Project invoices drafted from timesheets and expenses.

Timesheets lock for the period. Someone pulls each project's hours and expenses, applies the rates or the fee schedule, attaches the backup the client wants, and sends a draft to the project manager, who adjusts it before it goes out.

In the proof of concept, AI works from copies of the same inputs for a past period and drafts each project invoice. Nothing is entered in Deltek or sent to anyone. The reviewer compares each draft with the invoice the client received.

One project, several billing methods. Hourly work bills from a rate table or from each person's cost rate times a multiplier. In Deltek Vantagepoint up to three multipliers can stack, each applied to the result of the one before, and an employee missing from both the rate table and the override table bills at zero. Fixed-fee phases bill on percent complete: the fee earned to date, less what was billed before. Hourly work often carries an upset limit (a not-to-exceed cap), and some public contracts hold back retainage. A draft has to apply each phase's method, stop at the cap, and show the retainage line where the contract has one.

The client's format is part of the invoice. State DOTs are the strictest. MassDOT's consultant invoice procedures want a progress report with percent complete for each division of work, carried forward from the last invoice, and send the invoice back when the billing runs too far ahead of the work. Tennessee DOT's invoicing instructions and checklists look for labor shown by position with hours and rates, the overhead rate in effect on the invoice date, no overhead on the premium part of overtime, and a fixed fee figured from percent complete rather than from the hours. Private clients bring their own rules: a PO number on every page, a summary-only cover, or a breakdown by task. This summarizes public procedures and isn't legal advice; each client's contract and current procedures govern its invoices.

Unbilled time needs a person's call. Every period has hours charged to a closed phase, to the wrong project, or to work the client will not pay for. In Vantagepoint's Interactive Billing and Draft Invoice Approvals, those hours can be billed, held in whole or in part, written off, or transferred to another project, phase or task. In Ajera, once an invoice is approved, new billable time is marked Defer and waits for the next invoice. The draft never makes these calls. It lists each suspect entry with its reason, and the PM decides what happens to it.

What your reviewer will watch. Do labor and expense totals tie to the timesheet export? Is each phase billed by its own method, and is nothing past an upset limit? Is every receipt and subconsultant invoice the client requires attached? Does the percent complete match what the PM set, and the progress report where there is one? And when the draft was unsure, did it say so instead of guessing?

A yes from your reviewer moves the same job onto your next billing periods for about 30 days.

No invoice reaches a client until a person on your team approves it. Your reviewer goes on comparing drafts with the invoices your team would have sent, period by period.

Nothing else is added to the scope while those 30 days run.