Progress bill allocation example

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A progress bill is a billing that is performed without billing actual time or expense entries, allowing your firm to quickly create an invoice before all of the time and expenses have been entered into the application or even before the work is performed. Because you are billing the client without billing actual time and expense entries, you create a negative amount entry.

When you relieve the progress bill, you enter a negative amount, and the amount of the original progress billing is allocated to actual time entries so that staff members receive credit for the progress billing.

Example

A client has the following time entries with a time amount of $650.00, and a progress bill entry from a prior invoice for $500.00. You want to final bill all WIP and relieve the progress bill entry with a final invoice of $200.00. When the progress bill entry is relieved, bill amounts will be distributed as follows:

Time Entry Amount Billed
5 hours at $100/hour $500.00 $538.46
((700.00/650.00) x 500.00)
2 hours at $75/hour $150.00 $161.54
((700.00/650.00) x 150.00)
Progress bill entry: ($500.00) ($500.00)
Total: $200.00

The progress bill entry receives a bill amount of ($500.00), and $700.00 ($500.00 for the original progress bill and $200.00 for the time billed amount) is distributed to the time entries. Progress bill entries will always receive negative bill amounts.

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