How to Compress Billing Cycles and Reduce Revenue Leakage

Nothing is more beneficial to the financial health of a company than having a positive cash flow. Yet, even faced with today’s tough economic challenges, many companies rely on inefficient manual processes to track employee billable time and invoice clients.

The burdens and inconveniences of using outdated manual time tracking processes are legion. Internally, employees find the timesheets time consuming and difficult to use, leading to errors that are hard to catch or correct. For managers, the problem cascades as the lack of transparency into project costs leads to delayed billing cycles and decreased profitability.

The impacts are felt most acutely on the bottom line, as expenses rise due to project over-runs, high overhead costs, and inefficient use of resources, while revenue drops due to time leakage, lack of resource availability, and customer dissatisfaction.

More and more savvy companies of all sizes and industries are re-thinking old ways of tracking time as they seek to streamline client billing and reduce revenue loss.

Client invoices cannot be sent out until all the project hours worked by every employee or consultant have been collected and the various rates calculated, but timesheet collection efforts are complicated by several factors.

For one thing, different individuals are billed out at different rates, or the same individual may bill out different project tasks at different rates, all of which must be accounted for. What’s more, timesheet submissions can be problematic when several employees work on consulting contracts or client development projects at any given time, or when they work on the same project from different locations.

Invariably, people are late in submitting their hours or, if they are on holiday or out of town, fail to submit them altogether. And if data has to be re-entered at any stage due to errors or omissions, additional costly and time-consuming problems can result.

Clearly, trying to collect all of the information needed to prepare an invoice is often a convoluted effort — especially if done using a manual process.

Most businesses have processes in place to encourage their clients to pay on time, and to follow-up with those who are overdue. In general, the “80-20” rule applies — 80% of customers will pay on time, while 20% will be late. It is critical to bill the on-time payers promptly to keep cash flow steady; the faster you send an invoice, the faster you’ll be paid.

Unfortunately, manual processes can result in billing delays, which means that even those clients who normally would pay on time don’t do so — simply because they haven’t yet received the invoice. This inefficient process reduces the business’ cash flow and hinders growth and profitability just as much as dealing with the clients who pay late.

Replicon TimeBill is an easy-to-use time tracking software solution that allows companies to eliminate paper-based invoice processing, dramatically cut costs, increase productivity, and improve cash flow velocity.

Because it is cloud-based, TimeBill allows employees to complete their timesheets from anywhere, at any time, using any device, making it perfect for organizations with a mobile or distributed workforce. Its intuitive interface means that users require minimal training, and they can begin using it almost immediately.

Because TimeBill is so simple to use, employee adoption is fast and comprehensive, ensuring that all billable time is reported and the threat of billable hour leakage is eliminated.

Replicon provides an exceptionally flexible solution that allows users to build out the project structure with tasks and subtasks, account for various employees at different pay rates, and get a centralized view of billing rates by user, role, or project. The solution also enables users to gain insights into total billings, costs, and profitability by client. It integrates with most backend billing systems, thus saving time by eliminating errors and data re-entry.

The bottom line is that Replicon can dramatically streamline time capture, compress billing cycles, and speed cash flow back into the business to ensure that resources are available for growth, future sales, or outside investment.