FINANCIAL OPERATING GUIDES // RESOURCE 16
Unbilled Work Audit
Find completed work that cannot be invoiced because authorizations, time, material, documents, or approvals are missing.
The financial question
Find completed work that cannot be invoiced because authorizations, time, material, documents, or approvals are missing. Use actual company cost and completed-job evidence rather than competitor prices or unsupported industry averages.
Inputs to control
- Define each input and its source before calculating.
- Use consistent treatment for direct cost, overhead, revenue, discounts, credits, taxes, and incomplete work.
- Keep assumptions dated and review them after material, wage, insurance, or operating changes.
Key checkpoints
- Review completed jobs without final invoices or billing-ready status.
- Identify missing signatures, purchase orders, closeout documents, and customer approvals.
- Assign each exception to a named owner with a due date.
- Measure aging and recurring causes.
Operating method
- Collect the required cost and revenue records.
- Reconcile missing, duplicated, credited, warranty, and unbilled transactions.
- Calculate the result using a documented method.
- Compare estimate, target, and actual results.
- Assign corrective action to pricing, purchasing, dispatch, field execution, billing, or management as appropriate.
Management review
- Look for trends by service, technician, customer type, location, and time period.
- Investigate the cause before changing price or performance expectations.
- Have accounting, tax, legal, or financial professionals review matters within their scope.
Use boundaryThis resource is a practical operating reference. Follow company policy, customer contracts, licensing requirements, manufacturer instructions, employment requirements, codes, accounting rules, and qualified professional guidance that apply.