An added benefit of time and expense management systems to professional service organisations is there integrated billing functionality.  Most basic systems will offer the functionality to carry out time and materials based invoicing, with more complex solutions offering milestone, advanced and fixed price billing.

An important point to bear in mind when evaluating this functionality is to remember these tools are not designed to replace your company accounts package, they are designed to enable you to effectively and efficiently bill for your time and expenses.  However, the flexibility to grow with your organisation is essential.

For highly complex billing requirements you may need to look at tight integration between your time and expense system and accounts package.

Based on the assumption that your organisation has an established accounts package, minimum features required to enable you to effectively bill time & expenses include:

• Quick and simple timesheet entry
• Ability to capture both billable and non billable time
• Ability to apply different charging mechanisms
• Ability to log client account details and invoice contacts
• Ability to create project based invoices by client
• Ability to view, sort and filter all billable time and expenses
• Ability to override Tax rates
• Ability to adjust invoice values
• Ability to add lines for additional items

The key benefit of handling your time and expense billing through your time and expense software is that it reduces bottle necks.  A well configured system will significantly reduce the billing cycle, which in-turn will help cash flow and reduce the need for any credit.  Most importantly, with accurate data, your billing will be more efficient with fewer errors, meaning you will pass more chargeable time and expenses onto your clients which will have an instant positive effect on your bottom line.

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Ian Needs

Ian Needs has over 13 years experience implementing project management software in SME’s and Corporate IT Departments, you can keep up to date with Ian’s project management tips via Twitter or by subscribing to our RSS Feed.

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