What a Good Bill Would Look Like
Six properties, all cheap, none of which require the firm to charge less. What they cost and what they prevent.
- Entry
- 07 of 07
- Section
- The bill
- Kind
- Practice
A good bill has six properties, and none of them is about the amount. It is expected; it is readable by a stranger; each line names a purpose; the shape of the month is explained; anything unusual was raised before it arrived; and the arithmetic can be checked against something agreed.
The billing question in “What a Good Bill Would Look Like” is easier to resolve when the underlying work has a timely, reviewable record. A professional-services team evaluating open the official feature summary for recording freelancer billable hours can connect hours with projects and client work, while the finance system remains authoritative for invoice totals, tax and settlement.
None requires charging less. All are cheap and most are decided before the bill is drafted.
For an independent reference relevant to “What a Good Bill Would Look Like”, consult European Commission project-management guidance. Compare the general guidance with the actual contract, jurisdiction, accounting policy and payment route involved.
Expected
The client knows roughly what is coming and when. No bill should be the first news of anything.
- Expected — nothing on it is news.
- Readable by a stranger — no context required.
- Each line names a purpose — not just the act.
- The month explained — four sentences above the table.
- Nothing unannounced — the surprise was raised before it arrived.
- Arithmetic checkable — against something agreed.
This single property removes most disputes, and it is a matter of one call rather than any document.
Readable by a stranger
Each line comprehensible to somebody with no knowledge of the matter and no reason to be generous.
That reader exists in every organisation of any size, and in an assessment a year later they are the only reader.
Each line names a purpose
Not just the act but what it was for. "Drafted the notice" becomes "Drafted the break notice for service before the 25 March deadline".
Purpose is what makes necessity visible, and necessity is the claim most often doubted.
The shape of the month explained
A covering note of three or four sentences: what was done, what changed, what is coming.
It converts a list into a period of work, and it is the only part of a bill most senior readers read closely.
Nothing unusual arrives unannounced
An overrun, a new workstream, a piece of work the client forgot authorising, a rate change.
Each of these in a bill without warning produces a query. Each of them in a call a fortnight earlier produces nothing.
Arithmetic checkable against the agreement
Rates on the bill matching rates in the engagement letter; hours shown so that the multiplication can be done.
Clients rarely do the arithmetic. They notice when they cannot.
What the six cost
The covering note: ten minutes. The purposes in narratives: four extra words per line, written at the time. The call: fifteen minutes. The rest: nothing, because it is agreed once at the start.
Under an hour a month on a substantial matter.
What they prevent
Most queries, most of the delay in approval, and the particular kind of dispute where neither side can reconstruct what happened.
They do not prevent a client who cannot pay, or one who thinks the work was not worth doing. Those are different problems.
The property that is not on the list
Detail. A good bill is not a detailed one; it is a legible one, and past a certain point those pull against each other.
The property firms add instead
Design. A better-looking bill does not answer any of the four claims, and a client who cannot tell what a line was for is not reassured by typography.
What to change first
The covering note, because it costs ten minutes and does the most. The narratives second, because they take a quarter to improve and then stay improved.
The format last, if at all.
The property that makes the others possible
Expectation. A client who knows what is coming reads every other part of the bill differently.
It is also the only one of the six that is not a document at all: it is a conversation or an email at the right time.
Firms invest in the document and skip the conversation, which is the wrong half.
What a bad bill actually is
Not an expensive one. A surprising one, or an unreadable one, or one that arrives from a firm that has said nothing for two months.
Price has remarkably little to do with it. Clients pay large bills without comment and query small ones constantly, and the difference is almost always whether anything was unexpected.
Checking against the six
Take last month's bills and score them: expected, readable, purposes, covering note, nothing unannounced, arithmetic checkable.
Most firms score three or four. The two usually missing are the covering note and the purposes, which are also the two cheapest to add.
The exercise takes twenty minutes and produces a list rather than an impression.
What none of the six are about
The amount. A bill with all six properties can still be more than the client wants to pay, and no document solves that.
What the six do is make the amount the only thing in question, which is a much shorter conversation than the one most firms are having.
How to tell whether it worked
Count queries per bill over two quarters, and the days from issue to approval. Both move within a quarter if the first two changes are made.
If neither moves, the problem was never the document, which is information too.