Associates
common sense | uncommon thinking

I usually bill a retainer up front and then do monthly work in progress billings if a project is going to be stretched out over several months to keep the cash flowing.

I pay vendors weekly or semi-monthly depending on the vendor (small companies I pay first as they usually are dependent on cash flowing in).

Being a small firm I often don't pay vendors until I am paid by the client.

Deb Harrington
in10city

1. We bill fee invoicing the first of the month. All other billing gets billed as jobs are completed.

2 & 3. Our set procedure is to pay vendors for work performed when we get paid from the client so checks can be cut every day - sometimes if only a few vendors - we may not pay the day we get paid - but usually within a few days. Exceptions to this are vendors that offer discounts. We usually look at what client the work was performed for and if reliable client - pay these vendors early. Also we do have a few small local vendors that we pay within 30 days.

Our company payables are usually paid once a month - usually on the 15th.

Hope this helps you.
Bonnie Gray
Clarke Advertising & Public Relations

1)Bill monthly for in-progress billings. Bill upon completion of job.

2)Once a week - usually.

3)Yes, if vendor will allow it. Otherwise, pay upon due date to keep account in good standing.

Sheryl Creech
LJF Associates, Inc.

1)We progress bill all jobs over $500 at the end of each month; and we final

2)We cut a large bulk of the checks every Wednesday. However, to maintain a good cash flow I sometimes monitor cash vs. future expenses and cut checks as warranted

3)99% of the time we wait until the client has paid us before we pay the vendor.

Carrie L. Suntken
Business & Technology Director
Concept Group Inc.

Larger clients, with high activity, are billed more than once per month. Others are billed monthly. Vendors are paid on the 15th and 30th but we are moving toward weekly. Yes, we wait until a client has paid us before paying the vendor.

Dennis Toler for Vintage Marketing
CFO to GO

1)Whenever a job is completed or one phase is complete. We try to get the media billing out by the 15th of each month. And pull other jobs to bill by the end of the month.

2)Every Friday

3)Only on the big printing jobs.

Judi Durkin
J2 Marketing Services, Inc.

1)We typically bill clients twice a month 15th and 30th. However, we will do more often (never less often) as required as SOP on an account.

2)We review vendor status every week, and will cut checks weekly.

3)Absolutely. And it we impress upon our clients this fact upfront in the SOP phase. And, in some cases will require certain payments to be in advance, i.e. Tv production companies will require 1/2 up front with final at the end of the production phase as you are going into editing, we require the full amount up front off the estimate, and dole out the payments.

Shelly Constantz
WORK Inc

We cut checks on the 10th and 20th of each month. We do all media billing around the 25th of each month and we do job cost billings the first week of the month. Retainers go out on the 15th. We only pay vendors once we have collected the money that way we don't co-mingle funds.

Tracie Off
Fricks/Firestone Advertising

1)We final bill the client after all purchase orders are in from the vendors. We W.I.P. bill clients once every month if there are any outside costs to a job.

2)We cut checks once a week on whatever terms our vendors have set up.

3)Only our media do we only pay when we receive payment from our client.

Laura Pacino
Drone & Mueller

1) Every month at the end of the month for all jobs completed. Client then pays 20th of month following.

2) We cut cheques for vendors on 20th of month following their invoice.

3) Because we are due payment on 20th of month following and also owe vendor on 20th of month following the client is paying at the same time we are paying our vendor.

This works well most of the time unless a job incurs direct costs at the end of one month but isn't fully completed until the next. We will try and prebill the client as if the job is almost finished/delivered they will have it by the time they need to pay us.

Kristy Oxenham
Financial Controller
Creativebank

We bill our clients right away upon completion. We don't wait for a specific date or day of the month. We always have something going out, it helps with cash flow.

We cut checks once a week.

We try not to wait on client payments to pay vendors but sometimes we have to if they are large invoices. In those cases we always communicate with them what we are doing and why.

Shannon Ellis
Business Manager
Tackett Barbaria Design Group

1. We bill our client's ongoing jobs at the end of every month. All other jobs are billed when all charges (outside) are received.

2. We pay our vendors once a week.

3. We do not wait to receive payment from the client to pay our vendors. It's very important to us to maintain a good relationship with each vendor.

Laura Kennedy
Maier Advertising

1. Month end

2. Weekly

3. Yes

Shelley W. Holloway
General Manager
Young Isaac, Inc.

1) Before we had C&P we used to bill clients up to months after projects were finished, often failing to bill for all the time and expenses. Now, I try to invoice as soon as possible after the projects are finished, with many invoices sent upon commencement. I usually do much of the billing myself - reserved for early mornings, including weekends. And I sometimes fall behind, but miss virtually nothing because of C&P. Priorities are the largest, simplest invoices first.

2) and 3) We pay vendors between 30-60 days from date of invoice depending on the vendor. Very large bills we will try to pay after we are paid from the client.

