The weekly missed-billing review — a 15-minute habit

Most billing leakage in accounting firms does not happen because of bad contracts. It happens because a time entry was logged after the invoice was already sent, or because a custom field quantity was updated mid-period and nobody noticed. These things are individually small, but across 60 clients over 12 months, they add up.

A weekly 15-minute check on Missed Billing is one of the highest-return habits a Company Admin can build. Here is how to make it stick.

Quick answer

Once a week (Friday afternoon or Monday morning works well), open Missed Billing, filter to the last two weeks, review what appears, and reclaim anything worth recovering. The goal is to keep the list short — not to catch everything at year-end.

Who does this

• Only Company Owners and Company Admins can access and use the Missed Billing report.
• Billing must be enabled and at least one invoice must have been created and locked in the last period.

Why weekly, not monthly

The Missed Billing report only shows work from locked billing periods — work that was tracked after an invoice locked the period. If you check monthly, you are reviewing work that may be weeks old, and the person who logged it may not remember the context. Weekly means the entries are fresh, easier to verify, and easier to recover into the right period.

Weekly also means the list stays short. A monthly review can feel overwhelming when 20 items appear. A weekly review typically shows 0–5 items — manageable enough that each one gets proper attention.

The 15-minute routine

Step 1 — Open Missed Billing (2 minutes)

Navigate to yourcompany.uku.app/missed-billing. There is currently no sidebar entry — bookmark this URL in your browser so you can reach it in one click.

You can also bookmark a pre-filtered view in the Billing section. See How to use bookmarks for how to save filter states.

Step 2 — Set the date range (1 minute)

Set the date range to Last month or a custom range covering the last two to three weeks. You are looking for work that was logged after invoices were recently sent.

If your firm invoices on the 1st of each month, checking weekly from the 5th onward catches any stragglers quickly.

Step 3 — Review the list (5–8 minutes)

Look at each row and ask:

• Is this genuinely billable work that should be invoiced? (Check the Type and Est. value columns.)
• Was it intentionally excluded from the invoice, or was it an oversight?
• If it is genuinely extra work that the client agreed to, it should be reclaimed. If it is work that was always going to be part of the fixed fee, it may be fine to leave it.

Pay particular attention to the Extra column — items marked as extra work under the contract are the ones most likely to represent recoverable billing. See How to mark extra work.

Step 4 — Reclaim what you decide to recover (3–5 minutes)

1. Check the boxes next to items you want to recover.
2. In the Target period field, enter the current month in YYYY-MM format.
3. Click Reclaim to period.
4. Review the result dialog — it confirms what was moved and creates reclaim tasks automatically.

The reclaimed items will appear on the next invoice generated for those clients. See How to find and manage missed billing for the full detail on what happens to reclaimed items.

Building the habit — practical tips

Add it to an existing weekly ritual

The best habits attach to something you already do. If you review the previous week’s work every Monday morning, add Missed Billing to that list. If you prepare invoices on Fridays, check Missed Billing before you start. The check should feel like part of a routine, not an interruption.

Do not reclaim everything automatically

The Missed Billing report shows what was not invoiced — it does not tell you whether it should have been invoiced. Some items will appear week after week because they genuinely are not recoverable (the client is on a fixed fee that covers this work). Learn to recognize your firm’s patterns so you can focus on genuine leakage rather than spending time every week on items you always decide to ignore.

Track your recovery rate over time

Over several weeks, you will develop a sense of your firm’s typical missed-billing rate. A firm that consistently recovers €500–€1000 per month through this process has strong evidence that the habit is worth maintaining. A firm that rarely finds anything may have tight enough billing discipline that weekly checks can become monthly.

When the list is overwhelming

If you open Missed Billing for the first time and see dozens of items going back months, do not try to resolve everything at once. Start with the current month and work backward. For old items, ask whether the estimated value justifies the effort of recovery. Items older than three months are often better written off than chased — the client context is cold and the administrative overhead is not worth it.

Once you clear the backlog, the weekly cadence keeps it manageable going forward.

Related tools that reduce missed billing in the first place

• Lock time entries — lock previous periods so team members cannot edit time retroactively after invoicing.
• Manage billable and non-billable time — make sure topics and tasks are correctly marked as billable from the start.
• Track time — a refresher on consistent time tracking practice for the whole team.