Invoicing & payment chasing
Invoices prepared from recorded activity, reminder drafts prepared on schedule.
Automate invoicingBillable time to invoices
Record the work.
Prepare the invoice.
I connect recorded time or approved milestones to invoice preparation, so you can see what is ready to bill. Your team checks the client, rate and charge before sending; good capture is what makes the process dependable.
By Anne Peire
At a glance
- The task
- Recording chargeable time, calls and extras, and turning them into invoices
- Who it hits
- Anyone who bills by the hour, the call, the visit or the stage
- What changes
- Time captured where it happens, invoice drafts ready to check
- Proof
- My own service business, see below
The problem
The fee you earned
and never invoiced
A client asks for a quick call. It runs for forty minutes and it is chargeable. It goes in the diary and nowhere else, so you send yourself an email to remember to bill it. At the end of the month you rebuild the invoice from the diary, the inbox and memory, often in the evening.
Regular work survives this. Ad hoc work does not. The extra call, the additional revision, the site visit that ran over: each one is small, so each one is easy to forget, and together they add up to real money left on the table.
None of it is a question of discipline. It is a question of where the information goes the moment the work is agreed.
If the work is recorded once, it can be invoiced without anyone remembering it.
The change
What it looks like before,
and after
Today, by hand
- A chargeable call goes in the diary and nowhere else
- You email yourself a reminder to bill it
- Hours are added up at month end from memory and messages
- Ad hoc work slips through, or is billed months late
- Invoices are written in the evening, one at a time
Once it runs itself
- A timesheet entry or a diary event marked chargeable becomes a line on a draft invoice
- Hours flow from the tool that records them to your accounting software
- Ad hoc work has somewhere to go the moment it is agreed
- Drafts wait in your accounting tool for you to check and send
- You can see what has been worked and not yet billed
Deputy → Xerohours recorded once, then invoiced and paid from the same data
My own business · Childcare, London
Before 10PM I ran an after-school nanny agency in London. The time each nanny spent with a child was counted in Deputy and flowed into Xero, so families were invoiced, and nannies paid, for the real time worked, without anyone adding up timesheets.
More on how I workedWhat if you could just say what you worked on?
Explore a consulting session, a site visit or extra client work becoming a draft invoice ready to check.
In practice
From recorded work to a checked invoice
Record the work
Capture the time, chargeable call, extra or approved milestone in the agreed source.
Match the client and rate
Use the client, project and agreed billing rules. Flag missing rates or uncertain matches.
Create a draft
Prepare the invoice lines through a supported accounting connection. Check for duplicate entries.
Check the details
An authorised person confirms the time, scope, rate and any adjustments.
Send and track
A person sends the approved invoice, and the record shows what has been billed.
In my own childcare agency, Deputy hours flowed into Xero. A calendar-to-invoice workflow is another option to design around your records and permissions.
How we get there
From your first question
to a working solution.
The question is never whether you should bill for your time. It is how much of it currently reaches an invoice.
First, a free 15-minute conversation to understand the challenge and agree the appropriate next step.
Understand your business
We explore the process, what you want to achieve and how your team prefers to work. I challenge the proposed solution if the underlying problem is different.
You receiveA clear process map, written recommendations and an agreed priority.
Check the tools and feasibility
During separately scoped Process Design, I check the connections, permissions, costs and exceptions that could affect the solution.
You receiveA documented workflow, feasibility findings and the requirements for a reliable build.
Agree the scope and price
Before implementation, we agree what will be built, the timeline, responsibilities and how we will check that it works.
You receiveA written proposal with a fixed build price, acceptance checks and any ongoing costs.
Build and test
I build the agreed solution and test normal cases, exceptions and approvals. Your team reviews it against the checks we agreed.
You receiveA working solution, a demonstration and the agreed checks completed before handover.
Document, train and hand over
I show your team how to use the solution, what to monitor and how to handle exceptions. We clarify ownership and support.
You receivePractical instructions, a walkthrough and clear support terms so your team can run it.
One recurring processFocused Process Review · £350Several connected prioritiesBusiness Process Review · from £650
Discovery, Process Design and implementation each have an agreed scope and fee. You choose the appropriate discovery service; buying both is not required. Testing, documentation and team handover are included in the agreed implementation scope.
Do I need to change how I record my time?
The aim is to capture time where it already happens: a timesheet tool, a chargeable diary event or a booking. If nothing records it today, we agree a practical way to start and how to check missing or duplicate entries.
We bill by stage or fixed fee, not by the hour. Does this apply?
Yes, often more so. Stage invoices are triggered by a milestone rather than hours, and the ad hoc work around them, a call, an extra revision, a site visit, is exactly what slips through. The system can catch both.
Will invoices go out without me seeing them?
No. Drafts wait in your accounting software for an authorised person to check and send. The time saving is in preparation, while approval stays with your team.
We use Xero. What about other tools?
I have connected time recording to Xero in my own business. Many accounting and time tools with a proper connection can work the same way, and I check yours before designing anything.
Keep reading
Related
Your business
How much did you work last month that never reached an invoice?
If you are not sure, that is the answer. Fifteen minutes, no charge, and we will look at where the gap is.
15 minutes · No charge
Prefer to write? anne@10pm.works