Joseph Notovitz
Notovitz Communications

1. We progress bill once a month (for time and charges incurred that month, whether or not the job is complete).

2. We probably pay vendors about once per week, sometimes a little less frequently (not on a really regular schedule).

3. We only wait to pay vendors until the client has paid for really large invoices, like a big printing bill or a large media buy (say $10K+). Other than that, I don't really worry about it, but we have good, long term relationships with our clients.

Good luck!

Catherine Colangelo
Business Manager
The Phillips Agency

We progress bill our clients monthly for any time or expenses incurred on their projects. Our clients have been very receptive to this idea and our cash flow has improved tremendously since we stopped project billing.

We pay our vendors monthly and due to the fact that we have great clients with an average days outstanding of 24 days, we do not way for clients to pay before we pay our vendors but we do pay on 45 day terms.

Lane Newsome
The Burris Agency

We progress bill our clients monthly. Overhead expenses are paid either the beginning or end of month (depending when they are due). Checks to vendors are paid within 30 days, whether we have been paid by the client or not. I usually do a check run once a week.

Deb Jager
Jager Group

1) We typically bill our clients monthly; occasionally the AEs decide to hold the billing of some jobs for various reasons (i.e. wait until the job is further along, when the invoice would be under $100 and more activity is expected in the next month).

2) I write checks weekly

3) For media and large vendor costs, I wait until payment is received; all other vendors are paid by their terms.

Diane Elliott
Deardorff Associates

1. I bill all clients once a month on a pre-determined billing cycle cut-off date which we set at the beginning of each year so that everyone knows when they must be around to do billing i.e. October will cut on Friday 10/26 and then I set a date for mailing to the clients for the following Friday or Monday Depending on holidays. I also do auto-bill to make sure nothing falls through the cracks with a client job list as my guide run through Print job reports in job tickets under lists. I then select billing by client through auto-bill and you are given a number of jobs which should match to this client job list. This does take a little work to get setup and working good but if the number of jobs listed on the client job list do not match with the number of jobs when the invoices are selected to bill then I investigate at a later date as to why.

2. Right now I cut checks only once per month unless it is a special request. I am however working to get checks cut at least every other week and then will work to once a week.

3. 90% of the time we do not pay until payment has been received from the client. As others have said if it is a small vendor we will sometimes make exceptions, but our purchase order states that we will not accept responsibility until the client pays and that once payment has been received from the client we will process for payment in a timely manner. If it is a large job we pre-bill the client up-front for about 50% or for postage etc.

Hope this helps.

Pam Streitler
Director Accounting/Administration
BURDETTEB2B

<< I wish, but they have a right to be paid within their terms. >>

Several people answered this question this way or similarly. I am surprised by it, as I am not a bank for my clients. We are an agent for them procuring these other production services. Therefore, if they can't meet my terms (i.e. media bills are net 10 days), then we will have to go to an advance billing system to insure that invoices are being paid on time. We make that very clear. And we work with very large clients. We have primarly retainer clients in the 6 to 10 million in billings range. They are large corporations with a lot of lawyers, however they can understand our message very clearly. I don't know how a small company can afford to "bankroll" for clients and pay invoices in advance of payment from the client.

Just my humble opinion,

Shelly Constantz
WORK Inc.

In reading the numerous responses to a couple of the questions posed lately, I realized that the type of agency that each of us is influences the way we answer the questions.

Shelly, who I know wasn't picking on us personally but happened to choose my reply as an example, appears to work for an advertising agency (based on company name -- if I'm wrong, sorry). And I agree, we certainly couldn't finance our clients' media buys, which I presume are very large $$ in relation to the internal operations of the agency.

We, OTOH, are a design agency. During the course of our work we incur numerous expenses for clients. Not counting the obvious ones such as FedEx, messengers, etc., who are hardly going to wait for us to bill and receive from our clients, we are responsible for charges for such items as stock photography, prepress, printing, and other charges. Yes, if they're major we try to advance bill them, or even have the vendor direct bill the client, but that can't be done for everything given the number of charges incurred. And some items such as stock photography happen towards the beginning of the job, so there is a delay before billing the client and then a normal wait for payment (which these days seems to be getting abnormal.) Since we're the contracting party with the vendor, we are responsible for the payment.

Anyway, my point is that in replying to questions, we should all consider that the answer may vary by the type of agency, and where it does I think we should all try to remember to note in our answers what type we are.

Brent A. Byrd
Point Zero, Inc.

1. We bill when all the cost have been reconciled on a project. Large projects usually entail phase billing.

2-3. We generally pay vendors once we have been paid by the client. If it gets too extended we will go ahead and pay the vendor.

Sonny Goodall
Lighthouse, Inc.

Very well put Brent. I would agree with that statement wholeheartedly.

Lynn A. Ebben
Marketlink Incorporated