Billing Process Checklist

Confirm billing address, AP contact email, payment terms, and tax exemption status on the customer profile in QuickBooks Online (or Xero/Intacct). Stale AP contacts and outdated remit-to addresses are the most common cause of "we never got the invoice" delays.

Pull the current engagement letter from the client folder. Confirm fee structure (fixed-fee, hourly, milestone), Net terms, late-fee language, and any out-of-scope billing triggers. Flag any expired engagement letters before invoicing — billing without a current EL is a scope-creep magnet.

Match this period's planned invoice (monthly fixed-fee, milestone, or T&M true-up) to the schedule in Practice Ignition or the engagement tracker. Mid-engagement scope changes often slip past the schedule — verify against the latest signed change order.

Run the WIP report from Karbon, TaxDome, or your time tracker. Cross-check unbilled time against the engagement budget and write off anything outside scope before it hits the invoice. Reimbursable expenses get pulled from the receipt-capture tool (Dext, Hubdoc).

Use the client's saved invoice template — service items mapped to the correct income accounts, class/location tagged for departmental reporting. Default Net terms from the customer record; do not type them in manually.

Total invoiced amount must reconcile to WIP released for the period. Document any write-downs and write-offs on the WIP workpaper with a memo — partners review these monthly for realization-rate trends.

Send the invoice PDF and supporting WIP detail to the engagement partner. Partner reviews fee against value delivered, write-offs, and any out-of-scope items before release. Do not skip approval on invoices over the firm threshold (commonly $5K) or any invoice with write-downs.

Apply partner-requested write-downs, scope corrections, or line-item edits. Re-route to the partner for final approval; a second revision cycle is a signal the engagement scope needs a conversation, not just an invoice fix.

Deliver via the client portal (TaxDome, Liscio, Karbon Client Tasks) so the audit trail captures send date and view receipt. Include the QBO Payments link so the client can pay ACH or card without re-keying.

CC the engagement partner and the client's primary contact. Use the firm's standard invoice-delivery email template — it includes the remit-to instructions, the Net terms reminder, and the late-fee language pulled from the engagement letter.

Mark the engagement tracker (Karbon billing dashboard or the firm spreadsheet) with the issue date so DSO calculations and reminder cadence are anchored correctly. Aging starts from invoice date, not period-end date.

Match Receive Payments to specific open invoices in QBO — never post to undeposited funds without an invoice link, and never auto-apply across customers. Lockbox and merchant-services deposits get applied from the daily settlement file.

Tie each Receive Payment in QBO to the corresponding bank-feed deposit. Stripe and QBO Payments net out merchant fees — book the gross to the invoice and the fee to the merchant-fee expense account, not the customer's A/R.

Common discrepancies: short-pay (client deducted a disputed line), overpayment (apply as credit memo, do not post to other income), wrong-invoice application, NSF return. Note the type and dollar amount on the A/R workpaper.

Contact the AP contact, document the resolution, and post the correcting entry — credit memo for an agreed short-pay, additional invoice for an underpayment, or refund check for an overpayment. Do not let unidentified payments sit in undeposited funds past month-end.

Soft reminder via the client portal — references the invoice number, balance, and original due date. Most past-due invoices clear with one polite reminder; skip the firm-letterhead language at this stage.

Phone calls collect; emails accumulate. Confirm receipt of the invoice, ask whether there is a dispute, and get a specific committed pay date. Document the call (date, contact, commitment) in the customer notes.

For invoices 60+ days past due with no committed pay date, the partner decides whether to continue internal collections, place a service hold, or refer to outside collections. Service holds for tax-season clients require partner sign-off — pulling work mid-return creates Circular 230 and malpractice exposure.

Send the engagement letter, signed change orders, invoices, payment history, and call log to the firm's collections agency or attorney. Reserve for bad debt in the GL and notify the partner before the next monthly close.

Pull A/R aging by customer with the standard 0–30 / 31–60 / 61–90 / 90+ buckets. Anything 90+ becomes a partner conversation at the close meeting; 60+ flags onto the next collections call list.

Aging total must equal the A/R control account on the trial balance. Variances usually trace to journal entries posted directly to A/R without an invoice, or to mis-coded credit memos. Attach the tie-out workpaper for partner review.

DSO = (A/R balance / period revenue) × period days. Track month-over-month and against the firm benchmark (typically 30–45 days for fixed-fee practices). Sustained DSO creep is the leading indicator of cash-flow trouble.

Deliver the billing summary package to the engagement partner: invoices issued, cash collected, write-offs, current aging, DSO trend, and any accounts referred to collections. Partner signs off; cycle closes; lock the period in QBO.