Billing — one queue, four models

Every billing path in Service Management — however the work was sold — converges on the same Billing review queue, where a reviewer turns staged items into a draft Finance invoice with one click. Nothing is invoiced automatically; staging and generating the invoice are always two distinct, human-confirmed steps.

1. One-off service

The simplest path: a single, standalone piece of work, sold and billed once.

Sell it: Quotation → customer accepts → converts to a Service Order. Bill it: Invoice directly from the Service Order once work is delivered. Partial invoicing is supported, so you can bill a portion of the order (e.g. a deposit, or work completed so far) without waiting for the entire order to close.

2. Fixed-price project (milestones)

For larger engagements priced as a whole but delivered in phases.

Sell it: Service Order + Contract + Project, with the order broken into priced milestones. Bill it: Complete a milestone → it’s staged in Billing → generate the invoice for that phase. Each milestone bills independently as it finishes, so a long project produces a series of invoices tied to real progress rather than one invoice at the very end.

3. Time & material (T&M)

For engagements billed on actual hours worked against a contracted rate.

Sell it: a Contract set up as T&M, defining the rate card that timesheets price against. Bill it: approve billable timesheets → they’re staged → generate a consolidated invoice (hours × rate) covering the billing period. A contract amendment (see above) is how a T&M rate changes mid-engagement without losing the history of what was billed before the change.

4. Retainer / recurring

For ongoing relationships billed on a fixed cadence regardless of exact hours that period.

Sell it: a Contract set up as a retainer, with a defined billing cycle (monthly, quarterly, etc.). Bill it: each cycle, the system automatically stages one billing event in the queue — this requires enabling Recurring Retainer Billing under Settings → Service Features → Billing first. A reviewer still reviews and generates the invoice each cycle; the automation only handles staging, not sending.

At a glance