Automate Your Billing Process and Save Yourself the Headache

We've talked before about automation, but it's important to address it again because there are so many sides to the subject. When it comes to processes in your business--like billing--automation is there to free you up. That way, you can focus on working with clients, building relationships, developing strategies, and devoting yourself to billable hours.

In my own practice, I’ve taken this to the extreme. There's no hourly billing. Everyone is on a subscription, and their cards are automatically charged each month. It does wonders for our efficiency, not to mention our relationships with our clients. There are never any questions about our billing, and why something took so long, because it no longer matters. The scope of work is well defined, and we get it done.

For everyone else, we can take baby steps.

Let’s say you bill by the hour. Let’s also say that your employees are mature, responsible, and trustworthy adults. You can set time and expense entries on an engagement to be automatically approved. Let CORE auto-bill for you, and you’ll still have an opportunity to review the billing before it goes out. This way instead of having 3 stopping points (one for time, one for expenses, and one for billing), now you just have one stop to review the billing.

Hourly billing contracts are the only tricky ones in terms of automated billing, because you have to review time and expenses before you bill the client. Even then, though, you can set up invoice rules in advance so everything is ready to go once you approve the time and expense entries.

Automatic billing is a must for a firm of today, and BQE CORE makes it easy. There are a few things I want to show you in the video, in terms of auto approvals that will make the automation, well, automated.