At many firms, the last few days of the month follow the same pattern. Someone exports timesheets, opens last month's invoice, updates percent complete for each phase, recalculates retainage, checks the totals against the contract, and types the result into the accounting system. Then they do it again for the next project.
Each step is simple, but they all happen at once, at the end of the month, by hand, for every project.
Set up the contract once
Most of an invoice's structure comes from the contract: the phases, the fee for each, how each line is billed, the retainage percentage, and the rates. If that information lives in the contract instead of in last month's spreadsheet, the invoice can start from it every month instead of being copied forward.
Approve time weekly
Hourly work can't be billed until it's approved. If approvals pile up until the end of the month, the invoice waits on them. Approving time every week means month end starts with the hours already reviewed.
Check budgets before drafting
An invoice that bills a phase past its fee creates a conversation nobody wants. Checking each phase's billed-to-date against its budget before drafting catches the problem while you can still decide what to bill.
Review once, then send
With the contract, approved time, and budget checks in place, the month-end job becomes a review. Look over each draft, adjust anything that needs judgment, approve it, and send it.
Keep accounting in sync
Once an invoice is issued, it belongs in the accounting system. Typing it in again is where amounts get transposed and payments get recorded twice. A direct sync removes that step.
How Kineo handles it
Kineo's Ready to Invoice view lists each contract and the amount it can bill right now. From there you generate a draft: percent-complete draws for progress lines, approved hours and expenses for time-based lines, and retainage withheld at the contract's rate. Anything that would push a line or phase over budget is held back and flagged.
Drafts move through approval to issued, sent, and paid. You can email an invoice with the PDF attached or mark it as sent, and issued invoices and payments sync to QuickBooks Online.