NEW INVOICE PROFESSIONAL SERVICES PIC MANUAL
NEW INVOICE PROFESSIONAL SERVICES PIC SOFTWARE
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Nearly any cloud-based project accounting software will have the necessary frameworks to connect the two tools. Leveraging a solution outside of your accounting package to generate invoices does not mean someone will have to re-key all of that information in later on. A process to invoice for professional services work needs to find its way into your accounting process to track receivables, cash flow, and outstanding balances. If you plan to grow your professional services firm past just a few consultants, or if you’re already well past that size, you’ll feel like you have outgrown your project management accounting system quickly if you rely on it for generating invoices or tracking project progress.ĭon’t get me wrong.

That said, in a consulting firm, an invoice for professional services is more about people and projects than it is about debits and credits. Invoices are, after all, how you get paid, and financial management software is where you track who has (and who has not) paid. A simple mistake could cost thousands of dollars in revenue! Is that any way to run a services business?įinancial accounting solutions are a natural place to start when thinking about generating invoices for professional services. This took hours and it was very easy to make mistakes due to copy and paste errors.

NEW INVOICE PROFESSIONAL SERVICES PIC DOWNLOAD

When I would prepare invoices for professional services on about 10 projects on a monthly basis, I would have to download time and expenses from one system, key them into Excel invoice templates manually, and then send each invoice to the group’s VP for approval.

Using Excel for invoicing is labor intensive and error prone. When it comes to professional services billing and consultant invoicing, however, that is where the benefits of using Excel end. Talk to anyone who has spent time managing a consulting firm and they will tell you that they spend most of their time “putting out fires.” As a result, Excel becomes a manager’s go-to fire extinguisher–it’s easy to understand, it can get the job done quickly, and its flexibility allows you to make things look the way you want. The first step in improving the professional services billing process- fire Excel.Ī key trait of any growing services business is the ability for top management to solve problems quickly and efficiently. Bottom line: processes to invoice for professional services should be simple and transparent. While these experiences took place some time ago, I still hear stories from professional services firms every day struggling with the same problems. Unfortunately for that client, those expenses had to be written off. We found more than $400K in client-reimbursable expenses that were never billed due to a lack of structure and control in their professional services invoice process. One particularly notable example exposed itself during the implementation process of our consultant billing software at a prominent technology company.

NEW INVOICE PROFESSIONAL SERVICES PIC MANUAL

More importantly, the manual processes reduced the visibility senior management had into the performance of the firm.įast forward a few years to my work at Projector PSA, and I realized how common my story actually was. Every step of the process-creating, proofing, approving, adjusting, and sending invoices for professional services-introduced inefficiency. It didn’t take long, however, for me to find that this job consumed nearly 80% of my time. Even one small mistake could cost the firm tens of thousands of dollars, often without anyone even knowing. I knew how crucial it was to the group’s success. After working with the group for a while, I gained responsibility for overseeing the processes to invoice for professional services. One of my first professional jobs was in an operational role at a professional services firm.

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