Billing Data Handoff to Finance (Handoff)

Billing Data Handoff to Finance (Handoff)

1. 01

   Freeze the billable record at a stated cut-off date before anything moves to finance

   Pick a day (many agencies use the 25th) and lock timesheets, expense claims, and change orders as of that moment. Anything logged after the cut-off rolls into the next cycle, which prevents the re-issued invoice problem that erodes client trust.

2. 02

   Reconcile tracked hours against the signed scope document line by line

   Flag every project where delivered hours exceed the retainer or SOW allowance by more than 10 percent. Harvest-style time-to-invoice conversion makes this easy to surface, but the reconciliation decision is a human one and belongs in the handoff, not the tool.

3. 03

   Attach supporting evidence to each invoice line before finance receives it

   Time entries, receipt scans, and approved out-of-scope emails should travel with the invoice draft. Finance teams that receive bare totals spend days chasing account managers, and that delay shows up directly in days sales outstanding.

4. 04

   Confirm the payment rail and currency for each client account

   Record whether the client pays by ACH, card, direct debit, or bank transfer, and note the fee exposure on each. A card payment on a $40,000 retainer can cost several hundred dollars in processing, so the rail choice is a margin decision made at handoff.

5. 05

   Route the draft to the account lead for a single approval pass with a 24-hour deadline

   One reviewer, one pass, one deadline. Multi-stage approval chains are the most common cause of invoices leaving the building a week late, and late invoices are the single largest controllable driver of DSO.

6. 06

   Load the approved draft into the accounting ledger with matching reference numbers

   Invoice numbers, project codes, and client PO numbers must match between the billing tool and the bookkeeping system (Xero and FreeAgent both reconcile cleanly when references align). Mismatched references create month-end cleanup work that nobody bills for.

7. 07

   Set the reminder schedule and escalation owner at the moment of send

   Define the sequence (for example day 7, day 14, day 30) and name the person who makes the collection call when reminders fail. Automated reminders handle the first two touches; a named human owns the third.

8. 08

   Log the handoff completion in the client record with the expected payment date

   Finance and delivery should share one expected-payment date per invoice so cash forecasting is not rebuilt from scratch each week. Agicap-style 13-week cash views only work when the underlying dates are trustworthy.