How to review captured time before it reaches an invoice.

The method

1. Write the billing rules before switching capture on.

   Per client: what counts as billable, how time is rounded, any minimums, what a retainer already covers, and who may approve. If a rule cannot be written down, capture cannot apply it and a person will have to.

2. Keep capture and approval separate.

   A captured entry is a suggestion. Nothing reaches an invoice without a named person approving it. Check that the tool shows the approval step and that no setting, integration or bulk action can skip it.

3. Read the reasoning, not only the total.

   A useful suggestion carries where it came from (a calendar item, a call, a document), how confident the system is, and why it chose that client and task. If an entry cannot explain itself, treat it as a blank line to fill in rather than a fact to confirm.

4. Correct in place and keep the original.

   When an approver edits an entry, the original suggestion and the correction should both survive, with the approver and the time. That record is what a client dispute is settled with.

5. Sample against the source every week.

   Take a handful of approved entries and check them against the calendar and call records they claim to come from. Missed time and invented time both show up here, and the rate of each is the number to watch.

6. Reconcile the invoice to the approvals.

   Every invoice line should trace to approved entries and nothing else. Anything on the invoice that cannot be traced is either a manual addition that needs its own approval or an error.

The checklist

What to have in place, or to have asked for, before you decide. Each line is something you can point at.

• Billing rules written per client, including rounding, minimums and retainer coverage.
• A named approver for every client, and a second person who can stand in.
• Suggested entries show their source, their confidence and their reasoning on the entry itself.
• Approval cannot be bypassed by a setting, an integration or a bulk action.
• Edits keep the original suggestion and record who changed it and when.
• Rejected suggestions are kept with a reason rather than deleted.
• The invoice preview shows approved entries only.
• A weekly sample check against calendar and call records, with the miss rate written down.
• Retention for time records and approvals agreed with finance and, where relevant, with the client contract.
• Who can see whose time is written down and enforced by the tool rather than by trust.

Questions to ask

Ask these of any vendor, including us, and of any internal team proposing the work. A vague answer to any of them is an answer.

1. Where does each suggested entry come from, and can the approver see that source on the entry itself?
2. What happens to an entry nobody approves? Does it expire, escalate, or sit silently?
3. Can an approved entry be changed after it has been invoiced, and if so, does the record show the change?
4. Who can see whose time, and how is that enforced?
5. What exactly is sent to invoicing, in what form, and at what moment?
6. If capture is wrong for a week, how would we find out, and what would we have to do?
7. What does the system record about its own suggestions: the confidence, the reasoning, and whether a person changed them?
8. Can we export the approvals record without your help?

Related products, and where each one stands

• Simple Time The Microsoft 365 timesheet that closes the billable-hours leak. Trial access
• Simple Projects Project delivery that starts at the signed scope of work. Available on request

Related guides

• CRM handoffs on Microsoft 365 The three handoffs where work stalls, the four things to write down for each one, and where a person approves before a commitment is made.
• Choosing the first AI workflow to automate Score a first workflow, define its approval step and set a stop condition before the first run.

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