Billing
The Billing module shows what your organization may charge to a customer, helps you create invoices, and records what happens after an invoice is issued. It connects project work to a clear commercial record without changing the internal cost history.
Think of Billing as the last part of a relay race. Timesheets, trips, and budget entries record what happened. Service Revenue budget settings decide what may be charged. Billing then carries the approved information into an invoice.
How The Billing Flow Works
The Billing flow moves through six connected stages, and each stage has a different job.
| Stage | COMPASS record | What it answers |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Set the rules | Project Blueprint | Must desk time, travel time, or trip expenses be assigned to a budget? |
| 2. Set the commercial defaults | Service Revenue Budget Blueprint | Should new budgets be internal only or externally invoiced, and on which basis? |
| 3. Confirm the project decision | Service Revenue Budget | Who receives the invoice, which currency is used, and are actual costs or budgeted amounts charged? |
| 4. Record the work | Timesheet, Trip, Project Expense, or Manual Adjustment | What work or cost actually happened? |
| 5. Prepare the receivable | Invoice Position, individual cost, or Budget Remainder | What is currently available to put on an invoice? |
| 6. Issue and collect | Invoice and Payment | What was billed, sent, paid, cancelled, or is still overdue? |
The same project can have several Service Revenue budgets. Each budget makes its own settlement decision. Capital Expenditure (CapEx) and Operating Expenditure (OpEx) budgets remain internal cost-control budgets and are not externally invoiced through this flow.
The Five Billing Concepts To Learn First
Five concepts explain most of the Billing module.
- Actual Cost Ledger — The internal history of value recorded against a Budget Item. A timesheet fee, a share of trip costs, a project expense, or a manual adjustment can create an entry. Think of it as the project's cost diary.
- Invoice Position — A separate, customer-facing candidate created from eligible actual-cost work. Think of it as a note saying, “This piece of work is available to invoice.”
- Open Item — A budget-level summary of what remains to be invoiced. It combines open Invoice Positions or the remaining approved budgeted amount with existing drafts and invoices.
- Billing Profile — The saved combination of invoice recipient and invoice currency. Budgets that use the same active Billing Profile can be grouped on one compatible invoice.
- Billing Decision — The choice for priced Timesheet or Trip work that has no Budget. It decides whether that work is kept internal, made ready for customer invoicing, or assigned to a Budget.
The separation matters. An internal actual cost remains in the ledger even when the related Invoice Position is marked Not billable. In the same way, cancelling an invoice can release its position without erasing the work that happened.
Actual Costs And Budgeted Amounts
Every externally invoiced Service Revenue budget uses one invoice basis.
| Invoice basis | What COMPASS offers for invoicing | Best way to think about it |
|---|---|---|
| Actual Costs | Open, billable Invoice Positions created from recorded work and cost | Charge for what was actually done or spent. |
| Budgeted Amounts | The approved budget total minus amounts already invoiced or held on drafts | Charge an agreed amount, while the person invoicing decides each invoice value. |
An Actual Costs budget can finish below or above its approved amount because the invoice follows the recorded work. A Budgeted Amounts budget uses the approved amount as its reference. COMPASS suggests the remaining amount, but the person preparing the invoice can change it.
Priced Timesheet and Trip work without a Budget follows a separate path. It first appears in Billing -> Open Items -> Billing decisions. Work marked Invoice customer becomes a ready individual item. Work marked Keep internal remains part of project tracking and does not enter an invoice.
The Billing Schedule on a Service Revenue budget supports the Finance income forecast. It does not create invoice installments and does not decide when Billing must raise an invoice.
Where You Work In Billing
The Billing module provides different views for different questions.
| Area | Use it when you need to |
|---|---|
| Dashboard | Review invoice totals and payment progress. |
| Open Items | Review billing decisions, then find budgets and individual items that are ready to invoice. |
| Invoices | Create, review, issue, send, cancel, or record payment against an invoice. |
| Billing Profiles | Manage reusable invoice recipients and currencies. |
| Custom Fields | Manage additional invoice fields used by your workspace. |
You can also see Billing information without opening the Billing module. A project's Billing tab shows work that is not yet invoiced and existing invoices. A Service Revenue budget's Unbilled tab shows the same question for one budget.
How Billing Connects To Other Modules
Billing depends on several COMPASS modules, but each connection has a clear purpose.
- Projects provides the project and Project Blueprint allocation rules.
- Budget Estimator provides Service Revenue budgets, Budget Blueprint defaults, Budget Items, and the Actual Cost Ledger.
- Timesheets records desk time and travel time. Allocated entries can feed the Actual Cost Ledger and Invoice Positions.
- Trips records service fees and actual transportation or stay costs. Project cost shares decide how trip costs are split.
- Stakeholders provides the invoice recipient used in a Billing Profile.
- Finance uses Service Revenue budgets and billing schedules for forecasts. Billing records issued invoices and payments; these are related views, not the same record.
A Safe Starting Checklist
Use this checklist before expecting work to appear in Open Items.
- Create the invoice recipient in Stakeholders.
- Create a Billing Profile with the correct recipient and invoice currency.
- Review the Actual Cost Allocation rules on the Project Blueprint.
- Set settlement defaults on the Service Revenue Budget Blueprint when your team wants reusable defaults.
- Confirm the concrete Service Revenue budget is External invoicing.
- Select Actual Costs or Budgeted Amounts as the invoice basis.
- Assign the Billing Profile before the budget becomes operational.
- Record or approve the work, then review Billing -> Open Items.
- For priced work without a Budget, make a Billing decision before adding it to an invoice.