Device and flagger billing logs, checked against the rate sheet before the invoice goes out.

Each shift leaves a ticket or a log: which signs, drums and arrow boards stayed out, which attenuator and message board ran, who flagged, from when to when, and who signed for it. Your billing desk sets that against what this customer agreed to pay, whether an hourly and daily rate sheet, a public bid schedule or a per-unit pay item, and works out what can go on the invoice.

In the test, AI reads copies of those tickets and schedules and drafts the billing log: device counts and days as written, flagger hours and certifications as recorded, per-unit pay items, and a list of each difference between the ticket and the agreed terms. It changes no invoice and decides no dispute. Your reviewer checks the log against the invoice you sent.

The unit belongs to the contract, and devices don't share one. A June 2016 section on maintaining traffic, published by the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission in Virginia, pays flagger service, pilot vehicles and electronic arrows by the hour, warning lights on signs by the day, and Group 2 channelizing devices by the day. Group 1 devices aren't measured at all. Group 2 devices moved to a new location are measured again, while devices slid across a lane line without leaving the road earn nothing more. Montana's 2023 rate schedule turns each device into a count of units: an arrow board carries one value per hour for setting up and taking down each shift, another per day for long term use and a third for the first installation.

A day may have a defined length. Clark County, Washington's annual traffic control and flagging bid, opened March 18, 2025, sets daily rates for trucks, attenuators, message boards, signs, barricades, cones and drums at nine hours, and prices attenuators by the week at 40 hours and by the month at 175. Supervisors, flaggers and laborers each carry regular, overtime and double time lines. Colorado's pilot traffic control provision measures a night shift that crosses midnight on the calendar day it ends. It pays traffic control management or traffic control inspection for a calendar day, never both, and pays one day of management no matter how many supervisors the work takes. The log shows which day each hour fell on and which clause it read.

Not every flagger hour is billable. That same Colorado provision counts actual flagging hours authorized under an approved method of handling traffic. It doesn't pay for time flaggers spend setting up or taking down devices or for extra flaggers covering breaks, puts haul-route flagging at the contractor's expense, and limits reimbursement to the project and 500 feet beyond, apart from locations the engineer adds and approved detours. When an automated flagger assistance device runs, the person operating it isn't paid separately in Colorado or under that Hampton Roads section. A private customer's rate sheet may say something else entirely. So the log keeps start and stop times as recorded and shows any hours the schedule appears to leave out, for your billing desk to read.

The daily record is where the proof sits. Colorado has the supervisor file a daily diary within 24 hours of the work date, listing operations in place with their setup and takedown times and approved method number, types and quantities of devices, and each flagger's name, start, stop, location and hours. Washington's Form 421-040B, revised in 2019, uses a separate sheet for each setup and records stations and times, the sign legend, whether the setup matched the approved plan, flagger and other labor hours, and when the traffic control was set up, checked and removed. Tukwila's May 2026 daily log asks for a supervisor's certificate number, shift start and end, and an hourly inspection row. The draft reads those fields where your tickets have them and lists any day with a device count and no signature, or a flagger hour with no location.

Certifications and rates travel with the person. Portsmouth, New Hampshire's 2016 flagging request wanted a staff list with each employee's certificate type, kept certificates current and on file with public works, took one hourly rate and a second after 40 hours, and let private companies working in the city buy at the municipal rate. Bellevue, Washington's October 2023 sheet has a Traffic Control Supervisor carry both a current state supervisor card and a flagger card and serve one permitted project at a time. Your reviewer will look for devices billed on days the ticket doesn't show, flagger hours that don't tie to the log, a rate taken from the wrong schedule, and a certification missing or past its date as recorded. The log describes each one and stops. The public provisions named here differ by agency and contract, and nothing on this page is legal advice.

With your reviewer's yes, the next month of tickets gets the same check for about 30 days.

A person in billing resolves every difference, approves each log before anything posts, and builds the invoice in the system your office already uses.

The comparison stays running on live work. Whatever follows is a separate decision, priced by itself, with monthly support after it goes live.