Your Time Tracking and Billing Agent Flags Overruns Before the Invoice
The Time Tracking and Billing Agent in EngageSuite360 collects each staff member's time as the work happens, compares it against the engagement budget and scope, flags an overrun while there is still time to talk to the client, drafts the invoice from actual hours or fixed-fee terms, and follows up on receivables. The firm administrator who used to build invoices from scratch reviews them instead, and the partner decides on scope before a write-down decides for them.
What it takes off your plate
Ask a firm administrator about billing week. Some staff enter time daily; others reconstruct Friday from memory, and the hours on a tricky reconciliation shrink in the retelling. The engagement letter said a fixed fee for the monthly close, but the client sent three months of receipts in a shoebox, and nobody flagged the extra hours. The partner finds out when the draft invoice lands, and writes it down quietly because it is too late for a conversation.
Invoices go out once a month, built by hand. Receivables aging gets checked when someone remembers. A client business three months past due keeps getting its books done, because nobody wants to be the one to raise it. By the time anyone does, the balance is large, the relationship is awkward, and the partner is negotiating a payment plan for work the firm could have discussed months earlier. Realization slips a little every month, and nobody can say exactly where.
What the Time Tracking and Billing Agent does, step by step
It begins with the conversations that people avoid.
- Asks staff for their time. At the end of each day, the agent sends staff a short prompt listing the engagements they worked in, with suggested entries from their calendar and file activity, so they confirm rather than reconstruct.
- Warns the partner early. When time on an engagement reaches the threshold you set against its budget, it tells the engagement partner which work is running over and why, while there is still time to call the client about added scope.
- Sends the client the scope note. If the partner decides to bill the extra work, the agent drafts a change-of-scope note or an addendum for the partner to approve and sends it for e-signature.
- Drafts the invoices. At each billing cycle, it builds invoices from actual hours at the engagement's rates, or from fixed-fee terms, with any approved scope change, in QuickBooks or your practice management system for the administrator to review.
- Follows up on receivables. It sends polite reminders as invoices age, increasing in firmness on the schedule you choose, and offers a payment link.
- Escalates past-due accounts. When an account passes the limit you set, it notifies the partner with the balance and history. Whether to pause work is the partner's call.
Where the work is recorded
Every entry the Time Tracking and Billing Agent collects is recorded against the engagement in your practice management system and in EngageSuite360. The engagement shows hours against budget, overrun alerts and what the partner decided, scope notes sent and signed, invoices issued and payments received. The client business record shows its receivables history and every reminder sent.
The next morning, the administrator opens one view: staff who have not confirmed yesterday's time, engagements approaching budget, invoices drafted and waiting for review, and receivables by age with the reminder each account has received. The managing partner sees realization by engagement without asking anyone to run a report.
What your people do instead
Your staff accountants spend the day on the work clients pay for, not on remembering what they did last Tuesday. Your partners call clients about scope as a service conversation, before the invoice, which clients appreciate far more than a surprise bill. Your administrator reviews and sends instead of building from zero. The Time Tracking and Billing Agent keeps the prompts, alerts, invoices and reminders moving around them.
Scope is often set in the conversations described in Deploy the Advisory Meeting Preparation Agent and Reclaim Your Strategy Time, and a fixed fee holds when the records arrive on time, as covered in Deploy the Tax Document Collection Agent and Reclaim Your Tax Season.
One next step
EngageSuite360 is a CRM shaped for accounting firms, with clients, client businesses, engagements and prospects built in, and the EngageSuite360 Time Tracking and Billing Agent works on those same records. See EngageSuite360 for accounting and see this month's overruns while you can still act.
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