Field notes
How billing goes wrong, and how good teams fix it
Short notes from the paperwork of distributors, field services, rental, professional services and manufacturing: where an invoice goes wrong, and what the teams who get it right do differently.
Distribution and wholesaleCases, packs and partial shipmentsA purchase order says 40 cases. The packing slip says 38 cases and 24 packs. The invoice has to say what was shipped, in the unit the customer agreed to pay in.Field and trade servicesFrom service report to invoice the same dayThe technician finished on Tuesday. The invoice went out three weeks later, without the signed work order the customer's AP team needs to pay it.Equipment rentalBilling rentals without a spreadsheet of start datesEvery rental is a small recurring contract with its own start date, rate and return date. Most teams track them in a spreadsheet nobody else can read.Professional and managed servicesRetainers, milestones and the contract nobody re-readsThe contract says the rate goes up 4% in January. The person who read it left in March.Manufacturing and fabricationBilling against the customer's PO, line by lineA blanket PO authorizes 10,000 units over a year. Each release ships against it. The invoice that bills unit 10,001 is the one that gets rejected.
30 minutes, your paperwork
Bring us your paperwork
Show us the documents your invoices start from, and we'll show you duebird drafting them in 30 minutes.