Invoices out on time, built from the work log

A professional services firm charges its clients by the hour. At the end of each month, someone had to go back through the month, add up the hours spent on each client, write a time sheet for each one and then create the invoices.

Rebuilding a month from memory and notes was slow, and invoices were going out about a week into the following month. That had been the case for over a year. Late invoices mean late payments, and time sheets put together by hand are easy to get wrong.

We built a system that creates the time sheets and invoices directly from the work log the firm's staff already keep, so no one has to piece the month back together.

Here's how it works, start to finish:

1. Staff log their work. Staff already record each task with the client and job it was for, so there's nothing new to fill out.
2. The month is totaled. At month end, the system reads the log and groups the tasks and hours by client and job.
3. Time sheets are created. Each client gets a time sheet showing what was done and when, taken from the log rather than from memory.
4. Invoices are created. Each client's invoice is filled in from their time sheet, in the format that client requires.
5. Invoices are ready at month end. The invoices are ready to send as soon as the month closes, not a week later.

Since it went in, invoices have gone out on time, for the first time in over a year.