Billing and cash
When completed inspection work sits unbilled
Inspection work goes unbilled when the facts an invoice needs, from standby hours and equipment serials to consumables, per diem and the client PO, are recorded in the field but rebuilt by hand later. Capture them against the job as they happen, approve them, and track confirmed work that has not yet been invoiced.
Quotations, work won but not yet invoiced, and overdue cash, the way the owner sees the business.
- Cards: confirmed quotations (up on last quarter), open quotations (several past validity), work won, not invoiced (needs billing), overdue invoices (chase this week).
- Charts: quotations issued against confirmed by month, quotation ageing (this fortnight, within the month, one to two months, older) and confirmed work by service line.
Panels in the preview: Certifications, Calibration, Reports, Jobs, Sales & cash. Names and statuses are sample data.
How finished jobs fall out of the billing cycle
Inspection companies seldom lose money on the inspection itself. They lose it in the week after, when someone sits down with field sheets, a spreadsheet of hours, the client's rate schedule and an email thread about which crew stayed an extra night. The invoice is built by hand, goes out late and usually goes out missing something: standby agreed at the permit office, a PAUT unit that sat on the job longer than the log says, couplant and film drawn from the store.
Some work never reaches an invoice at all. A small call-out finished on a Friday, a variation the client approved on the phone, a final invoice waiting for a report stuck in review. Each one is small. Together they are the gap between the work your crews delivered and the revenue your accounts show, and nobody owns that gap because it lives between operations and finance.
Then there is the rejected invoice: a wrong PO number, line items that do not match the client's cost codes, labour and equipment lumped into a single figure. The client's accounts payable team sends it back, and the payment clock starts again from the beginning.
Standby in the margin
Time spent waiting for permits or scaffolding is noted informally, if at all, and rarely survives to the invoice.
Equipment by estimate
Instrument charges depend on someone remembering which units went to site and for how long.
Receipts in envelopes
Per diem, lodging and consumables bought on site arrive weeks later with no job number on them.
Bounced invoices
Clients return invoices for a wrong PO, a missing site reference or lines that do not match their cost codes.
No list of unbilled work
Nobody can produce, on demand, the jobs that are confirmed or complete but still not invoiced.
What unbilled work does to cash and margin
Revenue written off quietly
Small items that miss the first invoice are awkward to add later and are often absorbed rather than raised.
Slower cash
Late and rejected invoices push payment further out, while payroll, per diem and travel for the next job still have to be funded.
Disputes you cannot win
Without a dated, approved record of standby or overtime, the client's challenge usually succeeds by default.
Misleading margins
Jobs look more profitable than they were when costs land in overhead and the matching recharge never reaches the client.
Let the job's own records build the invoice
In Atlantis NDT ERP the commercial thread starts at the quote. Quotations records job type, site, dates and applicable codes, with standby, overtime and mobilisation as lines of their own, and an accepted quote becomes a sales order that can be set to create the project. The project then holds the client PO and contract, so the reference the client's accounts team checks is set once, at the start.
During the job, timesheet entries carry work type, method, site, equipment serial, billable flag and rate multiplier, and a supervisor approves them. Expenses captures receipts and per diem against the job, with re-billable categories flowing onto the sales order. Invoicing then shows labour, equipment and consumables as separate subtotals, with lines that can carry technician, method, serial and hours, laid out the way the client's approvers expect to read it.
On the Business overview dashboard, a confirmed-not-invoiced card shows work won but not yet billed, next to invoiced, collected, receivables and overdue, and a needs-attention tab gathers what has slipped. What the system cannot do is renegotiate your contract: if standby or per diem is not chargeable under your terms, recording it shows the cost but will not make the client pay it.
Quote every charge type
Standby, overtime, mobilisation, equipment and consumables appear as lines on the quote, so the client accepts them before work starts.
Record the PO once
The client PO and contract sit on the project and carry through to every interim and final invoice.
Approve time as you go
Supervisors approve timesheet entries daily or weekly, checking standby and multipliers against the site diary.
Push recharges to the job
Approved expenses in re-billable categories land on the sales order ready for the next invoice.
Review unbilled work weekly
Finance and operations go through the confirmed-not-invoiced and overdue figures together and clear the list.
Before and after
| Without a system | With Atlantis NDT |
|---|---|
| Invoice rebuilt from paper sheets the week after the job. | Approved timesheet lines flow into a draft invoice for review. |
| Standby noted in the margin and forgotten. | Standby logged as its own work type with date and site. |
| Equipment charges guessed from memory. | Invoice lines carry the serial of the instrument that was issued. |
| No view of won work still unbilled. | A confirmed-not-invoiced figure reviewed every week. |
The modules doing the work
Each module is part of the same platform, so a certification, an instrument, a job and a report are linked records rather than files in different places.
- Invoicing
NDT invoice header with project, PO, site and sector, and separate labour, equipment and consumables subtotals.
- Timesheets
Approved hours by work type, with billable flag, rate multiplier and equipment serial, feed billing.
- Expenses
Receipts and per diem captured against the job, with re-billable categories flowing to the sales order.
- Dashboards
Business overview cards for confirmed-not-invoiced, invoiced, collected, receivables and overdue.
Questions owners ask
How do we find inspection work that was done but never invoiced?
Compare confirmed orders with what has been invoiced. On the Business overview dashboard that comparison is a single confirmed-not-invoiced figure, and the needs-attention tab helps finance and operations work through what sits behind it.
Can we bill standby and overtime properly?
Where your contract allows it, yes. Standby is a timesheet work type of its own, and a rate multiplier on each line covers overtime, night or weekend rates as you define them.
Will invoices show the client's PO and site?
Yes. The invoice header holds the project, job or PO number, site, invoice type and industry sector, which are the references accounts payable teams check before approving.
Can it handle retention and progress billing on long jobs?
Interim and final invoices are separated by invoice type, and cost centres follow a long project. Retention and progress billing rules depend on your contracts and are configured as agreed customization.
Is there a trial?
Yes, a free trial is available, and a demo can be built around one of your typical jobs. Pricing is quote on request.
See it on your own records
Bring a sample of your certifications, equipment list or reports and we will show the workflow configured to how your company runs. Demo on request.
Speak to an ASNT NDT Level III
Discuss your inspection requirements with Atlantis NDT. Include the asset, method, location and documents you need reviewed.