Service business: contract to billing
Who this is for
Owners, service managers and billing staff in IT, consulting and other service companies.
The problem
Contracts, requests, hours and invoices sit in separate spreadsheets, so fees are missed or charged twice and a loss-making project is discovered only when it is over.
A day with XBuddy
Win the customer in CRM
Lead, deal and quotation live on one customer record. — CRM
Turn the quotation into an order
The quotation becomes a sales order. — Sales
Sign the service contract
Service Management holds the contract, then service orders and tickets under it. — Service contracts
Plan and track the work
Projects holds the plan, approved hours, costs and project P&L. — Projects & Tasks
Move hours into billing
Billable work lands in one billing queue, with a reconciliation sheet for the customer. — Service Management — Timesheets & billing
Invoice and collect
Finance issues the invoice and e-invoice, and Accounting posts it to the ledger. — Finance
Apps involved
| App | Role in this scenario | Link |
|---|---|---|
| CRM | Lead, deal, quotation | CRM |
| Sales | Quotation to sales order | Sales |
| Service Management | Contracts, service orders, tickets, billing queue | Service Management |
| Projects & Tasks | Project plan, costs, P&L | Projects & Tasks |
| Time Tracking | Approved hours | Time Tracking |
| Finance | Invoice, e-invoice, collection | Finance |
| Accounting | General ledger | Accounting |
| Customer Success | Customer health and renewals | Customer Success |
AI assistants that help
support_concierge: Assists Service Management with support work.project_pm: Flags budget overruns and forecasts margin and milestone dates.lead_qualifier: Qualifies incoming leads in CRM.
Related business flows
Honest limits
- Sold overtime must be configured on the contract or service order. The overtime multiplier from HR is not used.
- Billing project hours requires the billable-time feature toggle in Finance, which is off by default.
- You cannot create a project from a quotation in the interface, and milestone invoicing is not available for projects that originate in Service Management.